Pope Products grows in South Australia from its World War II munitions work to be a national 1950s appliances giant
The Pope Products float in the Austrralian commonwealth jubilee celebrations parade in Adelaide in 1951 proclaiming the firm as "the largest organisation of its kind in the southern hemisphere".
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
South Australia's Pope Products, notably washing machines and refrigerators that became known throughout Australia, grew out of a father-and-son operation making irrigation components at their Adelaide suburban home in Robert Street, West Croydon, in the late 1920s.
The assets of Pope Sprinklers were taken over by the two Pope brothers, Barton and Clifford, who set up Pope Products in a factory at Beverley, another western Adelaide suburb, in 1935.
From 1939, an increasing output from the factory was directed towards the World War II effort of producing chiefly stamped and cast parts for the Australian commonwealth munitions factory and aircraft production in Victoria. This allowed for major expansion after the war when the company bought premises in Finsbury.
Pope Products had a poor employee relations record in the early days when it used juniors aged 14 to 16 as machine operators and menial labour to avoid paying award wages (earning its local nickname “The boy farm”). Accidents were common.
With growing union militancy and the communist threat in the late 1940s, Pope Products became a model employer. It introduced a generous incentive scheme in 1953 and bonuses to workers exceeded dividends to shareholders. It set up an employees’ recreation hall and sponsored sporting activities for its workers and staff.
Pope Products grew to include lawn and garden sprinklers, agricultural sprinklers, Ned Kelly repeating cap gun; woodworking tools: planes, chisels; rotary lawn mowers (endorsed by tennis champion Lew Hoad); hand and powered tumbler mowers; wringer washing machines, refrigerators, PopeAire air conditioners, Pope-Motorola television sets and hi-fi stereo cabinets, (endorsed by radio quiz host Jack Davey) and electric motors.
