Along Drummoyne’s main thoroughfares there are signs attached to some of the street furniture. They are not advertising, as one might expect, but an apparent jumble of words suggesting what some of our senior citizens remember about the Drummoyne they knew as children. The word association triggers a compilation of images that reminds us of a time when cows crossing Lyon’s Road or wending their way to milking sheds in Renwick Street were everyday events.
Such scenes would have been a part of everyday life throughout Canada Bay and elsewhere in Sydney in the 1920s and 30s. At that time, there were hundreds of small farms and dairies throughout the metropolitan area. Briefing notes prepared for the New South Wales Parliament show that in 1923 there were 427 dairies in Metropolitan Sydney with an average size of 1.2 hectares, supplying about a third of Sydney’s milk requirements. Many of these were family-run businesses with less than ten cows, although some had surprisingly large herds, considering their location. At Waterloo, for instance, there was a herd of 250 cows, at Zetland one of 140; while places such as North Sydney and Concord had individual herds of up to 125 cows. The average across Sydney was 40 cows per dairy. Most suburbs had multiple dairies. [1]
Before 1880 the milk industry was largely unregulated. This changed as reported cases of contaminated or adulterated milk forced authorities to introduce legislation to protect public health. This brought licenses, inspections, fines and specific requirements, including those for pasteurisation and maintaining an acceptable level of hygiene. Public concern was heightened by the spread of diseases such as typhoid, widely attributed to drinking contaminated milk.
In 1886 the NSW Government passed the Dairies Supervision Act, which gave local councils the power to supervise the production and distribution of milk. Councils would now issue licenses to milk producers as well as milk carters. The Daily Telegraph reported (4 March 1887 p6) that Concord Council had responded to allegations of contaminated milk being sold at Hillcrest Dairy. Water from a well on the property was analysed and found to contain typhoid. Since then, a number of customers in Burwood had come down with the disease. The owner, Mr Mealy, refused to fill in the well, but agreed to stop selling milk. The Council decided to fill the well at its own expense.
The unlicensed selling and distribution of milk became an ongoing source of contention. The Suburban Dairymen’s Protective Association was formed in 1887 to protect its members against unlicensed vendors or carters. Presumably, it also sought to uphold standards set by new legislation and public expectations. The responsibility to enforce these requirements devolved to local councils that were charged with policing, in many instances, minor infringements that, despite their illegality, were too numerous to deal with effectively or with any efficient use of time and resources. A good example of this was the matter of John Cox of Phillip Street, Cabarita who had 6 or 7 unregistered cows. He was charged with selling milk without a license, distributing it from a kerosene tin and not having “the usual apparatus” for milking. He was reported by Charles Massey, Council Health Inspector, in March 1922 and fined ₤5 with a further ₤13 in costs.
The incident reflects one of the key issues facing suburban dairies. To continue in business, they needed to invest in milking machines and other related equipment. They needed cold rooms supplied with electricity and the means to maintain a high level of hygiene. Without capital it was no longer possible to maintain or develop a viable business with such small herds and limited space for them to graze.
As the population of Sydney grew in the early 1920s, the city expanded its limits, markedly increasing the demand for dairy products while reducing the amount of land available for grazing. There was also a significant increase in the export market for cheese and other dairy products in Britain, spurred on by the Imperial Preference Scheme, which favoured trade within the Empire. High prices for milk, particularly in the metropolitan area, brought further competition from North Coast farmers, who could now successfully compete in the Sydney market as a result of improvements in refrigerated rail transport and the development of local cheese and butter factories.
Many returning soldiers from the First World War took up the chance to become farmers in the hope of creating a better future for themselves and their families. The ill-fated Soldier Settler scheme, however, offered allotments of land that were generally too small, unsuitable for cropping or heavily timbered. One of the few options available to the soldier settlers was dairy farming, which did not require as much initial capital and could provide a more immediate, albeit meagre return.
When the post-war surge in world trade subsided in the mid-twenties, prices for agricultural products on the world market collapsed. Many small dairy farmers tried to hang on with a subsistence level of return for their labour and limited capital. Others sold up or were forced out of their family-run farms, that were then consolidated into larger holdings run by managers on behalf of a company. Housing estates now spread across what had once been open fields and the number of dairies in Canada Bay dwindled until there were none. Individual small landholders were unable to compete against dairy co-operatives on the North and South Coast (NORCO and Bega). Not only were they able to produce more efficiently through economies of scale, but they wielded considerable political influence and were able to gain subsidies and concessions not available to suburban dairymen.
In the 1930s a variety of subsidies, quotas and fixed price schemes were introduced in an attempt to revive Sydney’s smallholder dairies. Premier Jack Lang introduced metropolitan milk zones, which placed a quota on the number of producers and the output for each zone. The scheme ultimately failed to redress the imbalance between prices paid to farmers and that charged by the factory, wholesaler and retail outlet. Over time the quotas became negotiable. They were bought and sold on an open market, making attempts at price equalisation between city and regional zones futile.
A bigger challenge was the introduction of margarine, marketed as a modern healthy alternative to butter. This reduced the demand for butter and, ultimately, the return to farmers. The loss of the UK market when Britain joined the European Economic Community (or Common Market) in 1973 was a devastating blow to Australian agriculture and hastened the withdrawal of many marginal producers, particularly in the dairy industry.
The last working cowshed has all but disappeared in Sydney. Children now visit tourist themed farms or the Royal Easter Show to see cows being milked.
Andrew West
[1] Briefing Paper No. 23/99 John Wilkinson, “Dairy Industry in New South Wales” (New South Wales Parliament Library Service, 1999) p3 citing Stephen Codrington, Gold from Gold: The History of Dairying in the Bega Valley (Mercury Research Press, Sydney, 1979), p.25
(NOTE: The sign referred to, and shown in the attached photo, is at the corner of Lyons Road and Bridge Street [Victoria Road])
