Remembering Launceston's R Miller & Co soap and candle factory

One of the worst affected sectors was soap and candle manufacture.

Immediately prior to federation we had seven local makers in the colony.

Many went bust, and it wasn't always a result of free and fair trade.

In one case, a mainland firm made a deliberate decision to destroy Tasmanian producers by selling product at a price below the manufacturing cost.

They reckoned, however, without Launceston's own R Miller & Co.

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Richard Miller arrived in Launceston in the 1870s, after migrating from Lancashire to Victoria in 1862 and working for a large soapmaker in Melbourne.

He began here at Henry Kenyon's Launceston Soap & Candle factory in Brisbane St.

In 1878, when Kenyon indicated he would be selling up, Miller set up the New Soap & Candle factory in Margaret Street, in Mr Button's former tannery.

He advertised "all kinds of yellow soap, blue mottle, borax soap for wool washing and purified candles".

He did well, expanding the business into soda production and taking over competitors in Launceston, Spreyton and Hobart, and having four factories by 1883.

In 1886 he bought the Margaret Street site and built a new factory on it.

Richard Miller died in 1890, but his sons George and John carried on and proved to be chips off the old block.

George ran the Launceston operation, while John moved down to Hobart.

It was they, after federation, who saved local manufacturing with a clever bit of business.

When they became aware that mainland manufacturers were dumping product here below cost, they contracted with a big Melbourne maker for a very large order, delivered to Hobart.

Suspecting nothing and intent on doing their evil deeds, the mainland company duly delivered the product to the Hobart wharf.

The Millers then put it straight back on the ship and returned it to Melbourne, where they sold it at the same price they'd paid, which was of course under the manufacturing cost.

The Melbourne firm was horrified.

Finding that they were suddenly undercut in their own market by their own product, they quickly came to terms with the Millers, agreeing there would be no more dumping in Tasmania.

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Thus it was that R Miller & Co survived, and in doing so they saved the local industry, including the Tasmanian Soap and Candle Company, which they'd just taken over.

At the 1920 Hobart Show they had a large R Miller & Co exhibit with locally made Tasma and Marvel brand soaps, including sandsoap.

The company's independent story ended in 1924, when they sold out to Kitchen & Sons, who took on John Miller's son as their state manager.

It later became Lever and Kitchen, which is a familiar name to us all today.

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