Brunton's 'Victory' Roller Flour

Melbourne: [ca.1930].
Print

BRUNTON, T. Brunton & Co. Brunton’s “Victory” Roller Flour. Federal Bakery, Kuala Lumpur. [Melbourne, circa 1930.] Commercial Printer's Proof (520x325mm) three colour illustrated print, mounted on card,

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BRUNTON, T. Brunton & Co.

Brunton’s “Victory” Roller Flour. Federal Bakery, Kuala Lumpur.

[Melbourne : [publisher and printer unknown], circa 1930.]

Commercial printing proof for a 49 lb calico flour bag. Screen-printed in three colours (yellow, blue and red) on thin kraft paper, 520 × 325 mm. Mounted on original card backing. Initialled, presumably as approval of the design.

¶ A  commercial printing proof prepared for the export trade in Australian flour. The central design depicts Britannia wearing a classical Greek helmet, enclosed within a circle and backed by the British flag. A wreath of wheat frames the composition. The lettering identifies Brunton’s “Victory” Roller Flour, Melbourne, Australia, and the Federal Bakery, Kuala Lumpur. The additional imprint reads “V.C & Co. Port Swettenham”.

Thomas Brunton (1831–1908) was an early adopter of roller milling in Victoria, introducing the technology at his Melbourne mill in 1884. Unlike traditional millstones, roller mills used successive pairs of metal rollers to break down wheat and separate the flour from the bran. The process enabled the consistent production of fine, white flour for commercial baking. Australian flour was an established export to Singapore and Malaya during the interwar period.

The proof records the overseas marketing of Brunton’s flour through a Kuala Lumpur bakery. Its combination of Australian product identification, British imperial imagery and a wheat emblem reflects the commercial associations used to promote Australian flour in regional export markets. The imagery belongs to the wider interwar culture of imperial commerce, in which British identity and the economic ties of the Empire were used to promote trade between its constituent territories.

The survival of the proof is noteworthy given the ephemeral nature of commercial printing proofs, which were working documents generally intended for use in production and to be discarded once printing commenced rather than long-term preservation.

Apparently unrecorded. 

Item #11803

Price: $450.00 AUD