Abel Hoadley (10 September 1844 – 12 May 1918) was a manufacturer of jams and sauces, remembered today as the inventor of the popular
Australian confectionery bar the
Violet Crumble.
History
Hoadley was born in
Willingdon,
East Sussex, England, the son of Peter Hoadley, blacksmith, and Elizabeth Ann Hoadley, née Wheeler. Hoadley arrived in
Australia in 1865. His first business was manufacturing and selling
jam
Jam is a type of fruit preserve.
Jam or Jammed may also refer to:
Other common meanings
* A firearm malfunction
* Block signals
** Radio jamming
** Radar jamming and deception
** Mobile phone jammer
** Echolocation jamming
Arts and ente ...
s and
pickles, with produce fresh from his own orchard in
Burwood East
Burwood East is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located 17 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Whitehorse local government area. Burwood East recorded a population of 10,675 at the 2021 ...
.
In 1889, Hoadley opened a jam factory in
South Melbourne, Victoria, trading as A. Hoadley & Company.
In 1892 he made a trial shipment of preserved fruit to England, with encouraging results.
By 1894 he was selling "Rising Sun" brand jams in tins; in 1895 the "Rising Sun" brand was applied to a range of jams, sauces and confectionery.
Business was good, and in 1895 a new five storey factory was opened at 222 Park Street,
South Melbourne
South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at ...
, where the jams and preserves were manufactured and canned on the upper floors.
In 1910 the business, apart from confectionery, was sold to
Henry Jones Co-operative Limited.
[
]
Confectionery
Although Hoadley had much earlier advertised his company as "confectioners", this aspect of production was not prominently advertised, and may have only served to keep the business running between the various fruit seasons. They began advertising milk chocolate in 1909 and toffees in 1912.
In 1913 a new company, Hoadley's Chocolates Limited was formed with a capital of £75,000.
Confectionery was from around 1913 manufactured at "Barrackville", on St Kilda Road, South Melbourne, at the Coventry Street corner. The factory was totally destroyed by fire in January 1919. The company took out a lease on a nearby block of land bounded by Coventry, Hanna and Dorcas Streets and turned the old site into a public park.
The new factory was also given the name "Barrackville", and "Hoadley's Barrackville Cocoa and Chocolate" became a trade name, perhaps echoing Cadbury's Bournville Cocoa.
Hoadley's "Violet" chocolates first appeared as a brand name in 1917, and their "Violet mixture" in 1921. This would appear to be their "premium" line, as they sold for nearly 50% more than their "Barrackville" mixture.[
]
The Violet Crumble Bar
When he produced his first chocolate assortment, Hoadley packed it with a piece of honeycomb
A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal prismatic wax cells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.
Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey. Honey bees consume about of honey ...
. The honeycomb became so popular that Hoadley decided to produce an individual honeycomb bar. This was not an easy task; as the pieces of honeycomb cooled, they absorbed moisture and started sticking together. Eventually, this hygroscopic
Hygroscopy is the phenomenon of attracting and holding water molecules via either absorption or adsorption from the surrounding environment, which is usually at normal or room temperature. If water molecules become suspended among the substan ...
nature of honeycomb led Hoadley to dip the honeycomb bars in chocolate, keeping the honeycomb dry and crunchy. Thus, in 1913, the Violet Crumble bar was created.
Hoadley wanted to call his new bar just Crumble, but learned that it was an unprotectable name. He thought of his wife (Susannah Ann ''née'' Barrett) and her favourite flower, the violet
Violet may refer to:
Common meanings
* Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue
* One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly:
** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
Places United States
* Viol ...
, and registered the name Violet Crumble, using a purple wrapper with a small flower logo. The confectionery bar was an instant success at the time and has remained popular into the twenty-first century.
The original orchard site in the Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
suburb of Burwood East
Burwood East is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located 17 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Whitehorse local government area. Burwood East recorded a population of 10,675 at the 2021 ...
was sold at less than market price to the Methodist Church Central Mission for the establishment of a Boys' Training Farm, which later became the Tally Ho Boys' Home. The site now houses residential development, Crossway Baptist Church, the National Archives of Australia and the Tally Ho Business Park.
Hoadley and Susannah had fourteen children. He died at the age of 73 in his home, "Bella Vista", in the Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
suburb of Kew, Victoria
Kew (;) is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 5 km east from Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Boroondara local government area. Kew recorded a population of 24,499 at the 2021 census.
A city ...
. The Hoadley company was acquired by Rowntree's
Rowntree's is a British confectionery brand and former business based in York, England. Rowntree developed the Kit Kat (introduced in 1935), Aero (introduced in 1935), Fruit Pastilles (introduced in 1881), Smarties (introduced in 1937) brands ...
in 1970 and then by Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since ...
in 1988.
Hoadley's in popular culture
* The Australian company MYOB Limited has its global headquarters in the Tally Ho Business Park, once part of the Hoadley estate. MYOB's corporate logo and corporate colour scheme is purple and gold, which is also famous as the colour scheme of the Violet Crumble.
* Hoadley's name is remembered in the name of the successful Australian rock band competition, Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds
Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds was an annual national rock/pop band competition held in Australia from 1966 to 1972. The winners of the national finals were the Twilights (1966), the Groop (1967), the Groove (1968), Doug Parkinson in Focus (m ...
, which ran from 1966 to 1972 and was sponsored by the company. The competition was used to heavily promote the Violet Crumble bar.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoadley, Abel
1844 births
1918 deaths
People from Willingdon
Confectioners
Australian jam and preserved fruit makers
19th-century Australian businesspeople
English emigrants to colonial Australia
Businesspeople from Melbourne
19th-century Australian inventors