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Business
There were a range of other industries
in the
Ipswich area besides the biggest employers the Railway Workshops
and the coal mines. In fact Ipswich was largely self sufficient prior to
WWII. Major works included sawmills, foundries, brickworks,
potteries, printeries, engineering and boiler making works, plywood
and bondwood factories and abattoirs. There were coke ovens at
Tivoli/North Ipswich. Agriculture included cotton, barley, sorghum,
wheat, maize, lucerne, potatoes, soybeans and onions.
Woollen mills
were a feature of early Ipswich industry with the
Queensland Woollen Mill opening its doors on The Terrace at
North Ipswich in 1877. The Ipswich Woollen Company was started
by John Morris in 1911 with the opening of a mill at Tivoli. Then in
1930 following a trip to England to purchase new equipment, John
Morris set up the Morris Woollen Mill at Redbank. Setting a
business up at the height of the Great Depression would have been
a great challenge. Beginning with only five employees, the mill grew
during WWII producing cloth 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
After the war, the mill continued to employ up to 1000 people and
won awards for the quality of its fabric. The emergence of
globalised markets meant that the mill could not continue to
compete and was eventually closed in 1983.
There were also a whole
range of businesses
that supported the
growing region and Ipswich was the place that people travelled to
for these services. Ipswich iconic department store Cribb and
Foote graced Brisbane and Bell Streets. Rawlings began trading in
1898 and is still in the same site as it was when William Rawlings
opened the doors well over 100 years ago. Other stores in the CBD
during the first part of the twentieth century included Bayards
18 Ipswich 150: 1860 – 2010
Proud Past - Exciting Future
Cribb and Foote, corner of Brisbane and Bell streets 1959