Another Queesland pineapple story

Story and photos from Wynnum Manly Lota Gumdale old photos, Hendrik Gout on facebook

There are some who say that the best way to enjoy pineapple is to add its juice to two ounces of dark rum. Fortunately Wynnum-Manly produced both. We had pineapple farms and sugarcane plantations along Manly Rd, the pineapples often going to Hargreaves cannery and the cane to William Gibson's sugar mill on, yes, Gibson Island as early as 1869.

Hargraves also sourced pineapples from Redlands, Nudgee and even Glasshouse Mountains until Golden Circle naughtily opened its rival cannery at Northgate in 1947.

The Queenslander reported in 1922 all the pineapple canning machinery at Hargreaves was invented and built by Charles Hargreave himself. He exported to England and, said the Queenslander, “the company anticipates packing, for the overseas market, 25,000 cases of pines during the present season."

*And the dark rum? That was distilled from a sugar mill byproduct, molasses, in an illicit still aboard the river steamboat Walrus - the same still later used to make Beenleigh Rum.

Manly Road in the 1930s. Pineapples, strawberries, bananas and market gardens.

                      Pineapple farm and factory owned by John Hargreaves. Manly 1925.

                                          Arrows Pineapple plantation Nudgee 1897.

Hargreaves also sourced pineapples from Arrows.

Pineapple farm Redlands 1934

Soldiers’ settlement 1918

If you worked at Hargreaves you got a free courtesy bus to and from home from the cannery, the bus being an open flatbed truck with seats screwed to the deck. 

Hargreaves was a huge employer. Hundreds of local jobs.

Women working on the production line, Hargreaves pineapple factory 1951.