Craig and Seeley

Craig and Seeley Limited
TypePublic company
IndustryHousehold appliance manufacturing
Founded1952 (1952) in Adelaide
FounderHoward Seeley AM
DefunctNovember 2001 (2001-11)
FateSubsidiary
Successors
Headquarters
Melbourne, Victoria
,
Australia
Area served
Australia
Key peopleHoward Seeley
ProductsGas and electric cooktops
BrandsChef

Craig and Seeley Limited is a former Australian home appliance manufacturer, that was based in Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia. Established in the 1950s, the company flourished during the post-war years when the popular Chef brand appliances became a household name. The company operated as a subsidiary of Vulcan Industries in the early 1970s, and then Email Limited, before it collapsed in November 2001. The appliance brands of Email were acquired by the Swedish-multinational Electrolux group, including the Chef brand.

The Craig and Seeley offices and showroom were located at 35 Hope Street, Brunswick, an inner northern suburb of Melbourne. Completed in 1962, the building was added to the Victorian Heritage Register on 17 April 2003 in recognition of its architectural, aesthetic and historical significance.

Company history

In 1952, Howard Seeley AM (1930–2017) formed Craig and Seeley as a partnership in Adelaide, and the business was incorporated as a public company the following year. The main business was the manufacture of pre-cast fire-place surrounds and the installation of heating appliances. From 1956 the company represented E.S. & F. Ferrier in South Australia which manufactured Chef cookers at its Lux Foundry in Hope Street, Brunswick. Craig and Seeley expanded its operations and became the South Australian distributors for other appliance manufacturers including Chrysler Airtemp air conditioning units and Pyrox Limited.

Since 1958, the company’s policy had been to design appliances (mostly evaporative coolers and slow combustion heaters) and have them made by outside manufacturers under contract. In May 1962, the Lux Foundry, which had been making cookers for E.S. & F. Ferrier became available and Craig and Seeley acquired its assets, trademarks and goodwill, and started manufacturing and marketing Chef gas cookers, Lux slow combustion cookers, and its own Crestair slow combustion space heater.

Chef cooker sales increased swiftly and the Craig and Seeley company expanded rapidly. The Chef brand became a household name and the company manufactured a range of other products including Gasglo space heaters and central heaters, laundry driers, gas lamps and, at one point, the company was the largest barbecue manufacturer in Australia. At its peak, the Brunswick factory was producing approximately 2,000 Chef cookers per day.

Taken over by Vulcan Industries in 1972, then Email, its appliance brands were acquired by Electrolux. Liquidators voluntarily wound-up various corporate entities in 1985, and the holding company, no longer trading, was deregistered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in 2018.

Heritage-listed building

Craig and Seeley Offices and Showroom
Craig and Seeley is located in Melbourne
Craig and Seeley
Location within Melbourne
General information
StatusCompleted
Type
Architectural style
Modernist
Location35 Hope Street, Brunswick, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Coordinates37°45′50″S 144°57′33″E / 37.763848°S 144.959065°E / -37.763848; 144.959065
Completed
1962; 64 years ago (1962)
Inaugurated4 July 1963 (1963-07-04)
CostA£80,000
Technical details
Material
  • Steel
  • enamelled metal tiles
  • glass
Floor area1,041 m2 (11,200 sq ft)
Design and construction
ArchitectTheodore Berman
Official name
Craig & Seeley Offices and Showroom
TypeRegistered place
Designated17 April 2003
Reference no.H2026
HO244
Category
Manufacturing and Processing

History

The gas industry first occupied the site in Hope Street, Brunswick, from 1891 when the Brunswick Gas and Coke Company established a gasworks. From 1906 to the late 1950s it was occupied by the Lux Foundry, operated by Sir Robert Gibson, located at 21 Hope Street, which used the surviving gas retort house as its principal building for the manufacture of cast iron stoves. Craig and Seeley began manufacturing their Chef brand cookers on the 21 Hope Street site in the early 1960s.

On an adjacent site, at 35 Hope Street, Craig and Seeley built their new headquarters and showroom. Designed in 1962 by Melbourne architect Theodore Berman, the building projected a Modernist image for a newly-established company on a site long associated with the gas industry and stove manufacturing. On 4 July 1963, Henry Bolte, the Premier of Victoria, officially opened the company's A£80,000 administrative headquarters which covered 1,041 square metres (11,200 sq ft) adjoining the foundry and factory.

Description

The offices feature the company's own factory-made porcelain enamel panels on the Hope and Percy Street facades in a striking display of diamond-pointed rustication. Green panels resembling shallow pyramidal forms stud the wall surface in a pattern that wraps around the corner of the building. A large signboard of red enamel panels is incorporated into the architecture replicating the company's logo, a white Chef running with a steaming dish. The volumetric background of green, the complementary colour of red, highlights the sign to eye-catching advantage, projecting the brand image towards the spectator.

As the former headquarters of Australia's largest cooking appliance manufacturer, the building is associated with the great surge of manufacturing in the post war years and the redevelopment and immigration programmes that sustained this activity. The offices are of historical interest for their association with the gas industry. The site has a long history of association with the industry, first as a gasworks where gas was manufactured, then as a foundry where cast iron stoves were made and more recently as a modern plant for manufacturing gas appliances. The modern offices stand in juxtaposition with the surviving nineteenth century retort house, the two buildings providing a narrative of our changing use of gas and its associated technologies.

The site was subsequently leased as commercial office space.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "About Chef Appliances". Electrolux. 2026. Retrieved 17 July 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Craig & Seeley Offices and Showroom, Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) Number H2026, Heritage Overlay HO244". Victorian Heritage Database. Heritage Victoria. Retrieved 17 July 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Harold Adolphe Seeley AM FHIA FAIM: The passing of a gas icon" (PDF). News flash. Australian Gas Association. 31 May 2017. pp. 23–24. Retrieved 17 July 2026.
  4. ↑ Murrill, Maureen (13 March 1989). "Worker-control Boiling Over at Modern Maid". Financial Review. Retrieved 17 July 2026.
  5. ↑ Synnott, John; Frenkel, Jason (2008). "50 years of LPG Australia" (PDF). History of LPG Australia. Australian Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association. pp. 23–24. Retrieved 17 July 2026.
  6. ↑ "Vulcan to make premium issue". The Canberra Times. Vol. 46, no. 13, 123. 13 May 1972. p. 17. Retrieved 21 July 2026 – via Trove. National Library of Australia.
  7. ↑ "Companies (Victoria) Code MEMBERS' VOLUNTARY WINDING UP CRAIG & SEELEY PROPERTIES PTY LTD (IN LIQUIDATION)". Government Gazette. General. No. G13. Australian Government. 2 April 1985. p. 1351. Retrieved 21 July 2026 – via Trove. National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ "Notice of Proposed Deregistration: Craig & Seeley Ltd (ACN 000 406 842)". ASIC. 27 February 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2026.
  9. ↑ "Former Brunswick Gas & Coke Company Retort House, Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) Number H2027, Heritage Overlay HO94". Victorian Heritage Database. Heritage Victoria. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
  10. ↑ Castle, Emma (18 March 2015). "Hot venue: Lux Foundry". Spice News. Retrieved 17 July 2026.
  11. ↑ Storey, Rohan (8 January 2019). "Chef factory 1963, fun modern from Theodore Berman". Storey of Melbourne. Retrieved 17 July 2026.