Miller Family's Bakery

The Miller Bakehouse Museum's history - home of the Melville History Society

Henry Miller came to W.A. from Melbourne around 1900. He was a master baker, trained in bread, pastry and cake making. He also baked and iced wedding cakes. All ingredients were natural. No machines helped the process. With the Western Australian gold rush, boxing was booming as entertainment. Henry Miller concentrated on professional boxing and won feather weight title of W.A. in 1901.

A year later, he and his wife Margaret had their first child. In 1908 he took a contract to bake for a widow in her late husband's bakery on Wray Avenue, Fremantle. He supplied 70 loaves for her shop at the front and also started to develop his own delivery service.

In 1914 Henry bought a house on Hubble Street, East Fremantle. It had a bakery at the rear called 'Sunlight'. Both buildings still stand today.

By 1929 their family of 13 surviving children was complete and a new home built in Palmyra.

The Miller Bakery had bread rounds in Palmyra/Bicton, East Fremantle and into North Fremantle, all done with horse-drawn vans. Other bakers were, of course, also trading in the same areas. Being the bakery "farthest East", Miller was naturally better placed to pick up new customers as residential expansion towards the Canning River continued.

The Second World War saw the introduction of Manpower Planning. One of the measures introduced was to designate districts to each bakery (bread zoning), thus utilising delivery services more efficiently. After the war, the old system did not return and larger bakeries upgraded their facilities and took over smaller ones to expand their business. The Miller Bakery installed a Cleveland Moulder to speed up the process of filling the baking tins, after the dough had been mixed, in an attempt to increase their production. Unfortunately the machine was not really suitable for the size of their operation and was hardly used.

In 1951 sliced and wrapped breads were introduced to Western Australia but Miller's continued to produce the old style bread. 

Henry Miller died suddenly in the bakehouse in 1969 aged 91.

By 1970, without a major upgrade of production methods, baking on the premises became unviable. Miller's carried on their business for a few more years, buying in bread, and delivering it around the district.

Eventually the business closed in 1976. The Miller boys had reached retirement. The bakehouse was left intact. After Mrs Miller's demise, the property was sold to the Melville City for a park. The Melville History Society saved the building from demolition. Melville City restored the building to Heritage status as a bi-centennial project.


It looks like not everyone was too happy about the imposed zoning of bread delivery based on this letter to the Daily News in July 1941

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melvillehistory@gmail.com 
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