If asked to picture a mill where roller machinery has been installed, I imagine most people would think either of a large industrial building, or a smaller traditional country mill converted to the roller process. The new ‘Building a Mill’ section on the website covers the process that a potential miller may have gone through…
Author: Hannah Pomeroy
Detective work from the UK to New Zealand
This week has seen me draw from one resource that the Archive houses in large numbers for our roller mill history project: namely postcards. A search for ‘postcard’ in the online catalogue returns with 6304 results, and there are more that have not yet been catalogued. These items provide a wealth of information and can…
New Year’s Resolutions in 1928
A new year, a time for new beginnings, making a change or a new resolution. Yet it can also be a time for a reflection and pondering on the past. As such, this week’s blog will be reflecting upon the past – 1928 to be specific – and what individuals then, particularly millers, would have…
A Christmas blog
With Christmas a mere few days away, it feels an appropriate time to spread some festive cheer. Helping me to accomplish this are the numerous Christmas editions of American journal, The Northwestern Miller, held here at the Archive. Through their festive adverts, stories, and poems, this blog will endeavour to display Christmas past, present and…
Transport, feed and pets
Animals have gone hand in hand with milling for centuries from when millstones would be turned by mules, donkeys, horses or other animals. Although wind and water power became more commonly used, and the invention of roller machinery ruled out the use of animal power, this did not mean that animals and horses became an…
NEW: modern milling webpages – let us know what you think!
We are pleased to announce that the new modern milling webpages are now live on the Mills Archive website and available for public viewing. These pages are a part of the Mills Archive project to create the world’s first roller flour mill archive and library. This project has been funded by a grant from the…
Crimes of milling part 2
As promised, this week’s blog will return to the theme of crimes in the milling world. This week’s crimes, however, took place after roller milling was introduced and have come from the pages of different Milling Journals from around the world that reported the crimes. Case Number One is the tale of a Canadian flour dealer…
Crimes of milling
This week’s blog covers three exciting cases of espionage or crimes linked in some way to the world of milling. These tales have been taken from two publications from our library, one of which has only just arrived at the Archive… Case Number One is a tale of industrial espionage. Our protagonists: Carl Friedrich Ganzel and…
The match between the floury men and the iron men
This week I have continued my research on the roller milling industry internationally and have moved on to look at Australia. Given that the Ashes have begun this week, I thought I’d see if I could find any more connections between the milling world and the world of cricket, having briefly explored the connection between…
‘For wheat, like men, is always found mixed good and bad, diseased and sound’!
Hello again! As I promised in my last blog in October, I’m back! My internship is continuing, after its brief interlude, and I look forward to sharing events from the Archive with you again along with interesting items and stories that I’m sure I will come across in the continuation of my project on roller…