The Anchor of Life: Triumphs and crises in the Australian wheat- growing, flour milling and bread industries from 1880- 1939.

Abstract

The scope of this thesis is Australia from the late nineteenth century to 1939, viewed through the lens of three interrelated industries – wheat-growing, flour-milling and bread-baking. Authoritative literature on wheat-growing is abundant, but literature on bread-baking and flour-milling is scant, so this thesis aims to add to the literature by explicating the interconnectedness of these three kindred industries. In the period covered, Australia achieved its sought-after wheat surplus, but as the title suggests, these industries lurched through cycles of triumph and crisis as breakthroughs were achieved only to suffer unforeseen setbacks, culminating in some of the industry coming to near collapse. This thesis argues that Australia's shift from chronic under-production of wheat as an insular socio-economic outpost of Britain, to a sovereign nation-state operating in a global grain and flour market profoundly altered the production, supply, price and quality of flour-based staples to Australian and international customers and consumers. Starting in the last decades of the nineteenth century, this thesis examines three major historical turning points in the process.