Servex

Designer	Servex (Electronics Industries Pty Ltd)
Maker	Nilsen Porcelain Australia
Marks	Stamped “Servex Oven China Bohemia Guaranteed Heatproof” to base
Material	Porcelain
Description	Shallow square dish with tab handle.  Green satin glaze to exterior and handle.  White gloss glaze to interior of bowl and base.  Unglazed foot ring.
Condition	Very good
Number	No number
Production Date	1934
Width at rim	83mm
Width at Base	70mm
Depth	35mm
Length (with handle)	107mm
Weight	120gm
Volume	125ml
Acquisition	Salvo Stores Oakleigh
Rameking Reference Number	SER 001-005

These are probably the earliest ramekins that I have found and can positively date.  Before the studios that form the majority of my collection started making ramekins, there were a lot of people still making domestic pottery.  Long, long ago back in this time when Australia actually made stuff there and before our Arts-Law politicians got sucked into this post-industrial ideology, was a company called Servex, an early electrical and electronics company in Melbourne, Victoria.  It was run by an early version of what today is known as a tech-head.  Back then you could buy heaps of good quality stuff that was locally made.  Later, when television again came to our shores (look up Henry Sutton from Ballarat who really invented television (GOOGLE “Telephane” even before radio came along) there were many, many local makers. 

Some of these people also made cookware to go with their domestic appliances.  Such a product are these Servex ramekins.  They came in sets of four on a ceramic tray in the same colour.  You could order them (No 688) in three colours, these are Applegreen, but you could also get them in Mimosa, or sometimes Delphinium (blue) or Buttercup (yellow) for 2/6; that is two shillings and six pence (25c today).  The interior of all three colours was in white.  Their catalogue dates from 1934 and in one later advertisement, they are described as “square handled pannikins.”

Servex has become a not uncommon name amongst the IT crowd these days.  The company that I am talking about has largely disappeared, having undergone the inevitable takeover from the overseas big boys.  Back in the mid 1930s, Servex began making a wide variety of products.  Their biggest money-spinner was electrical goods.  They also made appliances for other brands, for example, refrigerators for Astor were made at the Servex factory in Hamilton Street Huntingdale, but for the purposes of this post, I will try to stick to the ceramics part of the business.

The powerhouse behind Servex and Astor was Arthur Warner, later Sir Arthur, an electronics pioneer in Australia.  Look him up, he is also worth reviewing.  His main claim to fame is his founding of GTV Channel 9 in Melbourne, now part of the 9 Network.  (He applied for a television licence back in 1934, over 20 years before TV returned to Australia.)  He was also an influential Victorian State politician.   Concurrent with the ramekins, another Australian invention, electric jugs were made by companies such as Nilsen, Speedie, Hecla, Sunshine Electrix, Vulcan, Koster, Hotpoint and Servex were a must have in every home that could afford them.  If you have a Wynyard Elite, then you have the top collectible electric jug so treasure it.  The body of these jugs was ceramic, usually with a bakelite lift-up lid.  

They are now a class of collectible in their own right.  Just who actually made the jug bodies is a separate study.  Haigh Resistances Pty Ltd in Brighton Victoria were one, another was Nilsen Porcelain Australia, located in the unusually named Jackass Flat, just north of Bendigo Victoria (they are now in West Heidelberg, and make electrical accessories).  Bendigo Pottery was just up the road a mile or so.  Other potteries at Bendigo, Eaglehawk, Epsom and California Gully also made jug bodies.  I think it likely that these ramekins were also a product of Nilsens at Bendigo although I cannot find any evidence for this.

As well as making ceramic jugs, Servex, like some other manufacturers, also made a range of kitchenware and dinnerware.  Essexware and Diana also made ramekins of a similar design (see the “Ovenmaster” post).   Part of this Servex range were these ramekins; they are from a range called “Bohemia,” not to be confused with the Czech crystal and glass people.  Their small size is an indicator of how serving sizes have changed over the decades.

PS.  Here is another set of Servex ramekins that I have just bought on EBay.   These ramekins are held in silver-plated metal containers.  This was quite unusual in Australia but reasonably common amongst the more expensive tableware in America.  Every so often, a set from there appears on internet market sites.  The ceramic bowl was made by the Nilsen Porcelain Company at their works just outside Bendigo in Victoria and the metal holders made by K.G. Luke, a large silver-plating company that operated in Victoria from the early 1920s.  One of their brands was “Paramount Plate.” 

Sir Kenneth George Luke (11th November 1896 to 13^th June 1971) is yet another of those great self-made men of Australia in the twentieth century and deserves much more space than I allow him here.  Please look him up elsewhere to see his story, it is worth reading.

Of relevance to these ramekins is his ownership of “Paramount Plate.”  Just about everbody’s parents or grandparents would have had some of their silver-plate in their homes.  “KG” as he was known, began his working life as an apprentice engraver at a silver-works in 1910.  By 1921 at the age of 25 he had become a partner in a metal spinning and silverware business in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton.  He was the owner by 1925.  A keen sportsman, he also later became a long-term President of the Carlton Football Club (1938-1955) and President of the Victorian Football League from 1956 to 1971.  He modernized the administration and professionalised the game.  His legacy endures.  His company K.G. Luke (Australasia) Ltd became a public company in 1953 but the electroplating part of the business was located at 28-58 Queens Parade, Fitzroy North, Victoria.  They also made the medals for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.  The group was taken over by National Consolidated Ltd on the 19^th of October 1983.