Introduction This popular Australian wick stove, made by Henry Lane Pty Ltd, was marketed for many years, commencing in the forties, on the principle of it being ‘Absolutely safe and silent” (Ref: a). Indeed, it was easy to use, with no pumping or priming, and it was found in many households, generally pre-electrification. The stove operated on lighting kerosene which was readily available. Model 50 1943 advertisement selling the benefits. The Company Henry Lane (Australia) Ltd was established in Newcastle in 1919 to make rabbit traps which had previously been imported from Henry Lane Ltd in England. At the end of World War I, the demand for traps in Australia was so great that Henry Lane moved his wire spring trap production to Australia. Once Henry had established the factory, he returned to England and sent his son out to oversee the operation. Unfortunately, his son was taken by a shark whilst swimming at Nobby's Beach near Newcastle six weeks after his arrival. There is a plaque at Nobby's Beach commemorating the tragedy. (Ref: d) The factory in 1928 (Out of copyright - Ref: e) Sometime after the mid-thirties the company appears to have changed to a public company, Henry Lane Pty Ltd. During WWII Lane also kept “…the nation safe by producing fighter aircraft parts and Owen machine guns during the war effort.” (Ref: j) Lanes were also famous for not only the Lane’s Thermil stove but also a carpet sweeper and a can opener that was widely used in Australia into the sixties. The Lane’s various companies went on to manufacture hardware and furniture fittings and locks. The Thermil trademark was not renewed by Henry Lane Pty Ltd and removed in December 1973. Overview of Stove The general features are a flattened cylindrical fount with a removeable cowl (‘cup’) housing two inverted cone shaped plates facilitating vaporization. The ‘long life patented wool wick’ (Ref: b), called Thermwol, (Ref: c), was woven from wool and cotton and then formed into a round type allowing air to be drawn in from below the stove via a central draft tube, similar to many lamps. A winder with a cog drive shifted the wick carrier up or down as required. Pictures of fount, cowl, draft tube, winder A tool was provided with each purchase to trim the wick and remove any to allow for removing gritty bits of the wick if it got out of shape. Model 50 standalone stoves had 3 steel legs, early ones straight and later ones angled. Model 50 straight legs and angled legs A trivet completed the unit. A series of ranges, being simple frames that could hold 1, 2 or 3 stove units without legs complimented the range. Two ovens were also manufactured. MODELS Stoves · 50 (Single wick stove with legs that were straight or angled) Lane Thermil (Straight Legs) Ranges · 13/52 (Single frame, with one single wick stove, without fount leg attachments) Lane Kitchen Type Single Burner · 13/52B (as above but brass). · 23/52 (Double frame, with two single wick stoves, without fount leg attachments) · 23/52B (as above, but brass) Lane Kitchen Type Double Burner · 33/52 (Triple frame, with three single wick stoves, without fount leg attachments) · 33/52/20 (as above, but with larger model 20 oven) Cookers · 34/30 – I have not been able to identify this cooker to date. (Ref: g) Ovens · 10N (Fits single or double framed ranges.) (55/3 in 1946) · 20 (Fits triple framed range.) Heaters · A Thermil Blue Flame room heater was also made and advertised. (Ref: h) Pros · Easy lighting · Silent operation · Beautiful efficient burning · Controllable heat output · Solid construction · Wick is not made from asbestos but from wool and cotton. Cons · Not good in wind · Often leaks fuel if transported fuelled. · Fibrous burner washer shrinks over time. · Takes around 5 minutes to get full heat and vaporisation really chugging. · Steel founts (in most cases) · Heater cup unit handle gets very hot and temptation to use handle. · Some smoke when starting up though generally, it ceases quickly. Questions · Steel construction generally but the knurled burner nuts were always brass. · The filler caps were generally brass but a few were made from steel. · Some have the wick winder painted the same colour as the fount. However, many are a standard gold colour matching the burner. · Most Lane’s Thermil instruction documentation shows a trivet with raised pot supports at ninety degrees to the flat trivet surface, but I have not yet come across a stove with this top. · A heat baffle plate that could be inserted in the bottom of the stove to stop any heat from travelling down the air tube and damaging a surface was available with some stoves. Trivets There are two types, though a third is shown in company instructions. Both of the presently known types are about 200 mm wide. The ridges trivet has 6 evenly distributed small raised ridges around the trivet. The ‘spokes’ type has 6 rods pointing inwards from the outer circle part of the trivet. Both types can occur on the ranges, e.g., Model 13/52. Spoked trivet (Not chromed originally), Ridges trivet and trivet seen in advertisements. Ovens The 10N oven cost 55/3 in 1946 (Ref: f) The 20 oven usually was sold with the triple burner. However, on its own it cost 10 pounds in 1954. The 10N oven Logos These four logos have been seen and give an indication of the order of the stoves. The square logo seems to be the first from the early forties. The ones with Made in Australia appear to be the last used. The ‘Gold’ one I am not certain but suspect it is second last. The one labelled ‘Abt Early Fifties’ is clearly on two dated stoves; one from 1951 and another from late 1952 or early 1953 but clearly it’s use could go back into the late forties. So, until more stoves arise with proven dates it’s probably close. Parts · ST14 is fount for Model 50 · ST16 is fount for Model 52 (no legs) · ST22 is fount for Model 52B (no legs and made of brass) · ST9 is burner complete with winder · ST5 is the burner cowl (‘the cup’) Dimensions Trivet (D) – 200 mm (both types) Stove (H) – 238 mm Stove (W) – 200 mm Burner washer – 88.9 mm OD and 77 mm ID - I made one out of 3 mm Viton and it worked well. Colors The most common fount colour is dark green coupled with a dark green ‘cup’ (cowl). Indeed, many of the other coloured founts still have the dark green cowl. Fount colors include: Dark green, a slightly lighter green, red, crème, mint green, and even an aluminium hammertone finish. Cowl (‘Cup’) colors include: dark green, a lighter green and black. I seem to remember a red cup too but cannot find evidence of it presently. Note: There are probably other colors too. Feel free to add them to this post. Dating Lane’s Thermil Stoves The challenge of dating these stoves is best considered by looking at the main model 50 and the decals. First Variation The following advertisement is from an Adelaide, Australia paper in 1941. (Ref: i) Square decal, split pins on the cowl, and straight legs. From early forties. Middle Variations They can have either the ‘abt early fifties’ decal or the ‘Gold’ decal and my belief, unsubstantiated is that the ‘abt early fifties’ decal came first. Certainly, stoves made around the period 1951 to 1953 have that decal. The early middle variations still had split pins but these seem to have changed to clips around, say 1952. The rest is hard to say for these stoves. Last Variation The last models are probably from the later part of the fifties. There are virtually no ads in Trove for Thermil stoves in the sixties. The last variations have the decal which mentions ‘Made in Australia’ on them. There is a known ‘aluminium hammertone’ finish unit which has pre and post decimal pricing (so about 1965-66). I now feel that this is a stove sold much later than when it was made. These stoves all have clips on the cowl and not split pins. They all have angled legs too. Some Photos The accessories Wick carrier, fits over draught tube. The burner (Gold coloured) The retaining fittings on the cowl. How the burner looks when its chugging along. Inner cone Maintenance kit Model 13/52 My Viton homemade washer and the standard original cork burner to fount washer. Model 23/52 'Double Burner' Nice Model 50 with angled legs Price The price in shillings of the Model 50 varied a bit. This is useful because if we know the price of a stove, we can sort of fit it into the timeline. Here are some prices and dates. · 1942 19/6 · 1943 25/- · 1944 21/- · 1945 19/6 · 1946 30/- · 1947 21/9 · 1949 25/9 · 1951 24/10 · 1952 34/4 · 1952 39/6 · 1953 40/- · 1953 40/7 · 1954 39/9 · 1957 56/6 · 1958 45/- · 1959 54/11 Similar Stoves Some of the Turm stove models are look-a-likes such as: Model PK701 - TURM Model PK711 - Turm PK 711 Parasene also had a model that was a bit like the Lane’s Thermil. @presscall displayed it in the second photo down. Perfect High-Speed wick stove (kerosene) The Pura brand Australian stoves are not as a close a match to the Lane’s but they are similar. Pura 1940s Larger References (a) Lane’s Thermil Blue Flame Cooking Appliances and Model 50 Spare parts brochure. (b) Long life wool wick in brochure https://classiccampstoves.com/threads/lane’s-thermil-blue-flame-stove.43744/ (c) Kopsen produced pamphlet that included the Thermil range. (d) Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, 'Ace' rabbit trap made by Henry Lane (Australia) Ltd (e) Henry Lane (Australia) Ltd. buildings and staff, Newcastle, New South Wales, ca. 1928 [picture]. (f) Advertisement in Northern Star, 30 May 1946 (g) Advertisement in Cairns Post, 2 January 1954 (h) Advertisement in Daily Advertiser, 21 July 1952 (i) Advertisement in Chronicle, Adelaide 12 June 1941 (j) Lane 100 Year Journey - ITW Proline extracted 3 Feb 2021
Thanks Iain, a great effort bringing it all together. To go with your inner cone , here is the outer cone. Pencil says 1/8'6 I'll look and see what else I have.
Outstanding work @Sedgman. I’ve put the post in my ‘Watch Thread’ folder as the authoritative work on the topic, since as a wick and not pressure stove it won’t have an entry in the Stove Reference Gallery and be as readily to hand, though the site search facility will no doubt make it a priority listing. Actually, it sets a standard to aspire to for a SRG entry - extensive research, photographs, company history, contemporary advertising and a thorough and very readable narative. John
@Sedgman I just read that entire post and what a thorough and monumental effort it is. Thanks for all the work you must have put into doing all that research. I bought a Lane's Thermal a few years back. I'll have to find it and use your post to identify the year of manufacture. I'd give you the "Post of the Year" award if we had one. Ben
@Sedgman - truly, Iain, you've set the benchmark for research and analysis work on stoves! I'm pleased that you've also included info on the retail prices of the stoves, as I've turned up some records of typical wages paid in the State of Victoria, in the years 1940 and 1950 - which put the selling prices in perspective. (prices are in pounds, shillings and pence. 12 pence = 1 shilling, 20 shillings = 1 pound) In 1940, the average annual wage for male factory workers was £248 5s 8d, and for managers and clerks, it was £376 1s. In 1950, the average annual wage for male factory workers was £296 3s 7d, and for managers and clerks, it was £433 1s 4d. Women really did get ripped off in those days over wages - especially in the 'better' jobs. In 1940, women factory workers averaged 50% of the rate for men, but women clerks and managers only received about 39% of the rate for men. By 1950, women factory workers still averaged about 50% of the rate for men, but women clerks and managers were down to about 37% of the rate for men. It's worth noting that, in 1940, (certainly in Britain, and I'm sure in many other countries) there were plenty of women in their 40s and 50s who had been unable to marry because so many of their male contemporaries had been killed in the Great War. Many of them also had to support elderly parents as well as keep themselves, so that wage differential must have caused real hardship for some. In the 1943 advert, the stove is priced at 25 shillings - for a male factory worker at that time, it would cost about 25% of his weekly pay; for a woman factory worker, it would be about 50% of her week's pay - not a cheap item! And if Thermil's claim was correct, that it was about half the price of a pressure stove (and I've no reason to doubt it), then something like a Primus No.5 would have cost that woman a week's pay. Ouch. Even by the early 50s, wages had gone up, but not by as much as the price rise of the stove. So easy to forget, these days, just how hard it must have been for my parents to pay for the most basic requirements of a family home for myself and two sisters. I was 12 before we had our second hand fridge (1959), and it was 1964 before we bought a second hand washing machine! Many thanks for your epic post, Iain - and best regards, Gunner Sorry - I forgot to add the link to my source of info on wages in the State of Victoria: Research Guides: What it used to cost: What people used to earn
@presscall @Tony Press @ROBBO55 @Ed Winskill @Jim Lukowski @Gunner @z1ulike Thanks all for your generous comments. I enjoyed collecting the information and comparing stoves as the Lanes’s Thermil was a very popular Australian made stove and worth knowing a bit more about. @z1ulike I’ve aware you have a fairly good collection of Australian stoves. Be interested to hear what model your Thermil is. How is the Aladdin suitcase stove going, did it fettle OK? @ROBBO55 Thanks for adding the extra photos, it makes the post better. @Tony Press Much appreciate how many brochures and ephemera you have contributed to CCS as it must surely help many others searching as it did for me. I linked to one of your brochures as it had a wonderful picture of a woman cooking with a Thermil and also mentioned the wool wick. I have seen more detailed info on the wool wick in another post too. I didn’t try to replicate a full breakdown of a Lane’s Thermil since you have done this so well in the gallery before. I think on the mint green one. Reminds me I forgot the cream colour in the color chart. @Gunner Thanks for the comparison with prices of stoves versus incomes back in the fifties. Quite interesting especially when a small plug-in electric stove is now so cheap relative to average wages. Regards
@Sedgeman - re. price of ordinary items compared to wages; that side of social history has interested me for a long time, as to me it's just as important as what you might call the 'kings / battles / generals / millionaires' view of history - namely, what life was like for the vast majority of people - and to do that, you need to see ordinary items in context. If, for example, you'd previously had to light a wood or coal-fired range in the kitchen to even make a cup of tea - and then you bought a Thermil stove, which you could light as quickly and easily as lighting a cigarette, how massive a change is that? I remember talking to a lady who got married just after the war, and whose husband was a shepherd. They moved into a tied cottage on the farm in Somerset, which had hurricane lamps and candles for lighting, and the only means of cooking was by balancing saucepans on the side of the grate of an open fire. She told me: "The day we moved to a different farm, and I found I had a proper gas stove with an oven, and I could walk into a room and light it with a flick of a switch, I cried with happiness!" It strikes me that the history of lamps and stoves is just as important and illuminating as any other branch of history. If anybody asks me about the palaver I go through to fire up a pressure stove, "when you can get a gas stove with a push-button igniter - instant heat!" - I'll point out that, right up till the 1950s / early 60s, the only alternative was to gather kindling and firewood and light a fire, and how long would that take - especially if it had been raining all day? Context is all! With best regards, Gunner
Hi @Gunner I enjoyed reading your about your memories: Have a look at this old thread: How widely used were brass stoves in Europe? Best Regards, Kerophile.
@Gunner Two things about your post above. My ancestors on my father’s side were from Wiveliscombe in Somerset... After WWII, around 1950, my mother and father lived in a small country town; but they had electricity. Apparently my mother cried when she found out that my father had won a soldier settlers block (850 acres) and they had to move to, and set up house in, a district that had no electricity. They got electricity in about 1956, I think. Even then, we used a wood fuel combustion stove in the kitchen. My job was to start the fire (or stoke it) in the mornings. I still have their Tilley table lamp from when they lived in the house without electricity. Cheers Tony
My family were friends with a brother and sister living at Mansfield in Victoria. Their mother died at 105, almost 106 and she was the first white person or first white girl born on the Kalgoorlie Goldfields in Western Australia. I had the privilege of attending her 100th birthday and asked her what was the most interesting thing she had seen. She said the electric light when she saw one turned on with a switch.
@Sedgman - it's almost impossible for me to grasp just how astonishing such things must have been to people seeing them for the first time, mainly because to me, they're everyday things, and and I take them for granted. A lovely story I heard from an old lady was that, when she was about 8 years old, she went racing home to tell her mum that a lady down the road had "music coming out of the wall!" Her mother gave her a telling off for lying, but the little girl was adamant, so she went down to the neighbour's house to see what was to do - and there, in the parlour, was a large group of neighbours, listening in fascination to music being played by radio station 2LO **, coming out of the first wireless set in the village! (** 2LO was the callsign of the first broadcasting station in England, and later became the BBC) Of course, nobody in the village had electricity, so the radio was powered the same way that my grandparents first radio set was, when they bought it in the late 1920s (they had gas lighting downstairs, candles upstairs). The HT for the valves (vacuum tubes) was provided by a hulking great 90 Volt dry battery, and the LT to heat the valve filaments came from a hefty 6 Volt lead acid battery. When the LT battery ran down, it was my mum's job to carry it down the road to the local hardware shop, for it to be put on charge, and she'd collect it after school the following day. And that, gents, is why so many radio valves have heater filaments rated at 6.3 Volts - because that's the voltage you get from a nominal 6 Volt lead acid battery when you draw a steady current from it for a long time! (that point puzzled me for years until an old radio engineer explained it to me) With best regards, Gunner
Nicely done, Iain. Such a comprehensive wrap-up that I had to pitch in, after finding this site so useful for a number of years. You said you hadn't seen a Lane stove with the kind of trivet illustrated in the instructions. I can confirm they exist. Here's mine on my shed bench (actually it's at the top of this post because I don't know what I'm doing). The photo crop is unfortunate, but the transfer is first-generation and the legs are straight, all of which puts it in the early production category. It is dark green and the burner and filler cap would have been gold-painted by the looks. Legs and trivet are still holding onto some factory-looking silver paint. It still works pretty well - let's face it, nothing much to go wrong - but it needs serious babysitting in its warm-up phase to keep the flame blue and low, and doesn't crank out BTUs like a pressure stove does. Incidentally, amongst my accumulation of junk/treasures is a suitcase-style twin-burner Aladdin stove which might be unusual in that the legs/top plate assembly is (very nicely) chromed, rather than enamelled. Thought I'd mention it for the record... Chris
@sachris G'day Chris and welcome to CCS. It would be good to see your crome Aladdin in the Reference Gallery
Gooday @sachris Thanks for providing a picture of the early advertised stove top (trivet). Considering how many of these early Lane's stoves I have seen, it is long overdue to come across the 'lost' stove top from the advertising materials. Great that they do exist but I wonder why they did not seem to last long before the other types came out. Must be either cost or ease of manufacture or some other thing such as the height away from the flame; but I am speculating. Bottom line is we can now incorporate this into the evolving history of these common household stoves. Can't wait to see what you turn up next? Regards
