Jennison Caravans.
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 9:25 pm
The following information and photos have been supplied by Jeff, who is a Grandson of John Jennison, and he has spent countless hours researching his Grandfathers history.
A History of John Alfred Jennison.
I would like to tell you about my grandfather John Alfred Jennison and his place as a major pioneer in the early Australian caravanning industry. I have over 60 photos , but as you will see, it is not only vintage vans that we will look at , but some fairly interesting stuff on cars and motorbikes as well.
I would also like to give you an insight into the remarkable journey I have had ,researching all this. Much of it I did not know, but with input from family, with the collation of many old photos , and then showing them to my mother and picking at her memories (which are fading rapidly due to alzheimers) as well as some amazing help, with early brochures and magazine articles from the 30, 40s and 50s , supplied to me by interested people and my cousins, who have watched this story unfold on the caravan website, as I have fitted it all together. I have even had total strangers buy original Jennison prewar memorabilia (logoed business stationary and the like) on ebay and send it to me , so enthused and caught up themselves ,have they become with my research and the telling of the story of John A Jennison and his Pathfinder caravans.
Born in 1898, John Alfred Jennison was orphaned in 1914, when both of his parents died within weeks of each other of the influenza virus. Shortly after that both he and his brother George left for Melbourne before ending up in Adelaide working for Henry James Holden coach/motor body builders . It was there that he learned his skills as a coachbuilder and engineer. He returned to Sydney around 1919 working in a motor vehicle assembly plant (it is unknown which or where). In Sydney he met and married my grandmother Doris in 1922, and shortly after the birth of my mother in 1923 , he moved the family to Melbourne where he worked (my mother thinks ) in a Chevrolet assembly plant. Further research has shown that Henry James Holden operated a vehicle and chassis assembly plant in Melbourne, in conjunction with General Motors/Chevrolet at that time .
John A Jennisons son John was born in 1925 and later that year , John A Jennison and his brother George ,who still lived in SA, rode their Indian motorcycles to Perth and back. In one of his diaries he comments that the road was so potholed and rough to ride on , that whenever the railway track ran parallel to the road ,they rode their motorcycles in the centre of the railway track on the sleepers because it was smoother. It was on the return leg from Perth , that John A Jennison spied a service station for sale in Salisbury SA. He returned to Melbourne and arranged purchase of the business , moving the family there in 1926, where his 3rd child Shirley was born and the story of Jennison Engineering really begins.
Soon after setting up in Salisbury he undertook his first attempt at motor car construction, building a small vehicle at his Salisbury workshop. He twice entered in the Sellicks beach car races without any success ( I believe that they were a point to point 10 or 20 mile race run annually) My mother remembers being driven to her first day at school in the car, her only seat being an old wooden fruit box. That would have been in 1928.
From there his interest turned to boat building. He constructed a boat out the back of his Salisbury workshop, with the first test run being at Victor Harbour in SA. As an aside , in later years when he knew he was dying of kidney failure, he made a beautiful 3 to 4 foot working scale model of the boat , to be given to his first grandson. Unfortunately I am number 3 !!!!
By 1930 he had built his first caravan, which mum thinks, was bought by his friend and neighbour and already a Chevrolet customer a Mr (& Mrs) Brumfield . The van was of the standard teardrop design of the day, his first slightly larger model (roadcruiser) that I have seen , being made in 1933 .
It is here I will diverge on to one of the many twists my investigation took , as I researched John Alfred Jennison and his place in early Australian caravanning history. Earlier on, I had joined the caravan forum to research my grandfather, and was receiving a lot of help from the members .
I decided to search the National archives records as well and I was amazed when on my first go, up came John A Jennisons designs and patent application for a pop-top caravan submitted in 1935. As you will see it was a pop top teardrop. This was also particularly interesting because I had only read on the website a few days earlier that the first modern pop top caravan appeared in the 1960s. I immediately ordered copies of those plans and application and was amazed to find his pop top roof was raised using a single winding point, operated by worm drive threaded rod, a method still used by wind up pop top vans today. Needless to say, the caravan website and a lady I talked to the SA museum who keep one of Australias most comprehensive photo collections, were very interested and have since upgraded their records!
In his written submission in support of his patent application , he covers aerodynamics in relation to wind resistance while towing amongst other , then unheard of, reasons for the advantages of pop- tops caravans.
There is a picture showing the pop-top frames under construction , out the back of the Salisbury workshop , note the large pop top roof hole. If you look closely you can see the bracer or travel bracer bar that my grandfather drew on the original photo on the back, his written notes explain what he was trying to do. With the large roof hole for a pop-top and with a wooden frame, he apparently had some problems with the frames rigidity whilst travelling. No doubt roads (or lack of) at the time would not have helped.
Over the years John A Jennison ran his business from a few different locations all within 2-3 klm of each other in the Mosman /Cremorne area of Sydney , trading under the names...Transport Engineering, Trailer Engineering Co, Jennison Trailer Engineering , after WW2 Pathfinder Caravans- Jennison Engineering and in his final years as his health deteriorated Pathfinder Caravans- Jennison and Burrell Engineering. (he brought Craig Burrell his longest serving employee in to the business as a partner ) He built trailers and caravans to specification or order, constructed , sold and hired out his own caravans under the NOMAD brand prior to WW2, and later concentrated on his famous Pathfinder caravans after the war.
Pathfinder caravans were universally acknowledged as the Rolls Royce of caravans . His 1948 pathfinder 16 footer came standard with internal shower and wall mounted radio . His quality of finish and level of appointments set new benchmarks that other caravan manufacturers were forced to follow. An old article , posted by one of the history buffs on the caravan website says that Jennison Pathfinders were the caravan of choice for the travelling showmans guild, with Easter being his busiest time of year, as all the showmen attending the Royal Easter Show would want their caravans annual service completed whilst they were in Sydney. They truly were , as his sales logo said - the ARISTOCRAT OF CARAVANS
I am going to diverge again!!......
Whilst researching my grandfather I was off on another tangent as well. I was trying to find the origins of some labelled photos I had heard of a Mrs Cole and her Wildeshott caravan and of the van being offloaded or loaded aboard the TSS (Twin screwed steamship) Zealandia. No one had ever heard of Wildeshott vans and enquiries to caravan enthusiasts /members in America, Britain and New Zealand had them searching their records with no success.
The Australian Maritme museum helped solve it in part, by supplying me with sailing manifest for the TSS Zealandia , the ship shown and mentioned in 2 of the photos , one of which shows the wildeshott caravan hovering over the hold of the the ship on 8/2/1939. The maritime museum confirmed that the Zealandia left Sydney on 8/2/1939 so I now knew it was not a caravan from overseas but one being exported from Australia , or in this case to Launceston Tas. But its origins and manufacturer were still unknown.
Eventually I contacted a computer boffin mate , and he put the photos through his CSI style computer program ,coming up with a fantastic result. Not only could we now read clearly, the Wildeshott, written on the side of the van but now we could also see that the writing on the front of the caravan read Jennison Coach. Indeed it was a special, made to order caravan for the Coles, by Jennison Engineering. I would also add again, that the originals for these photos, were only 2 X 1 in size.
At the outbreak of WW2 my grandfather scaled back/closed down his business and took a job as a foreman supervisor at the Lithgow Small Arms Factory, reopening the caravan factory at the end of the war in 1945-46.
Nearly finished!!!!!
Before and after the war John A Jennison had a running battle with local Nth Sydney councils who he wrote and petitioned to provide powered caravan sites in their council camping areas. He met a lot of resistance to this but the caravan industry was booming postwar and they eventually saw sense.
He also had another foray into car construction. He had a dream that in the future, families would be able to tow their vans to previously inaccessible locations using 4WD family vehicles, and being a doer he did it!! In 1946/47 John A Jennison bought a number of willys jeeps from US Army surplus and using the skills he learnt in early years working for Holdens coach and body builders chopped the jeeps , lengthened them and rebodied them as a woody 4WD station wagon . Technically the FIRST FOUR WHEEL DRIVE WAGON ever made in Australia. It is not known how many he made , but he did make at least two different models .
I would also point out that Jeep themselves ,did not make a wagon till 1950!
When Jennison customers bought their caravan ,they could select a couple of special extra options.
They could buy for their children, a miniature pathfinder which hooked onto their tin pedal car or a holiday time dog kennel also in the shape of a pathfinder caravan.
Sir Donald Campbell and his crew used Jennison Pathfinders when camped on Lake Eyre during his world land speed record attempts with Bluebird. By late 1940 John A Jennisons health was deteriorating due to kidney failure and because of his increased absences from work ,he brought Craig Burrell, his longest serving employee, into the company as a partner to take up the load.
John Alfred Jennison died at the end of 1950.
My mother and Uncle have always reckoned that our grandfather was a genius well ahead of his time. I know I am biased but having done all this research I strongly agree. John Alfred Jennison was a gifted engineer with an amazing vision for the future of his caravanning industry. It is openly acknowledged, that he set all the benchmarks for quality of finish and levels of appointment and luxury , unheard in caravans of that time. His ideas for pop top caravans, caravans with all the luxury and comforts of home, dedicated caravan camping grounds with powered sites and all the services to support the holidaymakers and 4WD family stationwagons that can take a family and caravan, to places previously thought impossible were years ahead of his time, yet since his passing , have all come true. In short he was a significant visionary and pioneer, in the creation of the modern caravan industry in Australia as we know it today.
A History of John Alfred Jennison.
I would like to tell you about my grandfather John Alfred Jennison and his place as a major pioneer in the early Australian caravanning industry. I have over 60 photos , but as you will see, it is not only vintage vans that we will look at , but some fairly interesting stuff on cars and motorbikes as well.
I would also like to give you an insight into the remarkable journey I have had ,researching all this. Much of it I did not know, but with input from family, with the collation of many old photos , and then showing them to my mother and picking at her memories (which are fading rapidly due to alzheimers) as well as some amazing help, with early brochures and magazine articles from the 30, 40s and 50s , supplied to me by interested people and my cousins, who have watched this story unfold on the caravan website, as I have fitted it all together. I have even had total strangers buy original Jennison prewar memorabilia (logoed business stationary and the like) on ebay and send it to me , so enthused and caught up themselves ,have they become with my research and the telling of the story of John A Jennison and his Pathfinder caravans.
Born in 1898, John Alfred Jennison was orphaned in 1914, when both of his parents died within weeks of each other of the influenza virus. Shortly after that both he and his brother George left for Melbourne before ending up in Adelaide working for Henry James Holden coach/motor body builders . It was there that he learned his skills as a coachbuilder and engineer. He returned to Sydney around 1919 working in a motor vehicle assembly plant (it is unknown which or where). In Sydney he met and married my grandmother Doris in 1922, and shortly after the birth of my mother in 1923 , he moved the family to Melbourne where he worked (my mother thinks ) in a Chevrolet assembly plant. Further research has shown that Henry James Holden operated a vehicle and chassis assembly plant in Melbourne, in conjunction with General Motors/Chevrolet at that time .
John A Jennisons son John was born in 1925 and later that year , John A Jennison and his brother George ,who still lived in SA, rode their Indian motorcycles to Perth and back. In one of his diaries he comments that the road was so potholed and rough to ride on , that whenever the railway track ran parallel to the road ,they rode their motorcycles in the centre of the railway track on the sleepers because it was smoother. It was on the return leg from Perth , that John A Jennison spied a service station for sale in Salisbury SA. He returned to Melbourne and arranged purchase of the business , moving the family there in 1926, where his 3rd child Shirley was born and the story of Jennison Engineering really begins.
Soon after setting up in Salisbury he undertook his first attempt at motor car construction, building a small vehicle at his Salisbury workshop. He twice entered in the Sellicks beach car races without any success ( I believe that they were a point to point 10 or 20 mile race run annually) My mother remembers being driven to her first day at school in the car, her only seat being an old wooden fruit box. That would have been in 1928.
From there his interest turned to boat building. He constructed a boat out the back of his Salisbury workshop, with the first test run being at Victor Harbour in SA. As an aside , in later years when he knew he was dying of kidney failure, he made a beautiful 3 to 4 foot working scale model of the boat , to be given to his first grandson. Unfortunately I am number 3 !!!!
By 1930 he had built his first caravan, which mum thinks, was bought by his friend and neighbour and already a Chevrolet customer a Mr (& Mrs) Brumfield . The van was of the standard teardrop design of the day, his first slightly larger model (roadcruiser) that I have seen , being made in 1933 .
It is here I will diverge on to one of the many twists my investigation took , as I researched John Alfred Jennison and his place in early Australian caravanning history. Earlier on, I had joined the caravan forum to research my grandfather, and was receiving a lot of help from the members .
I decided to search the National archives records as well and I was amazed when on my first go, up came John A Jennisons designs and patent application for a pop-top caravan submitted in 1935. As you will see it was a pop top teardrop. This was also particularly interesting because I had only read on the website a few days earlier that the first modern pop top caravan appeared in the 1960s. I immediately ordered copies of those plans and application and was amazed to find his pop top roof was raised using a single winding point, operated by worm drive threaded rod, a method still used by wind up pop top vans today. Needless to say, the caravan website and a lady I talked to the SA museum who keep one of Australias most comprehensive photo collections, were very interested and have since upgraded their records!
In his written submission in support of his patent application , he covers aerodynamics in relation to wind resistance while towing amongst other , then unheard of, reasons for the advantages of pop- tops caravans.
There is a picture showing the pop-top frames under construction , out the back of the Salisbury workshop , note the large pop top roof hole. If you look closely you can see the bracer or travel bracer bar that my grandfather drew on the original photo on the back, his written notes explain what he was trying to do. With the large roof hole for a pop-top and with a wooden frame, he apparently had some problems with the frames rigidity whilst travelling. No doubt roads (or lack of) at the time would not have helped.
Over the years John A Jennison ran his business from a few different locations all within 2-3 klm of each other in the Mosman /Cremorne area of Sydney , trading under the names...Transport Engineering, Trailer Engineering Co, Jennison Trailer Engineering , after WW2 Pathfinder Caravans- Jennison Engineering and in his final years as his health deteriorated Pathfinder Caravans- Jennison and Burrell Engineering. (he brought Craig Burrell his longest serving employee in to the business as a partner ) He built trailers and caravans to specification or order, constructed , sold and hired out his own caravans under the NOMAD brand prior to WW2, and later concentrated on his famous Pathfinder caravans after the war.
Pathfinder caravans were universally acknowledged as the Rolls Royce of caravans . His 1948 pathfinder 16 footer came standard with internal shower and wall mounted radio . His quality of finish and level of appointments set new benchmarks that other caravan manufacturers were forced to follow. An old article , posted by one of the history buffs on the caravan website says that Jennison Pathfinders were the caravan of choice for the travelling showmans guild, with Easter being his busiest time of year, as all the showmen attending the Royal Easter Show would want their caravans annual service completed whilst they were in Sydney. They truly were , as his sales logo said - the ARISTOCRAT OF CARAVANS
I am going to diverge again!!......
Whilst researching my grandfather I was off on another tangent as well. I was trying to find the origins of some labelled photos I had heard of a Mrs Cole and her Wildeshott caravan and of the van being offloaded or loaded aboard the TSS (Twin screwed steamship) Zealandia. No one had ever heard of Wildeshott vans and enquiries to caravan enthusiasts /members in America, Britain and New Zealand had them searching their records with no success.
The Australian Maritme museum helped solve it in part, by supplying me with sailing manifest for the TSS Zealandia , the ship shown and mentioned in 2 of the photos , one of which shows the wildeshott caravan hovering over the hold of the the ship on 8/2/1939. The maritime museum confirmed that the Zealandia left Sydney on 8/2/1939 so I now knew it was not a caravan from overseas but one being exported from Australia , or in this case to Launceston Tas. But its origins and manufacturer were still unknown.
Eventually I contacted a computer boffin mate , and he put the photos through his CSI style computer program ,coming up with a fantastic result. Not only could we now read clearly, the Wildeshott, written on the side of the van but now we could also see that the writing on the front of the caravan read Jennison Coach. Indeed it was a special, made to order caravan for the Coles, by Jennison Engineering. I would also add again, that the originals for these photos, were only 2 X 1 in size.
At the outbreak of WW2 my grandfather scaled back/closed down his business and took a job as a foreman supervisor at the Lithgow Small Arms Factory, reopening the caravan factory at the end of the war in 1945-46.
Nearly finished!!!!!
Before and after the war John A Jennison had a running battle with local Nth Sydney councils who he wrote and petitioned to provide powered caravan sites in their council camping areas. He met a lot of resistance to this but the caravan industry was booming postwar and they eventually saw sense.
He also had another foray into car construction. He had a dream that in the future, families would be able to tow their vans to previously inaccessible locations using 4WD family vehicles, and being a doer he did it!! In 1946/47 John A Jennison bought a number of willys jeeps from US Army surplus and using the skills he learnt in early years working for Holdens coach and body builders chopped the jeeps , lengthened them and rebodied them as a woody 4WD station wagon . Technically the FIRST FOUR WHEEL DRIVE WAGON ever made in Australia. It is not known how many he made , but he did make at least two different models .
I would also point out that Jeep themselves ,did not make a wagon till 1950!
When Jennison customers bought their caravan ,they could select a couple of special extra options.
They could buy for their children, a miniature pathfinder which hooked onto their tin pedal car or a holiday time dog kennel also in the shape of a pathfinder caravan.
Sir Donald Campbell and his crew used Jennison Pathfinders when camped on Lake Eyre during his world land speed record attempts with Bluebird. By late 1940 John A Jennisons health was deteriorating due to kidney failure and because of his increased absences from work ,he brought Craig Burrell, his longest serving employee, into the company as a partner to take up the load.
John Alfred Jennison died at the end of 1950.
My mother and Uncle have always reckoned that our grandfather was a genius well ahead of his time. I know I am biased but having done all this research I strongly agree. John Alfred Jennison was a gifted engineer with an amazing vision for the future of his caravanning industry. It is openly acknowledged, that he set all the benchmarks for quality of finish and levels of appointment and luxury , unheard in caravans of that time. His ideas for pop top caravans, caravans with all the luxury and comforts of home, dedicated caravan camping grounds with powered sites and all the services to support the holidaymakers and 4WD family stationwagons that can take a family and caravan, to places previously thought impossible were years ahead of his time, yet since his passing , have all come true. In short he was a significant visionary and pioneer, in the creation of the modern caravan industry in Australia as we know it today.