Burwood caravans (Hawthorn, Vic)

yes the moreland looks a lot like the burwood.. brenten

Hi Colin345,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for telling us about your family's Burwood caravan. It looks as if it has been very well looked after and is in great condition. There are not too many vintage caravans that have been owned by the one family all of their existence, so it's great to hear about another van in that special category.

As you have probably gathered, Les Gough who sold Burwood caravans, also sold caravans under the Hawthorn brand name. Why he sold vans under two different brands we haven't been able to work out yet. Gough began selling vans under the Hawthorn name in the 40's and continued into the early 60's.  However, we don't know exactly when he started selling vans under the Burwood name, except that it must have been before or around 1954/55. The reason for giving this date is that 1955 was the date of the first edition of the Winser caravan guides that mentions Burwood (Winser published his caravan guides on an annual basis from 1948 through to the early 70's). However, it seems that the Burwood name was only used for a relatively short period because there is no mention of Burwood in the 1960 or 1961 Winsers, even though there are still adverts for Hawthorn.  (I don't have copies of the in-between Winsers, so don't precisely know when Burwood vans stopped being listed.)

Another thing we know about Les Gough, is that although he built some caravans himself that he sold as Hawthorns, he also sold caravans built by a number of other manufacturers under the Hawthorn and Burwood names. Some of the vans sold as Hawthorns were built by Carapark and Adventurer. In the case of Burwood, some of the vans were built by Moreland Caravans, as explained higher up this thread. Based on that fact, it is quite possible that your van was built by another manufacturer and then sold under the Burwood name. Your van is definitely different from the Moreland-built vans that we've seen, but hopefuly someone on the forum may be able to work out its origins. (The shape of the wheel arch is quite interesting and may help us identify who built it.)

I note that the windows on your van are wooden framed with curved inner corners. That style of window was commonly used by caravan builders from about 1953 to 1957, so that fits with the 1955 date for your van.

Les Gough always (as far as we know) fitted a serial number plate to the vans he sold, whether he built them himself or not, and whether they were sold as Hawthorns or Burwoods. Does your van have a serial number plate? If so can you tell us what its serial number is? Being a 1955 van, it may possibly be amongst the first Burwoods, which would be pretty exciting wouldn't it?

You mentioned that your van originally had a bay window. A number of caravan manufacturers in the mid to late 50's used a ready made bay window unit which we think was manufactured by Flynn Caravans. An example of this type of bay window can be seen on an Overland caravan if you click on this link. Perhaps you can show the Overland photos to your father and see if it is similar to the one that was on the Burwood. It would be most interesting to know what he thinks.

Hopefully hearing about your van will help us to learn a bit more about Burwood caravans. In fact it already has, because we now know that Burwood sold more that just the one Moreland-built model we know about.

Sorry for the long post, but seeing the photos of your van is pretty exciting!

Don Ricardo

Here is a photo of the jockey wheel. Has anyone seen this type of jockey wheel before?

Hi Colin345,

Some more intriguing information about your van, including the story behind the shape of the wheel arch. Was the 'more rectanguar' shape something like the shape of the wheel arch on the "Moreland" Burwoods? (It is possible of course that your van is an earlier caravan built for Les Gough by Moreland.)

You described the bay window that was on the van originally. Based on your post, I am wondering if it looked a bit like the window on this Hawthorn (minus the leadlighting of course):



I think you could say that this window protrudes from the body of the van a few inches, and was the way that the windows were constructed on some vans. Here's another similar example on a 1956 Roma:



I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

Don Ricardo

Receipt for Burwood caravan purchased by Colin345's grandfather shown above, posted here:



The receipt shows Colin345's Burwood as having the serial number 675, which is higher than Greatsouthernland's Burwood shown in the post commencing this thread (serial number 479).  Given that Colin345's grandfather's van was to be delivered in December 1955, this indicates that Greatsouthernland's  caravan must have preceded Colin345's and been produced well before December 1955, just how long depending on how many caravans Les Gough sold per month/year around that time.  It also suggests that Les Gough may have been selling Burwood branded caravans earlier than we previously surmised.

Don Ricardo

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ADDENDUM - APRIL 2023: Below is the full receipt for Colin345's Burwood caravan, photographed by Rodericksmith at a car show in 2017 and posted here on 31 March 2023, together with some additional photos of the van on that date and previously on 24 March 2023 on the same thread:

If we are chatting about serial numbers for the Burwood, for your interest mine is 659 which is the Brenton renovators dream with the three front windows pictured earlier in this post.

I always thought it was a 1956, thats where its nice to narrow it down a bit more.