P.A.W. Caravan Co - another instalment in the C.&.W. Caravan Industries, and Aristocrat/Aristavan caravan storyHi all,
My earlier searches for information about C&W caravans, and the C&W Aristocrat and Aristavan caravans produced by (the Western Australian company) Caravan Industries have come up with frustratingly little information, as reflected in the posts above. Similarly, my previous searches for John Woodhead, who we've been told is the 'W' in 'C&W' had turned up nothing.
So...I did a search on Trove for C&W's earliest known address which was 'Cnr Scarborough Beach Road & Hutton Street, Osborne Park' in Perth, and lo and behold came up with the following advert for the P.A.W. Caravan Co., published in the
Beverly Times on Thursday, 9 February 1956 (page 8):
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Obligingly, the advert includes a photo of a P.A.W. caravan which is always helpful! The van in question is a different shape to the C&W caravans we've seen, so the question is whether there is any evidence that P.A.W was linked to C&W? We don't have any direct evidence but:
- P.A.W. was operating from the same location that we know C&W was operating from at a later point ('later' based on the more modern features and construction of the C&W caravans compared to the P.A.W. van).
- The proprietor of 'P.A.W. Caravan Co.' made a quite distinctive use of full stops (.) in the company name. The same style was also followed by the proprietor of C&W. In fact if you look carefully at the C&W company name it is actually printed on the sticker on their vans as 'C.&.W. Industries Pty. Ltd.' Note the full stops even after '&' in the name. I think this indicates that it was very likely the same person behind both company names. (I have referred to the last company name in my posts as 'C&W' just because it's easier to type, but it's not the way it was written by the company itself.)
- We have been told that the 'W' in 'C.&.W.' referred to Woodhead, and it seems possible - based on the previous points - that the 'W' in 'P.A.W.' also refers to Woodhead. In that case the 'P.A.' may refer to Woodhead's initials, and we are looking for a 'P.A. Woodhead' not a 'John Woodhead', or perhaps 'P.A.' was a father or brother to John?
There is a bit of conjecture in the above, but I thought there was a pretty good chance it is correct. So I searched further...
As it happens, P.A.W. Caravan Co. advertised in the Perth press rather more frequently that C.&.W. Industries ever did (which was never in the latter's case). The first advert I can find for P.A.W. was printed in the West Australian on Friday, 5 September 1952 (page 18);
Apart from telling us that the caravans were available direct from the factory, and were not only beautiful but modern and spacious as well, the advert also reveals that in 1952 the company was located at 65 Federation Street, Mt Hawthorn in Perth.
As it happens, the 65 Federation Street is a pretty significant piece of information, and since discovering the above P.A.W. adverts, I have undertaken some research on that address, aided by the fact that back in the early 50's, newspapers often printed the addresses and full names of the people they wrote about. (It would never happen now.) What we are able to discover from a newspaper search via Trove and a search of electoral roles via Ancestry.com is that around 1952, 65 Federation Street, Mt Hawthorn was the residence of the Woodhead family.
I won't post all the snippets of information I've collected about the Woodhead family unless anyone is particularly interested in the evidence, but in 1951/52 the Woodhead family consisted of father John Edward (Jack), mother Ruby, twin sons Peter Ashton and William Treloar (Bill), born in 1928, and younger son John Mortimer. Jack's profession was chiropodist, and Bill is later also listed as a chiropodist. Jack died in early 1952, so it seems as if he (and probably Bill) are out of the frame for the caravan construction business. In addition, it seems as if it was probably Peter Ashton Woodhead (P.A.W.) after whom the business was named.
Peter Woodhead had a real knack for getting himself mentioned in the newspapers in the late 40's and early 50's. There was the usual engagement notice in January 1952 and a photo of his wedding day later in that year. However, well before all that he managed to score a front page appearance in the Perth Daily News on Wednesday, 2 April 1947 (page 1) with this item:
The article refers to Peter as a technical school student (which suggests he may have been pursuing a trade at that point), and electoral roll records then listed him as a 'salesman' living in Mt Hawthorn in 1949 to 1958, as a 'business proprietor' living in Osborne Park in 1958 and 1963, as a salesman living in Wembley in 1968 and 1972, and finally as a company director living in Wembley in 1977. Peter died in October 1999.
But it does seem that Peter may have been a bit of a tearaway. Apart from his run in with the garfish when he was 18, he was cited in various Perth and regional newspapers on no less than five occasions between 1952 and 1954 for having been fined for speeding. This extract from the South Western Advertiser published on Thursday, 22 January 1953 (page 5) records that Peter Woodhead was caught driving his Hudson past a school 'with no regard for the safety of school children' at 50 mph in a 25 mph zone:
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And then there's this, printed in the West Australian on Friday, 21 November 1952 (page11):
Caught and fined £10 for towing an unregistered, uninsured trailer with no red flag on the long load of timber. Was the timber for the construction of one of the P.A.W. caravans? Wouldn't it be nice to know?
Brother John Mortimer Woodhead seems to have lived a less adventurous life, or at least didn't catch the eye of the journalists (or the traffic police!). There is no information about him recorded in the Perth newspapers, apart from an engagement notice in 1951. However, the electoral rolls list him as a 'coachbuilder' living in Scarborough in 1954 and Doubleview in 1958, as a 'welder' living in Mt Hawthorn in 1963, and as a 'manager' living in Nollomara in 1968, 1972 and 1977. The occupations of coachbuilder and welder fit in well with the caravan business, and the occupation of manager may be linked in the change of the business from 'C.&.W. Industries Pty. Ltd.' to 'Caravan Industries Pty. Ltd.' in the early to mid 60's as the business grew.
Returning to the caravan adverts, what more do they tell us about P.A.W. caravans? The following advert appeared in the
West Australian on Friday, 12 September 1952 (page 22):
(Source: National Library of Australia
nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49052248 )
The advert describes 14 ft or 15 ft caravans with underslung chassis, large casement windows, fly-wire, curtains, wardrobes, drawers, dressing table, 4-berths and tapestry covered cushions.
A number of similar adverts appeared in the WA press in 1952, followed by a hiatus in advertising through 1953 (or perhaps the newspapers from that year aren't archived on Trove). The first advert for P.A.W. in 1954 was published in the West Australian on Tuesday, 9 March 1954 (page 21):
It tells us that the caravans boasted masonite cupboards and were luxuriously furnished. But it also tells us that at some point between the end of 1952 and March 1954, the P.A.W. Caravan Co. had moved to a new location at Scarborough Beach Road, Osborne Park, which is the location where C.&.W. Industries and Caravan Industries were also later to be found (although we don't know whether the companies remained in the same location on Scarborough Road throughout their existence).
An advert appearing in the West Australian a few days later on Saturday, 13 March 1954, reveals that the caravans were 'the fleet owners choice' and that caravan parts such as axles, wheels and 'tow knuckles' were also available from P.A.W.:
P.A.W. adverts often repeated that their caravans were the fleet owner's choice, but we don't know if that refers to caravan hire companies, firms requiring accommodation for remote locations, or government instrumentalities.
The theme was reprised in P.A.W.'s last advert for 1954 in the West Australian of Saturday, 18 December 1954 (page 35). But not only that, P.A.W. offered the 'largest and finest range of caravans in WA. Perhaps this was Peter Woodhead's salesman pitch coming to the fore?
The business seems to have thrived. On Thursday, 10 November 1955, P.A.W. advertised in the Perth Daily News (page 29) for a Junior Office Girl. Applications were to be lodged with the firms Accountant, so it appears that at that point the business just didn't consist of two brothers working together:
P.A.W. Caravan Co. was still listed in the 1962 Winser's Caravan Manual's Trade Directory, and C.&.W. Industries Pty Ltd also was listed for the first time that year. That suggests that the change of P.A.W to C.&.W. possibly happened about that time, but Winser was notoriously slow in updating some aspects of the Caravan Manual, so I don't think too much weight should be attached to the entries in the 1962 edition. Indeed the features of the C.&.W. caravan recently rescued by Aza (see post higher up this thread) suggest that the change from P.A.W to C.&.W. occurred sometime in the late 50's, not the early 60's.
The evidence we now have regarding the involvement of the Woodhead family, the business location in Scarborough Beach Road, Osborne Park, and the continued use of the 'C&W' logo and name from the late 50's on, seems to indicate that there was a direct and evolutionary connection from P.A.W. Caravan Co. to C.&.W. Industries Pty. Ltd, and then to Caravan Industries Pty. Ltd. and the Caravanland sales centre. Caravanland was a division of Caravan Industries, and there is still a Caravanland in Perth, which operates as a Jayco retailer. It would be fascinating to know if the modern Caravanland traces its roots back to Peter and John Woodhead.
How long Peter Woodhead stayed with the caravan business, or even what his original level of involvement was, we don't know at this point. Perhaps he was the salesman and ideas man for P.A.W. caravans and John, the younger brother, the person actually building the caravans. Perhaps Peter exited the business when it changed its name from P.A.W. Caravan Co. to C.&.W. Industries? Whatever the story, it was brother John Woodhead who people remember from the 60's, as reflected in some of the posts higher up this thread.
Any further information about the Woodheads, their caravan building business, and the elusive 'Mr C' from the 'C.&.W. Industries' name is very welcome.
Don Ricardo
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