John Scott.

Come on a tour of Maffra resident, John Scott’s comprehensive collection of 20th-century electrical appliances.

Nov 25, 2023

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Over the years, busloads of visitors have toured lifelong Maffra resident John Scott’s humble home, all eager to view his comprehensive collection of 20th-century electrical appliances.

The 1950s American-style house with its sturdy Oregon roof stands as the ultimate expression of last-century cluttercore: a museum to the Golden Age of manufacturing – or in anthropological terms, “the Great Age of Stuff”. It’s a temple to the transistor.

Like the salvaged seeds of a lost civilisation, John’s collections chart the chronological history of many first-edition electrical home appliances, from vacuum cleaners, hair dryers and kitchen mixers to gramophones, record players, radios and televisions.

“unlike other 80-somethings who have downsized...spritely bachelor John simply builds another shed when he runs out of room.”
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But unlike other 80-somethings who have downsized and decanted cumbersome garage treasure to their offspring or the op shop, spritely bachelor John simply builds another shed when he runs out of room.

“I’m a great hoarder,” he admits. “You name it, and I’ve still got it.”

“I’ve been collecting all my life. I started off collecting Matchbox Models of Yesteryear series toys and I’ve got the whole collection up until 1995.”

But of all the floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with jaffle irons, toasters, microphones and antique glass piano castors in his shed, alongside the hubcaps, Land Rovers and small army of Victor lawnmowers, one collection reigns supreme in volume and absurdity.

Inside the wood-panelled labyrinth that John has called home for the past five decades awaits a purpose-built sunken lounge, staging a 360-degree showcase of around 2000 ceramic electric jugs.

The bare element vessels, apparently an Australian invention, became synonymous with tea and instant coffee making in 50s country motel rooms. Fraught with the dangers of electrocution and element blowouts, they would eventually be superseded by modern, safer stainless steel and plastic electric kettles with concealed elements.

“I’ve got a lot of pleasure out of collecting them over the years, and they’ve come from all over Australia,” says John, noting that the oldest model dates back to 1928.

“Sometimes I go and buy one and find out I’ve already got one of them.”

Travelling up north every winter in his four-wheel drive, John still enjoys picking through Sunday markets and op-shops for the prized artefacts.

But perhaps the greatest irony befitting a man with possibly the world’s largest, if not the only, electric ceramic jug collection rests in the fact that he makes his own morning cuppa with a 1984 Sunbeam Hot Shot beverage maker.

The 240-volt contraption, which takes a minute to boil two cups of water takes pride of place in the kitchen opposite the original fridge gifted to John as a wedding present by his parents over 55 years ago. The marriage may not have lasted, but the fridge and accompanying pre-1980s stove top oven, 10-minute cycle Kelvinator dishwasher and original 1950s Morphy Richards toaster are still going strong.

“The old toasters, they were built better, had quality materials, proper solid elements in them, and the mechanical parts were unbreakable,” he says.

Complementing the mission brown, mustard, orange and tan décor of the family room, John recalls the original 1960s Heat Bank heater was installed for free by the SEC to encourage households to consume more power.

Although 20th-century electrical appliances are mocked these days for their energy usage, safety profile and carbon footprint, John says they were much easier to service and repair, creating less hard rubbish and landfill.

As with many Australians who were born during the war to parents who had endured the Great Depression, John remembers a time when electrical appliances were considered luxuries for Gippslandians.

But his interest in electrical goods was born of his father Keith Scott’s pioneer radio, TV, electrical appliance and repair business, established in 1937.

Keith Victor Scott first came to the farming district of Maffra in the early 1930s to work on the railways, where he engaged in the lucrative backyard side hustle of rebuilding and trading in radios to the local farmers.

"Most farmers had what we called a 'cow-yard radio' they used to calm the cows," says John.

In 1937, Keith was able to leave the railways to work full-time on his radio sales and repairs business as more people tuned into radios for cricket scores, news of the unfolding war, concerts and radio serials.

"With radio, you just had to imagine what was happening as you listened to it," recalls John, who would run home from school to listen to radio serials such as Smoky Dawson and Inspector West.

In the early 50s, as rock n’ roll music and James Dean movies rallied a global movement of rebellious teenagers, John recalls a shift towards radios becoming more personalised devices. He remembers light, portable transistor radios with small batteries hitting the market in the late 1950s, replacing fixed radios anchored by bulky, power-guzzling valve technology.

"I remember my brother and a couple of mates were walking around the Maffra showgrounds with these tiny portable radios playing music," he says, recalling when his father brought back the first Admiral-brand transistor radio from the United States.

"People were amazed – they couldn't believe it because, before that, radios were big, bulky, heavy, horrible things."

But, it would be the advent of television, which came to Australia in time to broadcast the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, that would lure John and his siblings into their father’s booming electrical goods business.

Converting US-brand Admiral TVs to Australian standards, the rebranded KV Scott and Sons business diversified into television sales and repairs, selling the first televisions to wealthy local farmers from their Maffra store.

"It was black-and-white, of course, and it was pretty poor in Maffra because the signal was coming from Melbourne and we had to have 40-foot-high aerials to get it," says John. He recalls crowds of residents descending on the family backyard to catch a glimpse of the new device and gathering around the shop's front window to watch – leaving their picnic rubbish in the street for the family to clean up.

"The picture was very snowy and crude, but we'd sit there glued to it. It was absolutely fantastic," he says.

John worked as a salesman in the business, alongside his brothers David and Raymond and sister Shirley. He developed a knack for servicing and repairing all kinds of electrical appliances, as servicing an appliance was part of the sale. Selling everything from jugs to irons, televisions, vacuum cleaners and refrigerators, John would make deliveries and house calls via his famous ‘TV Scott’ Kombi van. It was a job he would remain in for 43 years.

The family business continued to flourish until the late 1990s, when multinational department stores began to dominate the market, and consumers adopted a more disposable attitude towards their electrical appliances.

John says that from the 1980s onwards, the quality of manufacturing began to decline around the world, with cheaply made, inferior plastic materials ensuring products succumbed to ’inbuilt obsolescence'.

Salvaging many mint-condition pieces from the shop floor, John retired from the family business around the turn of the century. Ever since, he has kept himself busy, meticulously organising and cataloguing his treasures.

The decommissioning of analogue radios and TVs would eventually force him to buy his first and only 21st-century appliance, a digital flatscreen TV.

But John has no desire to own a computer, explore the internet or succumb to the poisoned chalice of a mobile phone. “Never needed one, don’t want one,” he declares bluntly, quite happy to live out his remaining years in his 20th-century sanctuary.