New podcast: Why the Freddo Frog almost didn’t exist
If a Melbourne teenager hadn’t stood up to his boss, the man known as Australia’s Willy Wonka, the Freddo Frog never would have existed. It’s one of many stories about the eccentric chocolate king brought to life in a new exhibition. NEW PODCAST LISTEN NOW
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There’s no product more distinctly “Melbourne” than the Freddo Frog.
Not only was it invented in Melbourne, it was created by Mr Melbourne himself.
But that’s not simply a nickname.
It was Harry Melbourne — an 18-year-old chocolate moulder — who came up with the idea for the Freddo Frog in 1930.
Melbourne worked for “Australia’s Willy Wonka”, eccentric chocolate king Macpherson Robertson, in his sprawling Fitzroy factory dubbed the Great White City.
The intriguing story of how the Freddo Frog was born is one of many tales told in a new free history exhibition, called Velvet, Iron, Ashes, opening on Thursday at the State Library.
Carolyn Fraser, the library’s lead curator, says Robertson had the idea of creating a moulded sweet in the form of a mouse, quite possibly inspired by the popularity of Mickey Mouse.
“However, an 18-year-old employee at the factory whose name was Harry Melbourne — which I really love, his name — he sort of piped up, saying he thought a mouse was really a bad idea because women and children are afraid of mice,” she says.
Harry Melbourne also came up with the famous name.
Some of his colleagues urged Melbourne to name the frog after himself. Instead he suggested Robertson name it Freddo after his mate, Fred McLean, one of the factory’s foremen.
Melbourne lived until 2007, aged 94, and was farewelled in Melbourne with a Freddo flag draped over his coffin and a floral Freddo grinning from the back of the hearse.
In an interview in 2000, he recounted the moment he told his boss he thought a chocolate mouse wouldn’t sell.
“I was never backward in coming forward and I just piped up. Sir Macpherson just looked at me . . and I thought I’d lost my job,” he recalled.
“But he said: `I’d like to see one: make one up and bring it over to my office.’ Three days later the marketing manager said I had backed a winner.’’
Despite the success of the Freddo, which is now made by Cadbury, Melbourne never earned a cent from his idea.
“They sell 98 million Freddo Frogs a year in Australia alone,’’ Melbourne said.
“Even with a cent a frog I would have been a multi-millionaire, but that’s not the point.
“Freddo was created out of love for the firm. We were just one big happy family at MacRobertson’s.’’
Fraser says Robertson earned the posthumous nickname “Australia’s Willy Wonka” in part because of his knack for grandiose self-promotion.
“He was well-loved, but he promoted the fact that he was well-loved as well,” she says.
“When he went on a big overseas tour in 1927, he organised on his return that there would be these parades and all the staff, which was about 3000 staff, would be out in the street with bunting and streamers, welcoming him home.”
Fraser says one worker in the chocolate factory even wrote about staff being forced to pay money out of their wages to fund those celebrations when Robertson returned from trips.
“But people enjoyed it, and particularly over the period of the Depression his businesses provided a lot of employment in the area,” she says.
“And there was a lot of pride in working for MacRobertson’s, and it was fun. There are reports about children who every day would go to a certain gate and someone would give them a chocolate.
“So I think there was sort of a sense of something special happening in the factories.”
Robertson was also known as a great philanthropist.
Most notably, in 1934 when Victoria celebrated its centenary Robertson donated 100,000 pounds, including 40,000 pounds to establish the Mac. Robertson Girls’ High School.
For more about the exhibition, visit www.slv.vic.gov.au/via.
PLAY TODAY’S NEW FREE EPISODE OF THE IN BLACK AND WHITE PODCAST ON VICTORIA’S FORGOTTEN CHARACTERS TO LEARN MORE
And listen to our previous podcasts including part one of Macpherson Robertson’s story on how he founded his chocolate empire, or try the mysterious mind reader who made a fool of Victoria’s chief of police, and the one-legged gang that menaced Melbourne’s streets.
Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here or Spotify here or on your favourite platform.
Check out In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday to see more stories from Victoria’s past.