Freezing works history on display in Patea

A freezing works display which has been five years in the making at Patea will be officially opened to the public on November 26 at 2pm.
The opening will be the culmination of work by volunteers of the Patea Historical Society.
The display, which will be opened by Whanganui MP Chester Borrows, will evoke memories of the freezing works at Patea and the role it played as a major South Taranaki employer before it closed in 1982.
The display, in the former ANZ Bank building, includes two refrigeration machines used at the works and which are historically significant. The Linde Company produced the first practical ammonia compressor in about 1878 and the green machine is believed to be the original machine installed in Patea in 1904. It is representative of the first ammonia compressors made in the world.
The Gordon machine, which is yellow, was manufactured in Victoria, Australia, and both machines are thought to be the only surviving ones in the country.
The display depicts the history of meat processing from the days of the solo butcher through to the chain system that operated when the Patea Freezing Works closed its doors.
So models of sheep have been penned to await their fate while the fibreglass figure of the solo butcher tends to his present job.
Killing, skinning and dressing each animal, before proceeding to the next, required great skill. The practice was replaced by the chain system in 1933. In that process carcasses proceeded along a chain, and individual tasks were performed to complete the dressing process.
That method increased the productivity of the works. The fibreglass figures in the display include a beef butcher busy boning out the cuts for packing into boxes in preparation for export and sale.
A spokesman for the Patea Historical Society said that without the generous donation of the Patea Freezing Works machinery by the Australian owner, Mr Lloyd Jeffree, the project would not have been possible.
Many local businesses had also assisted.
The opening ceremony would be one of the few occasions when the doors would be open for viewing the display.
The flywheel would be turning and visitors could walk among the exhibits. Most of the time the display would be static and viewed through the outside.