Since soon after European settlement, mouse plagues have been a major problem for rural Australia; and in this instance a "better mousetrap" was going to have to be just that. No metaphor necessary.
The history of “Supreme Rat & Mouse Traps” began with the vision of one man, Arnold Wesley Standfield (1901–1990). A.W. Standfield (as he was known) was the founder of the company that manufactured and sold the “Supreme” mouse and rat traps that dominated the Australian market for almost the entirety of his adult life.
Although Standfield had no formal training in engineering or construction, he did have a great imagination; and, as it happens, a somewhat steampunk sensibility.
Over the course of two years from 1942 to 1943, he designed and built an amazing machine to assemble his traps, having spent years collecting scraps of second-hand materials and machine parts left over from World War II. Built almost entirely from scrap metal, the machine is a wonderful piece of Australian ingenuity and improvisation, and a great example of making do with what you have.
During the production process, long pieces of wire were fixed to a wooden base plate to hold the spring, and the wire forming the trap's trigger was stapled to the plate. Then the metal bait holder was cut, punched and stapled in place. Another wire was turned 23 times to form the spring and attached in the correct position. The base plate was then branded with the company name: Supreme.
The machine was able to put together each mouse trap in just 1.5 seconds.
The nature of production at Standfields was based on a belief that a unique machine would provide a quality product whose market was based upon the natural cycle of rodent population size. Productivity was rarely increased or decreased from the machine's range, i.e. 1,000 traps per hour. Product stockpiling was par for the course, and inevitably, from time to time, a plague would come along to exhaust the stockpile.
Mousetrap production began in Jan 1944, and the company produced about 96 million mousetraps at the Mascot factory, throughout the 56 years that the machine was in use; continuing until 2000, when Standfield’s children Dave and Ron decided to retire and cease trading.
On the day in 1990 they took over, Dave and Ron took a photograph of their father operating the machine, framed it, and attached it to the machine. Nice.
In the year 2000 the machine was donated to Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum for all to see with Standfield’s picture still attached to the machine along with the last trap ever made, in honour of a man with vision, determination and the drive to create an iconic Australian product that did one somewhat macabre thing extremely well. And the longevity of the manufacturing solution was a great example of an Australian approach to the making of things that rewarded a well-made and simple product.
Story Idea: Stephen Todd
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Postscript
REMO has long been drawn to the iconic form and graphic beauty of these particular traps. In the early days of REMO they were presented and sold alongside the T-shirts and apothecary items in the General Store. In 1989 one was even featured in a photo series that included other cartoonish objects: axe, magnet, crow bar, fez, etc. Then, in 2005 the designer Tucker Viemeister quotes Remo (the person) in an article for PAPER magazine: “It’s a rat trap. It kills rats. Period. But take it and put some white space around it (both physically and metaphorically) and all of a sudden people notice it – maybe for the first time.” Finally, the Supreme Rat Trap was the hero in a review of REMORANDOM #1 that appeared in the 8 December (summer) issue of the AFR Magazine. The headline: “What this $5 mouse trap can teach you about great design.” Read the full article HERE.
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NB: Although Supreme Rat & Mouse Traps are no longer in production, there is still a limited amount of legacy stock available for purchase, either from HERE at REMO or from the Supreme website itself HERE.
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References
supremetraps.com.au
abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/12/06
collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/350480
Images
1. Supreme Rat Trap. Photo: Powerhouse Museum.
2. Rat. Image: shutterstock.com.
3. A.W. Standfield with his machine in 1990. Photo: Dave and Ron Standfield.
4. Mouse trap making machine, metal and wood, A.W. Standfield and Co. Powerhouse Collection, Object 350480. More images HERE.
5. Supreme Mouse Trap. Photo: Powerhouse Museum.
6. Pat Mullins and Bob Standfield standing beside Pat's Bedford truck loaded with Standfield mouse traps, Sydney, 1948
7. A.W. Standfield & Co. workers in front of the Supreme factory in Mascot, 1960s
8. REMO Object Series Postcards, 1989. Photography: Ian Hobbs.
9. Media: "What this $5 mouse trap can teach you about great design", Stephen Todd, AFR Magazine, 8 December 2023
10. Legacy stock of Supreme Rat & Mouse Traps available for sale HERE at REMO and, in bulk, on the Supreme website HERE.
11. Supreme Rat Trap design merchandise available HERE
