I had a very interesting visit from a local man Terry Agate and his wife Loraine who had an interesting story about his father’s invention.
His father Leonard Raymond Agate was born in Urutī in 1914 and was the son of the local blacksmith Charlie and mother Caroline Agate. He went to Urutī School and then to Urenui after his parents separated.
As a youth he shifted to Otorohanga with his older brother Ernie, starting work at a dairy factory there. Ernie not long after shifted to Palmerston North and married his wife Dulcie there.
Interestingly they moved to Fiji where Ernie built and started the first ice-cream factory, which was later sold to Tip Top around 1958-59.
Len left Otorohanga to work at the Hikorangi Dairy Factory, marrying Vera Walker. He then became first assistant at Whangaehu Dairy Factory 10 kilometres south of Whanganui.
He then secured a job managing the Waitoitoi Dairy Factory in North Taranaki, shifting here with their three children in 1952.
Cream cans were being used then, delivered to the factory by their local suppliers on small trucks. Some close suppliers being Joe Zimmerman, George Feather and Werner Herman.
The factory decided to modernise with a milk tanker. Len was always a «hands on guy» and when it arrived he went on the first run with Noel Liddall.
Noel’s father George had financed the tractor units, the factory bought the tankers.
Bob Truscott Ltd in Hamilton built the tankers in fact all the tankers used in New Zealand back then. Two weeks after the first tankers’ local run, Bob Truscott and Len sat down to discuss the new tanker. «Is there anything we can improve on?» Bob asked.
Len said it was very slow connecting up at every farm. The hoses connected via long threads. A curved spanner was used to tighten and loosen them. It was a slow process.
Len said: «Why can’t we make a coupling like the way a latch works on a door?». «It’d leak like a sieve,» Bob said. «It needs a groove,» Len said, «it needs to be turned to lock it in place against a rubber washer».
Len worked on an idea he had and drew a diagram of what it should look like. «Will these work?» Bob said.
A fortnight later Bob turned up with a box of male and female couplings made of stainless steel. They were fitted to the tanker and Noel Liddall was the first person to do the first run with the new invention.
It cut the pickup time by half and it was felt then that they didn’t even need the second tanker.
When the second tanker arrived it was already fitted with the new coupling. If the patent had been registered the new invention would have made Len a wealthy man.
Waitoitoi eventually amalgamated with the Waitara Road Dairy Factory and Len was offered a job as first assistant there but turned it down. He was then offered a job as factory manager at the Omata Dairy Factory.
Frank Proffit was the chairman of the board and a meeting was called. Frank saw the potential in Len and told the board he would resign if Len wasn’t chosen for the job.
Len told Frank he could build a continuous casein plant and that he was 99 per cent sure he could make it work.
At the directors’ meeting Frank walked in with a letter in his hand. It was unanimously decided that they would go ahead with the new casein plant after a vote of confidence.
Len found out after the meeting that Frank’s letter was a letter of resignation, if it hadn’t have got the go ahead. Such was Frank’s faith in Len’s idea.
The plant was very successful and later the board invited interested parties from overseas to come and view the plant’s operations. It was indeed the first of its type in the world. Sadly Len got no thanks or recognition for his efforts.
So today we remember a legend in his own time, Len Agate whose ideas shaped the dairy industry. A «hands on» good old Taranaki lad.
By: Graeme Duckett
Source: Stuff
Link: https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/106302655/graeme-duckett-good-old-taranaki-lad-shaped-countrys-dairy-industry
