Greatest Kiwi Of All Time: No. 74 - Thomas Edmonds (Up 3 from 77 last year)
It was, for a long time, our most popular book. At one point it was sent unsolicited to every newly engaged couple in Aotearoa. No, not the bible. Close. The Edmonds Cookery Book. And its creator was Thomas Edmonds.
But before the book, there was the powder. Baking powder. English immigrant Thomas Edmonds had come to Aotearoa in 1879 aboard the ship Waitangi. A confectioner back in the homeland, Edmonds set up a grocery store in Woolston, Christchurch. After learning about the poor reliability of baking powders from people coming into the shop, he decided to make his own. When reassuring a customer that her scones would not be flat if she used his baking powder, he said they would be “sure to rise”. A slogan that stands today.
Baking powder was followed by custard powder, egg powder and self-raising flour. He created the Edmonds Cookery Book in 1908 as a promotional tool for his products.
Edmonds was also a philanthropist and financed the construction of a number of structures in Christchurch, including the Repertory Theatre, Theosophical Society Building and the Edmonds Factory itself alongside its beautiful gardens.
The factory was controversially bowled in October 1990, while the other buildings he commissioned were destroyed in the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake.
One of the late 19th and early 20th century’s true entrepreneurs, Edmonds loved his adopted city of Christchurch. A great businessman, he would also give back to the city he cared so much about. Thomas Edmonds, one of Today FM’s Greatest Kiwis of All Time.
GKOAT 23 - Thanks to resene.
Today FM's Greatest Kiwis Of All Time, thanks to Resene - helping Kiwis decorate with NZ made paints since 1946.
