History
The eucalyptus oil story began in 1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet and Surgeon-General John White. Within a few weeks of arriving, White recorded in his diary the presence of olfactory oil in the eucalyptus; the genus being named eucalyptus by the French botanist L’Heritier in the same year. Governor Philip sent a sample to Sir Joseph Banks. Surgeon-General White distilled a quart of oil from the "Sydney Peppermint", Eucalyptus piperita Sm., which was found growing on the shores of Port Jackson, where Sydney now stands.

When the oil was tested in England, it was reported to be "much more efficacious in removing all cholicky complaints than that of the oil obtained from the well known English peppermint, being less pungent and more aromatic". Following this discovery other people extracted eucalyptus oil, including the pioneer, Dr Officer in Tasmania, and the pastoralist Charles Armitage, but none of them exploited it.

Baron Ferdinand von Meuller, the Government Botanist in Victoria, encouraged Joseph Bosisto, a Victorian pharmacist, to investigate the essential oils of the eucalyptus on a commercial basis. Joseph Bosisto was a Yorkshireman who had qualified as a Pharmacist in Leeds and London. He arrived in Adelaide in 1848 at the age of 21. In 1851 he moved to Victoria in search of gold, but instead opened a pharmacy in Richmond, where he built a laboratory to investigate the chemical and medicinal properties of Australian plants.

As a result of the collaboration with von Meuller the essential oil industry of Australia began in 1852, when Bosisto commenced operations in a small, rudely constructed still at Dandenong Creek, Victoria, using the leaves of a form of E. radiata (then known as E. amygdalina) which grew profusely in the district. Bosisto soon built other distilleries at Emerald, Menzies Creek and Macclesfield.

Sales were to a restricted local market until overseas interest grew sufficiently for Bosisto to begin exports to England in 1865. Messrs. Alfred Felton and Frederick Grimwade saw the possibilities of the trade and their firm, Felton Grimwade & Co. became the distributors of Bosisto’s Oil of Eucalyptus which then was the only distinctively Australian substance in the British Pharmacopoeia.

To develop the new industry, Felton, Grimwade, Bosisto and others formed a new firm, the Eucalyptus Mallee Company and bought Antwerp Station - a property on the Wimmera River, near Dimboola, Victoria.

The low-growing Mallee eucalyptus were particularly suitable for cropping, but the area was remote and the company found unexpected difficulties from hungry rabbits and indolent aboriginal labourers. The enterprise was held up for some months by delays in the opening of the railway from Melbourne to Dimboola. By June 1882, 40 pounds of oil had been produced for export to England and Germany.

In 1885 the Antwerp Company was merged with Bosisto’s original business and a firm called J. Bosisto and Co. was formed. The new company was to be solely a manufacturer with Felton Grimwade and Co. undertaking distribution and all the necessary bookkeeping and marketing.

It is difficult to be certain which was the next species to be exploited as E. globulus, E. oleosa and E. cneorifolia were distilled for commercial purposes in the early 1880’s. Many farmers in Tasmania were distilling E. globulus at about the same time. E. cinerea was distilled in the Goulburn district of NSW between 1880 and 1900. There is no doubt that considerable interest was evinced in the exploitation of E. globulus, which ranked only second to E. amygdalina as a commercial oil-producing species.

Practically all of these species, with the exception of E. globulus, have been superseded by those giving larger yields of oil. The pioneer investigations of Baker and Smith showed that other species such as E. polybractea, E. australiana, and E. dives gave higher yields of oil of equal or better quality. It is from these latter species that the present-day Australian eucalyptus oils of commerce are produced.

The production of eucalyptus oil in the 1880’s was often carried out by aboriginals and by erstwhile miners as the goldfields petered out. It was hard work. The virgin scrub was cut by hand with slashers and special sickles. It was collected and carted by wagon to the distillery where the freshly cut leaves were dumped into vertical iron stills set into the ground below wagon level for easy filling. After steam had carried over the volatile oil the spent leaves were hoisted out by derrick and dumped on the fire whose rising column of smoke was a constant landmark.

The old distilleries were somehow kept going by pieces of wire, bits of tin, lumps of clay, and the infinite resourcefulness of the true bush workman, whose ramshackle buildings were made of hand hewn posts and roofed with branches of nearby trees.

Sales continued to increase with interest being fostered through international exhibitions. Between 1854 and 1891 Bosisto’s oil of eucalyptus was exhibited and was awarded prized in 17 international exhibitions. By the turn of the century oil was being exported to the United Kingdom, Germany, USA, Canada, South Africa, India, China, New Zealand and several countries in the Far East.

Sales were brisk following a lively promotion campaign. Bosisto’s produced an elaborate new label and a thousand circulars attesting to the powerful properties of oil of eucalyptus for "arts, manufactures, medicine and sanitary purposes" were distributed throughout the colonies and in Europe. In addition to the oil itself, Bosisto produced asthma cigarettes of eucalyptus globules which soon won some renown. These could be bought with or without tobacco. He also had a profitable line in Syrup of Red Gum for bowel complaints which he claimed was very soothing.

By 1900 Australia’s eucalyptus oil industry was well established and able to supply the world market with substantial quantities of various types of high grade oils.

However, it should be pointed out that from the very beginning oil production has been a very primitive business. Even today in a few areas the distillation of the foliage is still carried out in primitive stills set here and there in the mountains.

That the industry could develop and prosper until the Second World War is due greatly to one factor. Around the turn of the century the once rich gold fields in Victoria and New South Wales - the present producing regions of eucalyptus oils - started to run out and become unprofitable.

The gold miners found themselves without work. They had become used to the rough but free and independent life in the bush and consequently joined the eucalyptus distillers rather than seek employment in cities and towns. Things changed with World War II. The old class of distillers was gradually dying out and the younger generation would no longer accept the low wages and poor living conditions that had prevailed.

By about 1950 the cost of producing eucalyptus oil in Australia had increased so much that the oil could no longer compete against Spanish and Portuguese oils and Australia lost its leading position in the eucalyptus field.

Labour cost, however, was not the only cause of the decline. After the Second World War there was a strong demand for Australian wheat and this induced drastic destruction of stands of high quality eucalyptus species. Improved wheat strains and modern farming machinery allowed wheat to be grown successfully on land formerly suited only for eucalyptus. The class-conscious prosperous Australian wheat farmers have always been inclined to look upon oil production as a low grade occupation. Wheat growing appeared to be more profitable than eucalyptus oil production.

Australia dominated the world eucalyptus oil market for over 80 years. Regretfully Australia’s market share then declined to the point where Australia became a net importer of eucalyptus oil. Happily this trend is now being reversed, at least for medicinal oils. Advances in science and technology have been combined to modernise the industry.

By introducing mechanical harvesting and new distillation equipment the cost of production has been reduced greatly. This together with the natural advantages Australia has in having stands of eucalypts with high quality pharmaceutical oils has given the industry an opportunity to again become the dominant supplier in world trade.