Saturday, February 14, 2026
A plaque to a bread maker
According to this historical marker database, David Ayres Jones was an engineer and inventor of Bakery Machinery, being responsible for creating the Worlds first bread moulder in 1947.
When I worked there in 1963, D. AYERS JONES & CO. LTD., also traded under the name of 'MONO UNIVERSAL BAKERY ENGINEERING CO LTD'. The Managing Director was David Ayres Jones himself who founded the bakery engineering company. He also had a bakery shop in Manselton known as 'MANOR BAKERY ', and if my memory serves me right, the shop was situated in Manor Road, Manselton , within a couple of hundred yards from where 'CLIFF ROWE' the DAIRY had his small milk bottling plant in the yard at the back of his home. Manor Bakery was renowned for its quality bread and fresh cakes baked at the rear of the shop. David Ayres Jones eventually expanded the bakery side of his business, and eventually he opened up a bakery which adjoined the engineering part of the factory on the Queensway, Fforestfach.
I recall a father, and his son named Brian working there. They were both 'Master Bakers' who baked and decorated to a very high standard, birthday and wedding cakes to order, as well as their daily routine of baking bread, doughnuts and various fancy cakes for supply to the shops. Quite often I would attend work twenty minutes before time and would pop into the Bakery Side of the factory for a chat with Brian and his Dad. Being in the bakery with the smell of freshly baked bread and cakes for just those twenty minutes before start of work, were very mouth watering moments; and even at 6.40am in the morning, I couldn't resist the offer of two scrumptious warm donuts pumped full of raspberry jam and covered in sugar. "There we are boy " Brian would say, " You can have those two as they are out of shape " (not up to the standard for selling).
The bakery engineering side of D. AYRES JONES & CO. LTD., manufactured bakery machines which were transfer labelled 'MONO UNIVERSAL' and were distributed on completion by their own lorry to London, and many bakery machines went onward from there to Europe. The machines which were made at the factory 'from scratch' were for various purposes in the process of producing bread and cakes. He employed his own draughtsmen to plan and design the machines and come up with new ideas. David Ayres Jones (Mono Universal) was a one time leader in the manufacture and marketing of bakery machines such as a dough mixers, dough dividers, bread provers, donut makers, pancake makers, and mini moulders for making the perfect shape bun.
I quite enjoyed the description of David Ayres Jones, who when he did pay a visit to his Fforestfach factory, would arrive driving a Rolls Royce. Apparently, it was such a large limousine that his head could barely be seen above the steering wheel whilst driving. Mono Equipment has its own website, which includes an account of its beginnings:
During the Second World War, MONO Equipment's founder and President, Mr D Ayres Jones, was working at the family's bakery in Swansea, South Wales. When his brother was conscripted for war service, and facing acute labour problems, Ayres found it increasingly difficult to manage the increased workload on his own and began contemplating the design of a machine which would mechanically assume the laborious task of moulding the dough before baking.
His dogged determination, combined with his love of engineering, meant that within a short period of time Ayres had designed and built his first bread moulder almost entirely from scrap materials, including parts from an old motor cycle and bits and pieces sourced from a local scrapyard. The parts he couldn't source, he made himself using a small lathe which he had taught himself to use.
In the time-honoured fashion of the day, there was no welding involved in the machine's build as each part was riveted together piece by piece. This post-war 'make-do-and-mend' philosophy helped fire the imagination and creativity of designers and inventors who had to be truly innovative with the limited materials they had available.
The bread moulder was so successful that other bakers in the principality heard of this wonderful new time-saving machine and approached Ayres to make a moulder to help production in their bakeries too. As a result of the genuine interest expressed by local bakers, and those further afield, in 1946 the MONO Universal Bread Moulding Machine went in to commercial production.
It is from such beginnings that commercial empires are built.
