Chapter 12
I The First Half Century - The Initial Struggle
II The Second Fifty Years - The Start Of Expansion
i General Conditions
ii Early Iron Production
iii The Effects of the Gold Rush - Ballarat in Particular
iv Gawler - A South Australian Industrial Town
v Railways - A Major Employer
vi Brewing and Soft Drinks
vii Drink Containers
viii Food Containers
III The Third Fifty Years - Federation And The First World War
IV The Fourth Period - Second World War To The Present
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The Effects of the Gold Rush - Ballarat in Particular (continued)
There was an acute seasonal labour shortage each year at harvest time and improved harvesting methods became very important. The reapers and binders introduced in the seventies were still unable to keep farm costs low enough to offset the high cost of grain transport, both to the coast and to Europe. In an effort to stimulate innovation, the Victorian Government offered a prize of £1000, a considerable sum of money in those days, for the first successful machine to harvest grain. Hugh Victor McKay refined an earlier efficient but unreliable harvester that combined stripping and winnowing into a workable, light but strong machine that would deliver grain in bags. The equipment was an immediate success and finally achieved the very low harvesting cost of 1/- per acre.McKay opened up business in Ballarat and Melbourne and produced his unique equipment at a time when vast tracts of north-western Victoria were being opened up. McKay introduced machine production techniques that were ahead of their time. He built a single product to uniform standards and guaranteed the interchangeability of parts by requiring high standards of workmanship from his employees while providing an excellent after-sales service: features some firms are still struggling to achieve today. In 1885, McKay patented the famous Sunshine Harvester.
In Ballarat at this time, secondary industry was expanding rapidly so that employment in industry increased from 142 in 1856 to 1227 in 1869 in 64 factories; 36 per cent of employees were associated with the metal industry. A further idea of the trade developing can be gained from the number of vessels entering the Port of Melbourne, 700 in 1851 and 2600 in 1853. The Clothing industry was also becoming a prominent employer; in 1884, Mrs Eleanor Price of Ballarat opened an underwear factory that was to become the now famous Lucas business many years later.
In 1871, in a further attempt to stimulate manufacturing and to encourage colonial tenders for a new batch of locomotives, the Government in Victoria imposed a 20 per cent tariff on imported steel products. The Phoenix Foundry of Ballarat won this contract and soon dominated Victorian train production. Initially the Government advanced to the Company 90 per cent of the cost of raw materials and by 1882, Phoenix had delivered 83 locomotives and 100 by 1883. As time went on, however, transport costs of raw materials such as steel to Ballarat became excessive and business began to be lost to aggressive Melbourne firms because rail links had then been established.
It is interesting to compare with Ballarat another country town, Gawler in South Australia at about the same period.
Organisations in Australian Science at Work - Phoenix Foundry, Ballarat; Sunshine Harvester Works
People in Bright Sparcs - McKay, Hugh Victor; Price, Mrs Eleanor
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition pages 855 - 856, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/834.html