In my younger days it was people like Alan Bond and Laurie Connell who were the entrepreneurs. Today we might refer to Gina Rinehart and Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest. In the late 19th Century they were people like the Millar family.
John Millar, a civil engineer, was responsible for the construction of the entire Londonderry sewerage system and other Irish public works in the mid-1800s. Coming out to Australia in 1854 he was made responsible for work on Melbourne’s water supply and was later Engineer-in-Chief for Geelong’s Water Supply and Sewerage Commission. In 1863 he moved to New Zealand to carry out several projects.
John’s sons, Charles and Edwin, were also engineers and they came to Australia to build bridges and railways but they were both entrepreneurs. Charles, when he wasn’t yachting, was a timber merchant and a goldmine owner, as was Edwin. They were co-owners of the C and E Millars Trading Company, the Great Southern and Western Railway Company and founders and co-owners of Millars’ Karri and Jarrah Company. The latter came from an amalgamation of several of the timber companies operating at that time.
Their venture into timber comes from the building of railway lines. They needed sleepers. A significant one of these lines in WA was the Beverley to Albany line, built for the WA Land Company. Land grants were a key part of the building of this railway. The Millar brothers started in a small way at Torbay near Albany then later at Denmark in the karri forest. The best wood for railway sleepers was the jarrah found in the more northern forests of the South-West. This led to their focus on Yarloop, firstly with a mill there and then mills in the surrounding forest. The first mill then became the Workshops that maintained and supplied the equipment for these and other mills. About this time they also began to get contracts for jarrah wooden blocks which were used for paving London streets. The sleepers and blocks were sent all over the world such that by the 1920s WA was reputed to be the largest exporter of hardwood in the world.
In the latter part of the 19th Century and in the early part of the 20th Century railway growth in WA was dynamic. Pressure came from the Goldfields and throughout the Wheatbelt. Long distances, inadequate roads and heavy loads made rail the most significant means of transport. By 1904, 1500 miles (2400 km) of line had been laid. Another 2000 miles (3220 km) of line was laid between 1904 and 1919. In 1919 extensions were added to places such as Lake Grace and Ongerup. It soon became possible to travel on rail as a passenger, from Albany to Leonora. This rail didn’t include the 300 miles of line laid by the Midland Railway Company to Geraldton and the hundreds of miles of lines operated by the timber companies. Millars’ railways were reputed to be the largest private railway in the Southern Hemisphere.
All of the lines needed sleepers and the men to cut them, lay them and place the rail on them. My great- grandparents were a part of this. One great-grandfather, in his younger years, was a sleeper cutter before becoming a mill worker. Another two were on the gangs that built and maintained the lines. One of my grandmothers and her siblings were all born in different towns as their father moved with the construction of the south-west line. She was born in Brookhampton.
Entrepreneurs like the Millar brothers provided the backing for these projects, just as our modern ones do, but it is the thousands of skilled workers who make their dreams a reality.
The timber industry began with railways and depended upon them.[1]
A map available from Rail Heritage W.A. showing the thousands of miles of railway lines by 1938.
James Henry Bennett (Harry) 1876-1958 sleeper cutter, tree feller, mill worker at Jarrahdale.
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[1] From ‘The Phoenix Rises Very Slowly’ Part 24 by Allan Ward.