The Automobile and Fishermans Bend – Did the Automobile Make Fishermans Bend Or Did Fishermans Bend Make the Automobile?
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Norm Darwin The Automobile and Fishermans Bend – Did the automobile make Fishermans Bend or did Fishermans Bend make the automobile? The name Fishermans Bend1 has always been associated with the Holden car, a car first produced at the GM-H plant in Salmon Street. The Holden was not the first automobile to come from this inner South Eastern Melbourne suburb, where between 1936 and 2017 many thousands of cars, buses, trucks, military vehicles and component parts were made` This paper examines the importance of Fishermans Bend to the Australian automotive industry, and why it evolved into a large manufacturing centre for vehicles and parts. Despite an attempt to turn “The Bend” into a major airport, pre-1936 the area was mostly wasteland with a history of smelly and dirty industries. Its western edge, South Melbourne, had attracted many automobile firms which assembled cars, made motor bodies and auto tyres from the birth of the industry, around 1900, and as the need to expand arrived Fishermans Bend was nearby, a wasteland ready for development with access to both shipping and road transport. The Holden headquarters was one of three major producers to establish production along with two minor assemblers and three large component manufacturers. Accepted brands included Hillman, Humber, Sunbeam, Chrysler, Dodge, Mercedes Benz, Toyota, Austin, Peugeot and Bedford. In addition, thousands of car radiators, pistons, engines and electrical engine accessories were rolled out making Fishermans Bend the Detroit of Australia. Today Fishermans Bend is no longer Australia’s Detroit, the machinery of making automobiles is silent, yet links remain with the past and point to a continued future in design, engineering, training and selling of motor vehicles. 1 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings Is Fishermans Bend simply a forgotten corner of the city? This question is posed by Dr Helen Doyle at the beginning of Life on The Bend.2 From an automotive perspective the answer is definitely No. Fishermans Bend was originally named by John Coode in 1879 after a lone fisherman who lived on a Yarra river bend located at what is now Coode Island. From the 20th century Fishermans Bend, with and without the apostrophe, came to mean the area west of South Melbourne and north of Sandridge (Port Melbourne) to the river. For the purposes of this paper the area discussed is bounded by the Yarra river, Williamstown Road and Ingles Street. It was a wasteland with sand dunes and swamps, used as a dumping ground with the Ingles Street area home to obnoxious industries; boiling down works, tallow factory, glue factory, soap manufacture, manure depot and chemical production.3 The level ground at the end of Graham Street became a private airfield in 1919 and sand merchants carted tons of material for Melbourne’s building works. The motorcar had made an appearance once Williamstown Road was constructed, known as the short road because it reduced the distance to Geelong. Access to the sand dunes became easier.4 In 1928 Barlow Motors used the sand dunes to demonstrate a six- wheeled Guy truck loaded with 3-tons of pig iron.5 This was not the first use of the area for truck tests as the Commonwealth Committee on Mechanical transport tested six British 6-wheeled lorries for the Defence department in November 1927.6 From 1903 the Victoria Golf Club course stretched along the Yarra and it was this crown land that the government targeted. Following agitation in 1931 by local politicians who looked to the development of the area,7 the Vacuum Oil Company considered an oil refinery and it was also suggested it could become Melbourne’s airport. One man was to end speculation. Laurence Hartnett, Managing Director of General Motors-Holden (1931), saw the open spaces as an opportunity to expand the company’s assembly facilities located in nearby City Road, South Melbourne. The purchase of 50 acres of crown land on 2 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings Salmon and Lorimer Streets corner would see the beginnings of Australia’s largest automotive manufacturing and engineering centre, although it was not the first on “The Bend” soil. Industrial settlement at Fishermans Bend was initially concentrated in three locations, Ingles Street, Salmon Street North and Salmon Street South. Ingles Street between Normandy Road and the Yarra river was on the edge of the city and attracted hazardous and noxious producers like Felton & Grimwade, who produced sulphuric acid and Kitchen & Co, who made soap and from the 1930s oil companies moved their depots to Ingles Street: H C Sleigh, Wakefield (Castrol oil), Colonial Oil and Shell.8 In 1923 the Lane brothers ventured to Ingles Street establishing an assembly shop on three acres next to Kitchen & Co. Harry and Robert Lane operated two separate motor businesses, Neal’s Motors (Overland, Hudson, Terraplane) and Lane’s Motors (Morris).9 Within two years R T Lane was a GM dealer and no longer had need for an assembly operation as GM (Aust.) performed this function. Neal’s Motors occupied the Ingles Street area until 1938 when they relocated to a new larger site opposite GM-H in Salmon Street. The south end of Salmon Street first attracted an automotive business in 1939 when Rogerson’s garage was established on the corner of Williamstown Road and Salmon Street. The British and Australian Lead Manufacturers erected a domestic and industrial paint plant on the opposite corner the same year and the Chamberlain family established the Australian Ball Bearing Company in 1941. Opposite the Chamberlains was the Government experimental tank factory; although built at the same time, tank production was quickly located to NSW. In 1946 this factory would form the beginning of Rootes Australia’s manufacturing facility. Smaller companies moved to the east end of Plummer Street, F Armytage’s Overseas Motors began assembly of Singer cars and C C Crosby’s Standard Motors built a service depot. Standards at the same time moved on the Felton & Grimwade site on Rogers Street to begin the assembly of Standard cars. After 1950 T Kelly of Queensbridge Motors & Engineering Company built an assembly (Oliver Tractors and Reo trucks) and pre-delivery plant (Holden) on the Salmon Street corner and National Radiators set up on the opposite corner. 3 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings The early assembly factories arose after 1917 following the introduction of a luxury goods tariff and subsequent impost on imported motor bodies. While the larger motor body producers, Holden Motor body Builders, T J Richards and Melbourne Motor body Company offered local body to chassis assembly, small body shops did not have the space or facilities. This led the distributors to take on the task. Perhaps the first was S A Cheney who erected an assembly line in South Melbourne for Chevrolet cars in December 1920.10 Assembly became further complicated after importers moved to completely knocked down (CKD) packs of chassis parts. It was this change that led many of the larger dealers to begin chassis assembly. Nothing is known about the early assembly operations of Neal’s Motors, Lanes Motors, Queensbridge Motors, Overseas Motors or Standard & Talbot Motors and their early existence has not been previously documented. In three large recent studies of the Fishermans Bend area the automotive industry is confined to the period after 1936 and only consider the large producers, GM-H, Neal’s Motors, AMI/Toyota and Rootes.11 GM-H plant Under Hartnett’s leadership GM-H formed a construction committee comprising Hartnett, manufacturing manager John Storey, chief engineer Norm Pointer and construction engineer Eric Gibson. Hartnett flew over Melbourne to inspect 15 possible sites and having selected Fishermans Bend, his first task was to convince the State Government to sell him the land that was then marked for parks and gardens (1898 Act). It was an attractive site, reasonably flat, Lorimer Street was fully serviceable, the Harbour Trust had recently completed a wharf opposite and a high voltage transmission line crossed the area nearby. 4 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings Figure 1. GM-H November 1936. SLV Construction of the assembly factory was to diverge from the design developed by the American Kahn Brothers and used extensively in Australia up to the 1930s and comprised at least two stories and a reinforced concrete frame12. Gary Vines discusses the change to steel truss, south facing saw-tooth form that became ubiquitous as the international style for car factories after 1935.13 It was this type of structure Gibson used for Holden’s assembly plant. The design of the office building was previously thought to be GM Corporation, lifted from an existing American plant. Two sketches exist, one in GM World shows a typical GM plant and one in Pointers that reflects some of the finished style but is clearly American with the elevated water tank in the background.14 A search of the GM factories in the USA has failed to reveal a similar design.15 Hartnett discusses the plant’s design in his autobiography describing Gibson as “one of the finest construction engineers he had met” and crediting him with the foundation design used to overcome construction issues when building on a sand base. Gibson described his footings as “Camel’s feet” and he had sunk concrete blocks into the sand to test his design.16 Some drawings of the administration building exist in the Victorian State Library and show distinctive trapezoidal prism 5 AHA 2018 Conference Proceedings footings, all are marked “GMH Construction office” checked by Gibson and approved by Storey.17 Figure 2. GM-H head office plan drawing showing foundation footings. Holden Ltd Two other significant buildings exist on the Holden site; a cafeteria erected in 1945 and the Technical Centre in 1964.