Automatic Totalisators Machine Shop probably Chalmers St. factory

This is one of four photographs that are annotated with N.B with only one full stop, including the two previous images and the following one in the photo gallery. Presumably N.B does not refer to Nota Bene, possibly someone's initials or an abbreviation of a place. Whoever, wherever or whatever N.B is, it seems to group these four photos together, probably by location and possibly time period. How about "New Building", which would be appropriate after the move from Alice St. Newtown to Chalmers St. in the city, which took place in 1933. As I cannot reconcile these four images with those of the Alice Street Newtown factory or those in the Chalmers Street factory in Surry Hills when it had six storeys, the most plausible idea I have is that these images are of the Chalmers Street factory when it only had one storey. According to the 1936 rate book records the number of the assessment book is 21027, the Automatic Totalisators Ltd's factory address is 182/194 Chalmers Street, the name of the Owner or Landlord is Automated Totlisators Limited, it is categorised as factory and offices, it is constructed of concrete, it has one floor and three rooms and has a gross annual value in pounds of 1,759. If the fact that this building is one storey, before it became three storeys and finally six storeys and only has 3 rooms, perhaps these four photos show the three rooms in this building before the additional storeys were added. I am convinced that this image and the following one in the Photo Gallery are one and the same room.

If this photograph does show one of the permutations of the factory building at Chalmers Street, then it is worth considering that there is a similarity with the final six storey building that stood here. Along the right hand edge of the image above a white wooden roof support pillar can be seen. Immediately to the left of the pillar's mid height section a dark oblong section can be seen on the far white wall that has the two windows in it to the left of the dark oblong. I think this could be a closed doorway. At the top left corner of this suspected doorway, there seems to be a projection rising to a circular section that I think could be a door support wheel, which may be part of an opening mechanism, if the wheel runs on a rail parallel to the top of the door. I have looked closer at this wheel in a higher resolution version of the image, but it is not clear if there is a rail. If this is an opening doorway, it and the windows look somewhat like the doorway to Belvoir Street and windows in the final six storey building, clearly seen in the image in the Photo Gallery immediately preceding the first image in this group of four, with the descriptive text starting with This is an image of the Automatic Totalisators Limited factory at Chalmers Street. One thing obviously different between the suspected doorway in the image above and the external view of the doorway in the mentioned image, is that in the outside view the doorway is as tall as the window and that is not the case for the suspected doorway in the image above. In addition the windows extend closer to the ground in the external view image, than they do in the image above and the left hand window in the image above is half the width of what would be the corresponding window second on the right of the door, in the external view. If this is the same doorway in both images then the differences mentioned could well be due to changes that took place during the transition from a single storey building to a six storey building. Even if the single storey building was demolished to make way for the intermediate three storey building and finally the six storey version, this doorway to Belvoir street could have been implemented in the new construction if it had proven useful.

There are several similarities between this and the following image in the Photo Gallery. The two roof beams close together, the column headers supporting the beams and the roof joist lateral bracing look the same in both photos. The combination of what looks like plastered walls and what looks like corrugated iron segments of wall are seen in both images. Additionally there are three lamps with very simple conical shaped lamp shades suspended from a roof beam in the image above. There is the same type of lamp shade seen in the other image following this one in the Photo Gallery. I found The lamp shades visible in the image above with the aid of a high resolution version of it, however it is possible to make them out in the image above if you look carefully. They are installed on the bottom of the second roof beam running across the top of the image, which is the lower of the distant two beams. They are easier to identify if you zoom in on the above image. The first has the bottom of the conical shade almost touching the left hand edge of the photo and is in front of the top visible rung of the ladder leading to the ceiling. This lamp shade hides the right hand half of the top rung of the ladder. The second lamp on the same beam can be seen installed about half the way toward the windows. If you follow the drive belt or possibly control lever, rising from the vicinity of where the worker in the foreground has his right hand, up to the beam in question, the lampshade is to the left of the intersection point with that beam. The third lamp can be seen at the top of the ladder leaning against the wall between the two windows on the right hand side of the image. The bottom of the conical section of the lampshade overlaps a small part of the left hand side rail of the ladder well above the top rung.

The final similarity is a device hanging on the wall in both images, which I cannot identify as to what function it performs, however they are unmistakably the same type of device. This is the most compelling evidence that these two photos were taken in the same building or a partitioned room or even just the same room. At the left hand edge of the photo there is a ladder leaning up to the ceiling, to the right of that there is a near vertical drive belt in the foreground. Near the centre of the drive belt, jutting up against the right hand edge of the belt on the far wall, there is a dark coloured device hanging on it. My immediate impression is that this is a phone, but when I zoom in on it in a higher resolution version of the image, it is not that clear and I cannot recognise it as a phone. The thing is there is sufficient detail to see that it is exactly the same type of device as seen in the following image of the Photo Gallery. At the top of this device there is something illuminated or reflective or at least a lot brighter than the rest of the device. With a large stretch of the imagination it looks a bit like the digits 05. Below that there are three cylindrical objects mounted horizontally across the board. The first is one of two smaller cylinders mounted about half way down the device occupying about two thirds of the width of the device and its right hand end is flush with the right hand side of the device. The next cylinder below is the largest in diameter and again occupies about two thirds of the width of the device and appears flush with the left hand side of the device. The cylinder below this one is the size of the first and appears flush with the left hand side of the device. There is insufficient detail to determine what they are but the only electrical device that comes to mind when looking at them is a coil. This device as with the one in the other photo has what looks like rigid straight segments of wires attached to it. They strike me as being of a gauge similar to that of a coat hangar. The first wire connected to this device runs vertically upwards from top centre into the ceiling. The other one exits the bottom centre of the device and extends downwards for a short distance. It then turns 90 degrees right joined by what looks like some sort of loop. It extends right past the right hand side of the device and continues by about the same distance as the width of the device, where it turns 90 degrees upwards joined by another loop, it then rises vertically and disappears into the ceiling again. The pair of vertical wires from this device can be clearly seen in the image above, near parallel rising into the ceiling. What this device is I have no idea. The wires mentioned look rigid and not like electrical cable. There are what looks like 3 electrical cables exiting the bottom of the device. If it is not a phone perhaps it is some sort of sensing or control device possibly an alarm.

In May 2021 I sent an email to Neville Mitchell, the best Automatic Totalisators Limited company historian I know, to see if he could tell me anything about this image and in particular the mystery device on the back wall that I cannot identify. Following is an extract from his email relating to this device:

I've studied the Machine room and I can't exactly determine what the black item on the back L. H. wall is.

My best guess is : It could be the three phase switch gear for the overhead belt drives? I recall seeing these Power Boxes in my youth they were made by two companies Wilco or Brown and Horden in the early 1900's-1960s

The 3 phase 100 amp switches were in a cast iron housing with the operating lever on the right hand side. The power boards were a common design with the master switch and 3 fuses usually ceramic and both active and neutral links mounted with the switch.

In a following email relating to the image above, Neville responded by sending an email to Howard Miller, who has a wealth of experience working in machine shops. Howard at one time in his long career worked for TEI (Telephone and Electrical Industries), which had a factory across the road from the Automatic Totalisators Limited factory in Meadowbank. This Meadowbank factory was the company's last and it followed the one at Chalmers St. The pertinent extract from Neville's email to Howard reads I wonder if you can identify the machines for me? I just don't recognise any of them.

Howard Miller wrote the following on May 21, 2021 about the image above in response to Neville's question:

Machines are pre me, but we have a shaper mid screen and a huge cast iron block used for bending strap steel around pins.

Raised on steel and scrap. Most of the other machines are too old for even me.

Dirty shop with dirty clothes, plenty of shops like this around when I was an apprentice. Elastic Rail Spike Co, Asquith was even worse than this one. A foot of steel scale was shovelled out each day from forging steel pins for the railway.

One last comment regarding what work is being done in the machine shop in the image above, inspired by Howard's mention of the railway. In 1890, George Julius enrolled in a BSc( Mechanical Engineering) degree course at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand. Because of the contemporary boom in railway construction, he specialised in railway engineering and was the first such engineering student to graduate from this university. Additionally, George commenced his professional career in 1896, going to Western Australia to accept the appointment of assistant engineer on the staff of the Locomotive Department, Western Australian Government Railways. At this time the gold boom was at its height and the Department had many railway lines under construction. George worked for the Department for eleven years and was promoted to chief draughtsman and then engineer in charge of tests. Furthermore, Max Sherrard, the last Director of Julius Poole and Gibson, George Julius' engineering consulting company, confirmed that George worked on the Australian Trans Continental Railway project. It seems to me that George may have had one of his machine shops working on a railway project. Another interesting railway connection to Automatic Totalisators Limited is that I stumbled onto a railway carriage in a remote country town called Peterborough South Australia contstructed by the Meadowbank Manufacturing Company, which I learnt had its factory practically diagonally across an intersection from the Automatic Totalisators Limited factory and head office in Meadowbank. To read more about this railway carriage in Peterborough, click on the image above and scroll to the bottom of the page then scroll up a little to the image of this carriage, the associated text starts with the paragraph above the image.

Sir George Julius made a comment in a 1932 article, which appeared in the Gippsland Times Newspaper relating to Australian workers. The content of this article is made available by the National Library of Australia on its Trove website with the following details:
1932 'HOW THE AUTOMATIC TOTALISATOR WAS INVENTED', Gippsland Times (Vic. : 1861 - 1954), 7 January, p. 3. , viewed 20 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article62691937

Sir George's concluding statement in this article is: These machines have all been built in Australia in almost every detail, and are a tribute to the abilities of the Australian workman.

This comment relates to the standard of work that had been and continued to be performed in the factories of Sir George's company Automatic Totalisators Limited and is probably confirmed by observations relating to his other varied fields of endeavour. In other words, this is a compliment to Australian workmen, particularly the ones working in his factories, like the men in the above image, as well as those in the multitude of staff and factory images, in this website.

The complete transcript of the Gippsland Times article titled How the Automatic Totalisator was Invented appears on this website in the Mechanical Aids to Calculation chapter. To view this, click on the image above. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select the Go to the index menu option in the Nav Bar, then select the Mechanical Aids to Calculation chapter in the Firstly section of the index.