File:Workmen in locomotive fitting shop (5570146537).jpg

General Information

Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication.

Part Of: Powerhouse Museum Collection

General information about the Powerhouse Museum Collection is available at www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database

Persistent URL: www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=371008

Acquisition credit line: Gift of Clyde Engineering Pty Ltd, 1988

Photograph of locomotive fitting shop with parts for locomotive Q14

Made 1900-1909

This is a photograph of workers in the locomotive fitting shop of Clyde Engineering Pty Ltd in the Sydney suburb of Granville. A group of men are erecting a weight shaft and link motion for what is believed to be a 4-8-2, Q class steam locomotive for the Tasmanian Government Railways. The men can be seen holding various tools while the workshop’s overhead line shafting, which ran machines, is in the right background.

The photograph has been printed from a rectangular black and white silver gelatine glass negative in landscape format. It is part of the Clyde Engineering collection of photographs. Almost all of the glass plate negatives in the Clyde photograph collection were taken at the Clyde works in Granville, and depict both the workers and the machinery they manufactured. Collectively they show the Industrial Revolution at work in Australia. Subjects covered include: railway locomotives and rolling stock; agricultural equipment; large engineering projects funded by Australian State and Federal governments; airplane maintenance and construction and Clyde’s contribution to the first and second World Wars. Some photographs date back to the 1880s but most were taken between 1898 and 1945.

This collection of photographs is an archive of national significance due to its unique relationship to the industrial technology, engineering and commerce of New South Wales. In Australia few collections of this nature have survived to the present day, especially ones which cover one company’s activities from the 1880s through to the 1950s in such depth.

The photographs are also significant in their illustration of the important contribution made by Clyde Engineering to the social fabric of New South Wales. By 1923 Clyde had 2,200 employees working round the clock on eight hour shifts. Some of these lived in houses specially built by the company in Granville and the works had its own fire brigade, ambulance service, gun club and was home to Australia’s first soccer club.

References

‘Phoenix to the World; the Story of Clyde Industries and Sir Raymond Purves’, Murray, J, CBE, Playright Publishing Pty Ltd., 1992

‘Catalogue of General Engineering, Section 1, No 1’ Clyde Engineering Company Limited. 1904

‘The Clyde Engineering Company Limited, Visit to Clyde Works of the delegates of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire, 21 September 1909’, Cumberland Argus Printing Works, 1909?

‘Steam Locomotives Built by the Clyde Engineering Co. Pty. Ltd., Granville, Australia’, Australian Railway Historical Society, New South Wales, date unknown

Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator, Total Asset Management Project, February, 2008

Ken Williams, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences Volunteer, under the supervision of Margaret Simpson, Curator