Historical Significance: The engineering drawings, research papers and notebooks, and artefacts, are directly associated with the original partners (George Alfred Julius, William Poole, and Alexander James Gibson) of the firm Julius Poole and Gibson Pty. Ltd. The material, though diverse, records the ideas and work of the partners on major projects in the history of engineering/technology in Australia, including the automatic totalisator, the Ultimo Powerhouse, the Department of Engineering (Sydney University), Central Railway Station, Sydney, the Sydney Opera House, materials engineering, and machinery design.

Research and Technical Significance: The range of published papers in this collection, indicates the extent and development of technical subjects that were of concern and interest to the original partners of the firm. For example, the collection includes Julius's important papers on the economic use of Australian hardwoods, labour-saving devices, calculating machinery, and more generally his presidential addresses to the Engineering Association of New South Wales, and The Institution of Engineers, Australia. Gibson and Poole's publications cover the development of construction materials in Australia during the first half of the twentieth century, the development of power, technical education, and a range of general issues of concern to the reflective engineer (for example, the theme of 'Australian engineered products').

Provenance and Associations: All of the items in this collection were produced by either the original or latter partners and directors of the firm, either individually or collaboratively. This singular provenance may therefore be regarded as a unique record of the work undertaken by a distinguished Australian firm of engineers.

Archive, engineering, paper, Julius Poole and Gibson Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia, c 1887-1991

An archive and artefacts comprising design, administrative, legal and financial records generated by the Sydney consulting engineering practice of Julius Poole and Gibson Pty. Ltd, secondary source material such as newspaper cuttings and publications collected by the partners for research purposes, research materials collected in the production of the official history of the practice ultimately published as "Julius Poole & Gibson: the first eighty years from Tote to CAD", Sydney: Julius Poole and Gibson Pty Ltd, 1989, and two artefacts - a Calculating Rule by A.W. Faber in black pull-out card case, and an iron and timber 'branding iron' - which were used by the partners and senior staff in the normal course of business.

The engineering drawings in the archive detail some of the major projects the firm was engaged in from the time of its establishment up to World War II including the Rockhampton Water Supply Scheme and the Australian Estates' Pleystowe and Kalamia sugar mills. Some of the early drawings were executed by the founder of the practice, George (later Sir George) Julius and are signed and dated by him. There are also other items associated with Sir George including membership lists of The Institution of Engineers, Australia, personal copies of some of his published speeches, and the Calculating Rule by A.W. Faber which has the mark of "G.A. Julius" on the inside of the black pull-out card case. The personal notebooks of another original partner in the firm, Alexander Gibson, are also included in the archive and these cover the period from c. 1897 - 1904 when Gibson was first an apprentice engineer with the Thames Iron Works, Ship Building and Engineering Co., Blackwall, London, England, and later a young engineer working in England, China and Australia. The financial records of the practice provide insights into the range of clients Julius Poole and Gibson maintained at various points in its history and the Memorandum and Articles of Association of Julius Poole and Gibson Pty Ltd document the practice's change in legal status to a limited company in 1971. The archive also includes copies of documentation generated during the period when Julius Poole and Gibson was engaged as one of consultants to the Sydney Opera House project. Included in this series of documents are letters from the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, architect to the project, and the Minister for Public Works, The Hon. Davis Hughes, concerning Julius Poole and Gibson's appointment to the project and later their continuing status following Utzon's sudden resignation. The research material collected during the preparation of the official history of the practice provides biographical information about the original partners - George Julius, William Poole and Alexander Gibson - as well as some of the second generation partners. A series of oral history interview transcripts, which were also generated as part of research for the official history, provide detailed information about the background and careers of some of the later partners and directors as well as other senior staff.

Artefacts:

A Calculating Rule by A.W. Faber in black pull-out card case. 'G.A. Julius' appears on the inside.

Iron and timber 'branding iron'. The initials J.P.G. appear on the underside of the hammer.

The design drawings were produced by a number of engineers who worked for the firm, including an early drawing by the founder, George Alfred Julius. A large number of drawings were done during the 1920s and 1930s. During this phase, Julius Poole and Gibson were involved in a number of major projects, including the Rockhampton Water Supply in Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia and Australian Estates' Sugar Mills at Pleystowe and Kalamia, Queensland, Australia.

Where it is applicable, the objects in this collection were 'made' by the personnel of Julius Poole and Gibson Pty. Ltd. It would be convenient, therefore, to provide further detail in this section about the firm, and those members whose work is represented in this collection of artefacts.

Julius Poole and Gibson: The firm was established in 1908 by George Alfred Julius (q.v.) and was located in the Equitable Building, George Street, Sydney. The firm had so much work that, within a year, larger office facilities were found at Norwich Chambers, 58 Hunter Street, Sydney. By 1913, the firm was again forced to find more spacious accommodation, and moved to Culwulla Chambers, Castlereagh Street, Sydney and remained there until 1971 when they moved to 9 Atchison Street, St. Leonards, where they occupied their own building that was built jointly with the architects Rudder, Littlemore and Rudder. In 1988/1989, Julius Poole and Gibson joined with Bass Engineering, North Sydney. The business partnership dissolved in 1993, when Bass did not wish to continue with structural work. There was a mutual agreement that Max Sherrard (q.v.) would continue with structural work under Julius Poole and Gibson, Consulting Engineers. At the time of writing, Sherrard continues to work as Julius Poole and Gibson, Consulting Engineers, while Frank McClelland Matthews (q.v.), Chairman of Directors since 1975, has retired.

Julius Poole and Gibson became a proprietary company on 4 January, 1971. The firm's Memorandum and Articles of Association states "the objects for which the Company is established are: (a) to carry on the practice, profession, or business of consulting engineers in all or any of its branches [with] architects, town planners, designers, and planners of buildings, structures, undertakings, improvements projects, and works of all and every kind and description and (b) to engage such engineers, architects, draughtsmen, surveyors, designers, town planners, managers, accountants, agents and other officers, workmen and servants, as shall be required and found necessary for the proper working of the Company and for carrying on its business in the operations of the same and any one or more at pleasure to discharge and to prepare designs, schemes, plans, drawings, sketches, specifications, estimates, bills of quantity quotations and surveys"(pp. 1-2). The firm's clients included a range of important jobs for the State and Commonwealth Governments.

Listed below is further biographical detail of those whose work appears in the archive, and who were directly responsible for the production of the material or who have contributed significantly to the management of the firm.

George Alfred Julius (1873-1946). Collection = [drawing nos. 200, 201, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 281].

Born in Norwich, England, on 29 April, he was the eldest son of Churchill Julius and Alice Frances. The family moved to Ballarat, Victoria, and then to Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1884 and 1890, respectively, when Churchill Julius was appointed Archdeacon of Ballarat and Bishop (then Primate) of Christchurch. George Julius attended Melbourne Church of England Grammar School and Canterbury College, New Zealand, where in 1896, he graduated B.Sc. (Mechanical Engineering).

After graduation, Julius was first employed as an assistant engineer with the Western Australian Railways until 1907, thereafter moving to Sydney to act as consulting engineer to Allen Taylor and Co., Ltd, timber merchants. In the following year he commenced work on the Automatic Totalisator, the device most closely associated with his name, which in 1913, was installed at Ellersie Racecourse, Auckland, New Zealand. The Julius Automatic Totalisator remained in use until 25 September, 1987, the last being decommissioned from Harringay Stadium, a dog-racing track in London.

Julius had many interests in, and associations with, engineering. He was a modeller who built steam locomotives and famously the 'model city', the remnants of which are held in the Museum's collection (99/11). He was President of the Engineering Association of New South Wales for three terms (1910-1913), the Electrical Association of Australia in 1917, a founder of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (1919), of which he served on the preliminary committee, as a council-member (1919-1940) and as fifth President in 1925. Julius was awarded the Peter Nicol Russell memorial medal in 1927. He worked to establish the Australian Commonwealth Engineering Standards Association (1922), for which he served as President and Vice-President (1926). Julius was Chairman of the Standards Association of Australia between 1929 and 1939 and President of the Australian National Research Council (1932-1937). In 1936, he was appointed Chairman of the Commonwealth Committee on Secondary Industries Testing and Research, which recommended (1937), the establishment of the National Standards Laboratory.

The University of New Zealand awarded Julius their D.Sc. (1940) and he received the W. C. Kernot medal in 1939 from the University of Melbourne. Julius died at his home in Killara, Sydney, on 28 June, aged 73 (For further biographical detail see Corbett, A [1983]. 'Sir George Alfred Julius [1873-1946]', engineer, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 9, 528-529).


William Poole (1868-1929). Collection = ['Presidential Address', Sydney University Engineering Society (1916); 'Manufacture of Cement from Blast Furnace Slag', Australian Institute of Mining Engineers, Vol. 5, 81-100 (1918); 'Limes and Cements', The Institution of Engineers, Australia, Vol. 5, 101-159 (1924).

He was born in Sydney on 9 September, attended Sydney Grammar School, and took private lessons in engineering and architectural drawing. In 1886, he joined the New South Wales Railways Construction Branch (Government Railways of New South Wales), where he held a draughting cadetship drawing rolling stock, railway equipment, and railway structures. Poole completed (1890) his course of study for the B.E.(Civil Engineering) at Sydney University, however the University authorities required him to complete his matriculation examination before being admitted to the first degree. Ten years later, Poole was awarded his Bachelor's degree with honours. He eventually attained the degree of Master of Engineering from Sydney University.

Leaving the University, Poole then qualified as a surveyor finding employment with the New South Wales Department of Water Conservation and Irrigation, where he was an assistant engineer. He carried out investigations on river gauging, water surveys (especially the Murrumbidgee River), and site surveys for locks and weirs along the Darling River. His field work led to important publications on Warren Weir and Distribution Works, Bourke Lock and Weir, Gauging of Rivers, Rapid Preliminary Survey of the Darling River, and Utilisation of Water Resources of Australia.

Poole's intellectual interests were not restricted to engineering. For example, in 1897 he joined Professor Tannatt William Edgeworth David (1858-1934), Professor of Geology in the University of Sydney (1891-1924), on an expedition to the island of Funafuti to test Darwin's theory on the formation of coral atolls. Poole's geological interests led him to be admitted Fellow of the Geological Society, London.

Around 1900, Poole joined BHP and worked as engineering supervisor at the Broken Hill mine for 18 months. This was to be good experience and allowed him eventually to practice as a mining engineer. Poole followed with a stint at BHP's smelter works at Port Pirie, where he was an assistant metallurgist and night superintendent. In 1904 he married, and moved to Queensland where he was Director of the Queensland State School of Mines, Charters Towers. At this stage, he published papers on 'The Treatment of Broken Hill Ores', 'Ventilation in Mines', and 'Notes on the Physiography of North Queensland'. Moving south, Poole was Director, School of Mines, Ballarat during 1912 and 1913, where he introduced and taught a number of courses including hydraulic and irrigation engineering, metallurgy, and mining engineering.

Moving north to Sydney in 1913, Poole joined George Julius in 1914 as business partner, thus establishing Julius and Poole. Like Julius, Poole had many roles outside the office, including President of Sydney University Engineering Society (1915-1917), Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Member and Chair of the Sydney Division of the Institution of Engineers, Member of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and Member of the Board of Examiners of the Institution of Engineers (For additional information, see, Anderson, M. and Cochrane, P. (1989). 'Julius Poole and Gibson, the First Eighty Years: From Tote to CAD', Julius Poole and Gibson Pty Ltd, Sydney).

Alexander James Gibson (1876-1960). Collection = ['An Engineer Looks in on the Pastoral Industry in the Far West', The John Thompson Lecture, October, 1953, The University of Queensland Press, Brisbane; Barraclough, S. H. and Gibson, A. J. (1910). 'Boiler Explosions as Affected by Unsymmetrical Riveted Joints'; Gibson, A.J. (1929). 'Power Development in Australia'; Gibson, A.J. (1933). 'Presidential Address'; Gibson, A. J. (1934). 'Technical Education Commission'; Gibson, A. J. (1914-1918). 'Photo'; Gibson, A. J. and Dare, H. H. (1936). 'Sewer Outfall Investigation'; Gibson, A. J. (1937). 'Presidential Address' (Engineering and Architecture)]. Three Research Notebooks (for the contents of these notebooks, see the separate document that is included in this archive, and which is entitled 'Archival and Artefact Material on Julius Poole and Gibson...' pp. 11-16).

Born in London on 18 December, his early education was had at Alleyn's College of God's Gift (Dulwich College) and his engineering apprenticeship was served with the Thames Iron Works, Ship Building and Engineering Co., Blackwall, London. Gibson was admitted (1899) to Associate Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, and in that year he went to Shanghai, China, to work for S. C. Farnham and Co., where he was involved in shipbuilding and marine engineering generally.

Gibson came to Sydney in 1900, and started work as a fitter and turner at Mort's Dock and Engineering Co. In 1903, he was successful in gaining the post of Assistant Lecturer in Engineering Building and Design at the University of Sydney, and thereafter in 1910 was appointed Foundation Professor of Engineering in the University of Queensland. Gibson designed the engineering laboratories at the University.

He joined the Corps of Australian Engineers in 1904, and the Australian Intelligence Corps four years later, of which he was promoted to the rank of captain in 1910. Gibson returned to England briefly in 1917, where he worked with Professor Henry Egerton Barraclough (1871-1958) on the munitions scheme for the Commonwealth of Australia. Back in Australia in 1918, he was appointed Acting General Manager and Chief Engineer of the Australian Arsenal.

In 1919, Gibson resigned his University Chair to take an appointment as Superintendent of Construction at the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd. (steelworks), Newcastle. In 1922, he joined and became a partner of Julius and Poole. He retained his position as Senior Partner in the firm until 1951. Concurrently, he held varying committee positions concerned with technical education, including Bertram Stevens' Technical Education Commission, Chairman of the Advisory Council of Sydney Technical College, and he provided assistance to D. H. Drummond in formulating the Technical Education Act (1940).

Gibson was also engaged in political activity, especially in his role as President of the All for Australia League, whose aims and objectives were:"purging politics and called for unity; it [All for Australia League] attacked political parties and inept Parliaments" (Antill, J. M. (1981). 'Alexander James Gibson (1876-1960)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 8, 651). Ten year after his dismissal as Premier of New South Wales in 1932, Jack (John) Thomas Lang (1876-1975), characterised Gibson as "a sinister figure, who had sold out to Stevens at the price of becoming a consulting engineer to the government, and accussed him of having put the Government to unnecessary expenditure on Burrinjuck Dam (For a brief account of the controversies over the Burrinjuck Dam and the spill from the floods of 1925, see, Anderson and Cochrane (1989, 34-36).

The University of Queensland awarded Gibson an honorary M.E. (1919). He was the President of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (1932), and the P.N. Russell medalist (University of Sydney) [1940].


John Max Sherrard (b. 1935).

Born on 18 May, 1935, Potts Point, Sydney, Sherrard attended Kensington Public School between 1941 and 1947 and Sydney High School, where he matriculated in 1952. He went to the University of Sydney and graduated with a B.E. (Civil Engineering) in 1956. His father, Howard Macoun Sherrard, an engineer and Commissioner of the New South Wales Department of Main Roads, encouraged his son to seek a career as an engineer.

After graduating from the University, Sherrard worked with the survey team and concrete controllers during the construction of Warragamba Dam. Eighteen months later, he left for England where he joined Ove Arup and Partners, working on, among other projects, concrete structural design for Imperial College, London. After 15 months, Sherrard left Ove Arup and travlled to Canada where he found employment with Zurich Consultants, Toronto, and then with Carruthers and Wallace, another Canadian firm. It was during his time at Carruthers and Wallace that gave Sherrard "confidence in structural design" (Anderson and Cochrane, p. 62).

Sherrard returned to Australia, via Japan, in 1961, to work for Macdonald Wagner and Priddle, Consulting Engineers on a range of structural work that was to include aircraft hangars, universities, factories, and the two thirty-storey Housing Commission flats at Waterloo, Sydney. He joined Julius Poole and Gibson in 1974.

Frank McClelland Matthews (B. 1930)

Born on 4 May at Hornsby, Sydney, Matthews attended Artarmon and Gordon primary schools, and North Sydney Technical High School where he gained his Leaving Certificate in 1947. He was, from a very young age, fascinated by the nature of electricity and electrical devices and by the time he was attending secondary school he had decided to pursue a career in electrical engineering.

In 1947, he joined the Maritime Services Board as a cadet engineer and concurrently enrolled in the Electrical Engineering Diploma at the Sydney Technical College, Ultimo. During his time at the Board, Matthews worked on electrical installations for dockyards, wharves, and ports. After graduating from the College, he joined the South Australian Mines Department, where he held the position of Assistant Electrical Engineer at Radium Hill, located 50 miles west of Broken Hill. Radium Hill was Australia's first uranium mine. Matthews supervised the construction, maintenance, and operation of all the electrical installations at the mine and in town.

While he was at Radium Hill, Matthews prepared himself for the Local Government Engineer's Certificate, which he obtained in 1953. Thereafter he joined the Ulan County Council in western New South Wales (a large area comprising many towns between Mudgee and Coonabarabran). Interestingly, Ulan County Council was, at that time, building a power station, which was to be the last Council-built power station to be erected before the Electricity Commission of New South Wales (as it was then named), took control of all power generation in New South Wales.

In 1955, Matthews joined Julius Poole and Gibson. He was appointed an Associate in 1963/4, a Partner in 1966, a Director in 1971, and Chairman of Directors in 1975.

The material has not been exchanged. The owners have historically been the engineers who have, at various periods, worked at Julius Poole and Gibson Pty Ltd.

Each engineering drawing has the initials of the drawer and file reference number on it. The A.W. Faber calculating rule is signed 'G.A. Julius' and the 'branding iron has 'JPG' (Julius Poole and Gibson) stamped on its base.

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