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Sunshine Harvester Works
The Sunshine Harvester Works was an agricultural equipment factory in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded by industrialist H. V. McKay, and engineering development was headed by H. B. Garde.
Having established an agricultural implement works in Ballarat he moved his factory and many of his employees to Braybrook Junction, in 1906, where he had earlier purchased the Braybrook Implement Works (1904). He named the new enterprise the Sunshine Harvester Works after his Sunshine Harvester, which was one of his major products. The name "Sunshine" is assumed to have been given by McKay to his harvester works after he attended a lecture by the American evangelist Reverend Thomas De Witt Talmage who visited Victoria in 1894. Another account holds that the name was suggested by James Menzies, who painted the first model.
Through a revolutionary piece of marketing, this had gained a reputation as the first successful combine harvester in Australia. The factory became the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and, in its early stages, McKay successfully increased the concentration and efficiency of the workers: ‘between 1907 and 1910-11, McKay’s workforce expanded from just over 400 to around 1500’. McKay rapidly expanded the factory to become the largest manufacturing plant in Australia and, at its peak, it employed nearly 3,000 workers. In 1907, following a residents' petition, the locality was officially renamed Sunshine in honour of the factory. Housing for the Sunshine Harvester Works' employees swelled the local population and the town of Sunshine was touted as the "Birmingham of Australia".
The Sunshine Harvester Works was also the site of a protracted industrial dispute in 1907, between McKay and the unions representing the Sunshine workers. While this was based on claims for wages and conditions, McKay also argued that he should continue to receive import protection. The case was heard before H. B. Higgins at the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in Melbourne between 7 October 1907 and 8 November 1907. Higgins heard evidence from employees and their wives regarding conditions at the factory and costs for supporting their families. In the Harvester Judgement, he obliged McKay to pay his employees a wage that guaranteed them a standard of living which was reasonable for "a human being in a civilised community", regardless of his capacity to pay. McKay successfully appealed this judgement, but it became the benchmark industrial decision which led to the creation of a minimum basic wage for Australian workers that dominated Australian industrial relations for the next 60 to 80 years.
By the 1920s, the company was running the largest implement factory in the southern hemisphere, and had led the international agricultural industry through the development of the world's first self-propelled harvester in 1924.[citation needed] At the time of McKay's death in 1926, the factory covered 75 acres (30.4 hectares). In 1930, the Canadian farm machinery manufacturer Massey Harris bought a controlling interest in H.V. McKay Pty Ltd, with the Australian operations of both firms being merged under the title H.V. McKay Massey Harris Pty Ltd. Throughout World War II, H.V. McKay Massey Harris exported 20,000 Sunshine drills, disc harrows and binders to England, to facilitate an increase in food production.
In the 1950s, the McKay family sold out to the newly-formed agricultural implement conglomerate Massey Ferguson, which was a combination of the Canadian and American interests of Massey Harris, and the British tractor firm of Harry Ferguson. However, from the 1970s, when many Australian-based manufacturing industries were experiencing financial difficulties, the business progressively contracted, and most of the factory was demolished in 1992, to make way for the development of the Sunshine Marketplace. The former bulk store, factory gates and clock tower, factory gardens, and head office complex are all listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.
McKay's Sunshine Estate (now the eastern part of the suburb of Albion, part of greater Sunshine) is considered a pioneering development of a company town on the town planning principles of the Garden city movement. The principles of the Garden City movement were first developed in England by Ebenezer Howard in 1898 and re-applied in various contexts and forms.
According to The Oxford Dictionary of Human Geography, a Garden City is "a planned settlement designed to overcome the limitations of both town and country, by combining the best of both in free-standing, self-sufficient communities with ample parkland and public space."
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Sunshine Harvester Works
The Sunshine Harvester Works was an agricultural equipment factory in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded by industrialist H. V. McKay, and engineering development was headed by H. B. Garde.
Having established an agricultural implement works in Ballarat he moved his factory and many of his employees to Braybrook Junction, in 1906, where he had earlier purchased the Braybrook Implement Works (1904). He named the new enterprise the Sunshine Harvester Works after his Sunshine Harvester, which was one of his major products. The name "Sunshine" is assumed to have been given by McKay to his harvester works after he attended a lecture by the American evangelist Reverend Thomas De Witt Talmage who visited Victoria in 1894. Another account holds that the name was suggested by James Menzies, who painted the first model.
Through a revolutionary piece of marketing, this had gained a reputation as the first successful combine harvester in Australia. The factory became the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and, in its early stages, McKay successfully increased the concentration and efficiency of the workers: ‘between 1907 and 1910-11, McKay’s workforce expanded from just over 400 to around 1500’. McKay rapidly expanded the factory to become the largest manufacturing plant in Australia and, at its peak, it employed nearly 3,000 workers. In 1907, following a residents' petition, the locality was officially renamed Sunshine in honour of the factory. Housing for the Sunshine Harvester Works' employees swelled the local population and the town of Sunshine was touted as the "Birmingham of Australia".
The Sunshine Harvester Works was also the site of a protracted industrial dispute in 1907, between McKay and the unions representing the Sunshine workers. While this was based on claims for wages and conditions, McKay also argued that he should continue to receive import protection. The case was heard before H. B. Higgins at the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in Melbourne between 7 October 1907 and 8 November 1907. Higgins heard evidence from employees and their wives regarding conditions at the factory and costs for supporting their families. In the Harvester Judgement, he obliged McKay to pay his employees a wage that guaranteed them a standard of living which was reasonable for "a human being in a civilised community", regardless of his capacity to pay. McKay successfully appealed this judgement, but it became the benchmark industrial decision which led to the creation of a minimum basic wage for Australian workers that dominated Australian industrial relations for the next 60 to 80 years.
By the 1920s, the company was running the largest implement factory in the southern hemisphere, and had led the international agricultural industry through the development of the world's first self-propelled harvester in 1924.[citation needed] At the time of McKay's death in 1926, the factory covered 75 acres (30.4 hectares). In 1930, the Canadian farm machinery manufacturer Massey Harris bought a controlling interest in H.V. McKay Pty Ltd, with the Australian operations of both firms being merged under the title H.V. McKay Massey Harris Pty Ltd. Throughout World War II, H.V. McKay Massey Harris exported 20,000 Sunshine drills, disc harrows and binders to England, to facilitate an increase in food production.
In the 1950s, the McKay family sold out to the newly-formed agricultural implement conglomerate Massey Ferguson, which was a combination of the Canadian and American interests of Massey Harris, and the British tractor firm of Harry Ferguson. However, from the 1970s, when many Australian-based manufacturing industries were experiencing financial difficulties, the business progressively contracted, and most of the factory was demolished in 1992, to make way for the development of the Sunshine Marketplace. The former bulk store, factory gates and clock tower, factory gardens, and head office complex are all listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.
McKay's Sunshine Estate (now the eastern part of the suburb of Albion, part of greater Sunshine) is considered a pioneering development of a company town on the town planning principles of the Garden city movement. The principles of the Garden City movement were first developed in England by Ebenezer Howard in 1898 and re-applied in various contexts and forms.
According to The Oxford Dictionary of Human Geography, a Garden City is "a planned settlement designed to overcome the limitations of both town and country, by combining the best of both in free-standing, self-sufficient communities with ample parkland and public space."
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