sawmills and timber tramways in south east · pdf filesawmills and timber tramways in south...

Sawmills Report for Department of Environment 15 John Kerr January 1998

Sawmills and Timber Tramways in South East Queensland:An Overview

Development of the Saw

The sawmill is a comparatively recentphenomenon, a product of technologicalchange. The use of stone and the manufactureof bricks for building were more highlydeveloped before logs could be efficientlyconverted to dressed timber. Effective use oftrees required more sophisticated tools thanother building materials. The use of timberadvanced slowly from fuel consumption tobuilding construction. As tools and skillsdeveloped, logs were no longer used simplyin their round debarked state, but weresquared, split and sawn.

The long transition has been recordedsuccinctly in a conference paper by HiramHallock.1

Saws have been used by people for ten orhundreds of thousand years. Next to flintspear and arrow points, saws are believed tobe the oldest human invention and to havemade possible the development of wheels.The early ones were made of flint and blackobsidian lava. These prehistoric saws, gen-erally in the range of 3 to 20 centimetres inlength, remained in use into the bronze age tosome 6000 years before the present. Theywere mostly used to cut bone, wood and hornfor ornaments. The saws were thick and easilybecame wedged in the cutting groove. Thisproblem proved insoluble before the age ofmetals although saws have been found of flintor obsidian chips set in a grooved wooden orstag handle with natural asphalt. Islandcommunities used shark's teeth and the snoutof saw fish for saws.

The first Egyptian metal saws were made ofcopper, bronze and rarely iron. One very earlyone was found in Iraq in the area whichproduced the earliest obsidian saws. Theearliest hardened copper saws have beendated at 4900 BC but the technology used toproduce hardened copper has been lost. Thesesaws were usually convexly curved and theteeth were neither raked nor set.

Consequently the saws cut on both the pushand pull stroke. A major early use was cuttingcoffin boards.

By around 4000 BC the Egyptians had saws2.5 metres long of two types, for cutting woodand for stone. It appears that wedges wereused to force open the cut and reduce thebinding as the saw penetrated deeper into thecut.

The Bible has references to saws in the periodaround 1000 BC. In 2 Samuel 12, Davidconquered the town of Rabbah and "took itsinhabitants and set them to work with sawsand other iron tools, sharp and toothed, andmade them work in the brick kilns", atechnique reportedly used in all the cities ofthe Ammonites. King Solomon, in buildinghis own palace, used heavy blocks of stone"hewn to measure and trimmed with the sawon the inner and outer sides." Theconstruction of the temple records extensiveuse of cedar, cut to specifications and alsocarved.2

The use of iron and steel was a major ad-vance, introduced between the ninth and fifthcenturies BC. The Romans led in thedevelopment of the Iron Age from about 500BC to 80 AD. The iron saws had teeth rakedtowards the handle so that the saw cut only onthe pull stroke although crosscut sawscontinued to be unraked. The setting of teethwider than the blade to overcome the bindingproblem was introduced. Some smaller sawswere made to taper to the back to helpovercome the problem of pinching. The earlymetals were soft compared with today's steels.The frame saw was developed to reduce theproblems with the blades bending andbuckling. The first saws just had a handle atone or both ends.


Technology of the Sawmill

Hand-sawing Methods

The sawmill is a comparatively recent de-velopment. The traditional procedure forconverting logs to lumber was by pit sawing.In its simplest form, a pit was dug about 1.8metres deep, a metre wide and slightly longerthan the felled log. A number of small supporttimbers were placed across the pit and the logrolled on the timbers over the pit. Two menworked the saw. The top man or top dogsawyer stood above the log and pulled thesaw up after each down stroke. The lowerman, or underdog, pulled the saw down onthe cutting stroke and became covered insawdust and, in warm countries, endured hotand sweaty working conditions. When thesaw reached each of the supporting timbers, ithad to be moved lengthwise before cuttingresumed.

This method of handling logs minimised thedifficulty of transporting heavy logs. Thewaste was left in the forest, and the pitsawwas an efficient method when all sawing wasmanual. Sawpits coexisted with sawmills andsupplied local needs where there was noconvenient sawmill. Variations of sawpitdesign included the use of elevated platforms,usually on a hill side. In another form the logwas propped up at about 45 degrees over asupport and the saw was used more or lessparallel to the ground. These variations andthe adoption of sawing frames improvedworking conditions and saved digging.

The First Power Sawing

The earliest sawmill dates from around 1200AD. The term is commonly used to distin-guish enterprises with powered saws ratherthan just hand saws for cutting. In the firstsawmills, the power came from water, windor treadmills, worked by animals or by humaneffort. The earliest known sawmills includeone near Augsburg, Germany and millsestablished by the Portuguese on the island ofMadeira. Norwegians were building sawmillsin 1500 and Swedes were building them by1650. Most of the early mills had a single sawin a frame although a gang-type frame with

multiple saws was built in Holland about1575.

The mechanisation of sawing naturally pro-duced opposition from sawyers who feared aloss of jobs. Violence was used by pit sawyersto prevent a Dutchman from starting a millnear London in 1663. In the United States in1803, a steam-powered sawmill wasdestroyed by sawyers despite a severe labourshortage at the time.

The first sawmill in the United States wasbuilt in Maine in the 1620s. Sawmills spreadrapidly and soon every town acquired a mill.Sawmills followed the frontier. By 1810 therewere 2541 sawmills in the United States andover 20,000 in 1860. Queensland, by then,had just four steam sawmills.

Development of the Log Carriage

Sawmill mechanics developed from themiddle ages. The log carriage and its fittingssoon became almost as important as the saw.The log carriage was essential for controllingthe position of the log, and ensuring it wasfed smoothly and steadily and to ensure thecut had the required degree of accuracy. Thelength of the carriage, the stability of its trackand the ability to precisely and firmly positioneach log were just as limiting in the quality ofcutting as the saw itself. In the 19th century,the horizontal carriage which held the log,moved along the mill floor with rack andpinion drive by using ratchet wheels driven bythe motion of the saw frame. The carriagecommonly was fitted with flanged cast ironwheels and ran on iron or steel rails.Advances in this area have transformedsawmills from producing rough boards, whichoriginally compared unfavourably with theoutput of skilled pit sawyers, to computer-controlled precision. The computer calculatesthe positions of the whole set of cuts for eachlog individually to minimise waste andmaximise the value of timber productsextracted from each log.


From Reciprocal to Continuous Sawing andReplaceable Teeth

The original mechanical saws were of re-ciprocating action, reproducing the movementof the hand saw. The development of thecircular saw was a major advance. Its inventoris unknown although a patent was issued toSamuel Miller in England in 1777. There is,however, no evidence that he ever made acircular saw, but the idea was soon taken up.Walter Taylor was using a circular saw in1781 to fill a contract with the Royal Navy toproduce parts for ship construction. Theengineer and inventor, Sir Marc Bruneldesigned and patented many sawing machinesfor ship timbers as warfare again spurredtechnology. One invention was the log cutoffsaw, a circular saw which travelled around alog, and thus could cut a log with a diameteralmost as large as the saw, instead of beinglimited to cutting logs less than half theirdiameter.

Manufacturing and tempering thin steel discsand making high speed bearings were majorproblems in the 19th century. The rim speedsof 4000 feet per minute, although less thanhalf that of modern saws, were very fast forthese poorly balanced untensioned heavyplate discs with roughly punched teeth.

The tensioning of saws was developed in theearly 1800s along with grinding equipment toproduce saw plates with a smooth surface andeven thickness which greatly improvedcircular saw performance. By the 1860scircular saw technology had developedenormously. Teeth wear remained a majorproblem. Each sharpening reduced thediameter of the saw and hence the maximumsize of timber that could be cut. The obvioussolution was to design replaceable teeth.Although the first patent dated from 1824, apractical, economical and safe solution tookhalf a century of trial and error. The firstsuccessful invention was by Warren Miller ofBrooklyn, USA. He sold it to Robert Hoe andthe idea was patented in 1878. This inventionwas rapidly adopted and used the single circlepattern, now known as the Hoe pattern. Theother type, also the basis of designs in usetoday, was patented by George Simonds of

Massachusetts in 1885 and has parts of twocircles which are not quite concentric. In bothdesigns the teeth are held in by compressionand in the Simonds design, by a cam actiondue to the offset in the centres of the circlesas well.

The invention of the bandsaw, comprising anendless loop of steel fitted with teeth, datesfrom 1808, and is credited to WilliamNewberry of London. It was very effective incutting but its main problem lay in thetechnology used to join the two ends to formthe continuous band. Forge welding was usedat first. The life of these band saws wasuneconomically short as the join could notstand the constant flexing at high speed. Inthe 1860s joining by a long scarf joint becamepracticable. The band saw was widelyadopted in the 1870s and 1880s and its userapidly spread. It was particularly valuable incutting old logs with large diameters. Theproblem of fracturing bands was reduced byan 1858 invention which enabled one of thewheels to float on springs. This coped withthe expansion and contraction of the bandwhile cutting.

Steam power was the key to high productionvolumes and productivity. It underpinned therise and importance of sawmills in the 19thcentury, especially in the United States. Withso many large virgin forests awaitingexploitation, timber became a cheap andabundant building material. The demandstimulated great advances in sawmillingtechnology. By 1900 there were several millsin the United States cutting a million boardfeet or more daily with fast and accurateequipment. Once the major problems hadbeen overcome, there was little pressure toimprove on this level of performance. Therewere few major changes in technology fromthe late 19th century until after World War II.Then, increasing labour costs brought aboutthe need for change to improve productivityand, as log values increased, to reduce waste.3

Steam-powered sawmills were well-devel-oped by the time gold discoveries gaveAustralia its major economic surge andpopulation growth. Until then hand-sawingwas the rule and power sawing the exception.


It took more development before the earlysawmills and especially the band saw wasdeveloped to deal effectively with Australianhardwoods. It is only in the last half-centurythat widespread use of kiln drying hasremoved the prejudice resulting from thewarping characteristics of air-driedhardwoods. These factors combined to placeheavy pressure on the softwood forests.

Basic Layout of the Sawmill

Commonly the sawmill was built in a longshed with a single peaked roof running thelength of the shed. Usually the roof wassupported on upright round posts with nowalls or cladding in many small mills.Sometimes one side of the sawmill wasextended by a lean-to increasing the width ofthe mill to provide room for an extrasawbench or storage or dressing machinery.

The length of the sawmill at minimum istwice the length of the longest logs handledby the mill. Alongside one half of one longside is usually a log storage area and gentlysloping ramp along which each log can berolled onto the log carriage running ontramway rails and fitted with devices varyingfrom simple to sophisticated to hold the logfirm as it is drawn into the main circular sawin the centre of that side of the mill whichperforms the initial breaking down. Thiscircular saw was the largest in the mill, largerenough to make this primary cut in the largestlog. Larger or newer mills with a band sawhere were able to cut the largest logs.

On the opposite side of the main or No.1sawbench was usually a second log carriagerunning on tramway rails to accommodate thecut log. From here there were usually a seriesof skids, slightly sloping as required, acrosswhich half logs could be stored and pushedonto the carriage leading to the nextsawbench. This could be another single sawor often a gang saw with a series of adjustablereciprocating saws cutting up the log into aseries of boards of the desired thickness orthicknesses. This bench also had a vehiclerunning on tram rails to take the sawn boardsand possibly leading to further skids andpossibly another tramway leading to a bench

for trimming the boards to the desired width.The remaining space was used for storage orother small benches for cutting into requiredlengths or preparing waste timber for thefurnace.

Because of the risk of fire, the main boilerand engine were often separated at least to adegree from the main sawmill shed. Theengine was commonly equipped with a largeflywheel, the energy stored in the flywheelenabling the saws to make major cuts with aminimum loss of speed. Power from theengine was transmitted by belting to a mainaxle fitted with a number of pulleys fromwhich belts were used to drive the individualsaws. Clutches were provided to enable sawsto be disengaged. Often the main pulleys werea roof height but in other designs they werearranged to be below floor level, a saferarrangement because of the danger fromcontact with belts moving at high speed.

Commonly there was provision to remove thesawdust collected under the saws and take itto a central point away from the mill. It was adifficult commodity, generally without amarket, difficult to burn and yet always liableto ignite especially if mixed with air.

Australian Resources and the Convict Era

The timber resources of the Australiancontinent were fashioned by its origins in thebreak-up of the original Gondwana land, as itbroke off from Antarctica. Australia was leftbehind by drift northwards of Europe andAsia and separated from Africa and theAmericas. After New Zealand broke free itsplate pushing under eastern Australia formedthe Great Dividing Range which is a majorfactor in rainfall and hence in forestdistribution. Australia became the majorhome of eucalypts although significantamounts of native pines also flourished.Before annexation by Britain, Aboriginalburning practices had promoted the survivalof fire resistant trees, reduced the size andvariety of forests, and producing openparkland which increased the yield of gameanimals. Ice-age climate cycles wereresponsible for both the retreat of rainforest


and its replacement by eucalypt savanna, andfor the reversal of this sequence.4

Centuries of increasing exploitation of itstimber reserves saw Britain, and otherEuropean colonising powers, looking to theNew World to provide timber supplies. Theneed for timber, particularly for the expand-ing navy, was a factor in the settlement ofAustralia.

Although this need was not particularly metby the Australian colonies, exploitation - andneedless destruction of timber - started almostimmediately each colony was founded,largely for local needs. The Norfolk Islandpines proved not to be the rich resources formasts expected and the harsh convictsettlement there was actually abandoned for aperiod.

As timber provided an effective means ofrapid construction, priorities were placed onexploration of the timber resources and thenexperimentation to put them to effective use.The major problem encountered aroundSydney was the difficulty of cutting thereadily available red gums. Instead, she-oakswere used as bush timber to frame simplehuts. Cabbage tree palms provided long evenslabs that covered huts quickly. The she-oakswere easily split for roofing shingles. Thesetimbers had only a short life. Blue gum wassound for construction purposes and ironbarkand stringy-bark were readily split anddurable, although the problems of cracking,shrinking and twisting as the timber driedwere problems awaiting solutions.

Settlers used axes, mauls and wedges to cutslabs for their huts. They used broad axes forsplitting shingles for roofing, and palings forwalls and fences.

A most significant discovery was made in1790, possibly by Tench, when he identifiedstands of red cedar along the HawkesburyRiver. Further stands of this ideal Australiantimber were discovered along other coastalrivers. It was durable and easily worked, anduseful for the whole range including joinery,fittings and furniture. The early settlement ofVan Dieman's Land, now Tasmania, led to the

discovery of Huon Pine, another useful timberwhich was particularly adapted for boatbuilding.

Convicts provided the labour supply neededbefore steam sawmills became common whileat the same time felling, hauling and workingtimber provided a means of imposing thediscipline of hard labour on convicts.Valuable resources were squandered.

The convict labour force was employed to felltrees with axes, cut the logs into lengths androll, draw and even carry them to sawpits.These first sawpits were substantial, centrallylocated, and provided timber for publicbuildings in the new convict colonies. As thedistances for dragging logs grew, theemphasis changed to building more numerousbut less elaborate sawpits. As punishmentwas integral to the convict regime, there wasno incentive to reduce effort, althoughincreasing production was important.

Convicts who had sawing skills tried to hidethat fact. The sawpits were designed for hardlabour. The more recalcitrant prisoners weresent, at various times, to Norfolk Island,Newcastle, Macquarie Harbour, Port Arthurand Moreton Bay where they could be kepthard at work.5

The discovery of new stands of cedar pro-pelled the spread of settlement north andsouth of Sydney. The pioneering free andenterprising sawyers were the first whitesettlers in many areas of the north coast ofNew South Wales and later Queensland. Theimportance of cedar to the colony and itsrapid exhaustion in areas near Sydney stim-ulated the first regulation of timber getting. AGeneral Order in 1802 forbad its cuttingwithout permission of the governor. Thepenalties included seizure of any illegally cutlogs. For the next half century, there were asuccession of moves to control the trade,which, in private hands, also producedvaluable export income. A number of timbermerchants sent sawyers far beyond the limitsof government infrastructure, engaging orpurchasing their own ships to bring the logsto their mills. They hired and despatchedgangs of sawyers to cut, saw and cart the


timber to accessible loading places for shipsawaiting cargoes.

While the Sydney Morning Herald waslamenting the wholesale plunder of cedar bymore than 200 sawyers on the Macleay River,more had been discovered on the Nambucca,Bellinger and Richmond Rivers.6 Cedargetting soon extended into what is nowQueensland.

The First Australian Sawmills

Peter Degraves, born in England in 1788,decided to emigrate in 1820. In partnershipwith his brother-in-law Hugh McIntosh, heimported Australia's first sawmill, reachingHobart, after lengthy delays, in April 1824.He selected a site at the Cascades on the southeastern slopes of Mount Wellington, now apart of suburban Hobart. He began operatingthe mill in August 1825, having timber closeat hand, a nearby market and adequate waterpower to drive the mill.7

The mill imported to Western Australia byJ.H. Monger in 1833, only four years after thefoundation of the Swan River Colony,appears to have been Australia's first steamsawmill.8 It was a multi-purpose mill, used forboth crushing corn and sawing logs. As thesteam boiler and steam engine were thenmajor capital items, it was not uncommon tohave a single power plant used for multiplepurposes. (Several decades later, a number ofsugar mills also had saw milling equipmentused to cut timber in the off-season, thusproviding an extra income while clearing theland for more cane.)

The first New South Wales sawmill was asteam mill erected in Bathurst Street, Sydney,and operating in 1838.9

Monger and Hurlstone, builders, set up thefirst Victorian sawmill in Melbourne - in1839 or 1840 - but it may have been poweredmanually. In this case, John Manton's sawmillwas the first steam sawmill. He used asecond-hand steam engine purchased from theVan Dieman's Land Company at Stanley innorthern Tasmania. He opened his sawmill inJanuary 1841. Alison & Knight imported a

steam engine from England in 1840 and hadtheir sawmill working in central Melbourne afew months later.10

The first sawmill was operating in SouthAustralia in 1848, despite its limited forestresources.11

Although timber supplies near the capitalcities were quickly depleted, the ability tobring logs by ship, and later by rail, main-tained the concentration of mills in the capitalcities for many decades. They were soonsupplemented by rural mills. Possibly the firstone was on Dr. Gaunt's property, nearLaunceston, powered by a high pressuresteam engine. Its vertical saws and circularsaws were used to cut cedar.12 As Launcestonlong rivalled Hobart as the major centre forTasmania, it was scarcely rural. By contrastthe mill erected by William Robertson byBarringo Creek in the Macedon Ranges northwest of Melbourne, was rural. It was drivenby water power, apparently commissioned in1844 and operated until 1875.13

When Pettigrew's steam sawmill beganoperating in Brisbane in 1853, the MoretonBay settlement was still a part of New SouthWales. Sawmill development in Queensland,although lagging behind the other states,developed rapidly in line with its population.The early mills relied on water transport toprovide raw materials and in many cases totransport their output.

The Moreton Bay Settlement

On 1 December 1823 John Oxley sailed upthe Pine River (naming it Deception River)and observed stands of hoop pine which hecalled cypress. Next day he entered theBrisbane River and saw more hoop pine, from30 to 40 metres high. Away from the riverflats he noted open grazing country which heassessed as having useful stands of goodtimber. Based on Oxley's encouraging report,the new convict settlement was established inSeptember 1824, first at Humpybong(Redcliffe), moving to what became Brisbanein May 1825. Timber-getting was one of theearliest activities at the settlement, with aparty of convicts cutting bloodwood up the


Pine River but also taking blood, when aguard shot an Aborigine to assert thecoloniser's right to exploit the timberresources.14 The first commandant's houseerected at Redcliffe was brought from Sydneyready-cut, although the absence of key pieceshad to be remedied by using the sawyers tocut "weather boards, scantling and raftersfrom the blue gum of these forests."15

The official settlement had been preceded bythree castaway timber getters, ThomasPamphlet and John Finnegan, and RichardParsons. The first convict party sent north in1824 included three sawyers, ThomasWarwick and William Francis both classed asvolunteers, and Robert Humphries, recordedin an alternative source merely as alabourer.16

One of the earliest activities at the Brisbanesettlement was the creation of a lumber yard,initially used to protect supplies of timbersent from Sydney. One was established in theblock now bounded by North Quay, Queen,George and Adelaide Streets after the militarybarracks were moved in 1831. Some remainswere located and partially excavated in1997.17

To exploit local timber, large saw pits wereerected a little upstream from the lumberyards, beside the river on what is now NorthQuay in the vicinity of today's Turbot Street.The pits were 50 feet long, 24 feet wide andhad a thatched roof to give protection fromthe sun. Logs appear to have been broughtthere by water transport. It was in operationby 1826 and the sawyers William Francis,Thomas Warwick, John Brierton and WilliamSmith were sawing both pine and hardwoodfor public use.18

As the timber close to hand was cut out,gangs of convicts were soon employed cuttingcedar along the Brisbane, Logan and TweedRivers for shipment to Sydney. Logs werefloated down river but as well sawpits wereestablished. Timber was the principal materialfor most of the buildings in the settlement.Sheets of bark, which Aborigines were skilledat harvesting, often served as cheap roofingmaterial, kept in position by saplings. The

opening of Brisbane to free settlement in1842 expanded the opportunities forexploiting and exporting timber. Althoughsawing was no longer used as punishment, thebasic methods remained those of manuallabour in felling and sawing. Sawn timberwas, however, also imported from Sydney.19

William Pettigrew, born at Burton, Ayrshirein 1825, and trained in surveying, arrived inBrisbane on the Fortitude in January 1849 asan employee of J.D. Lang's CookslandColonisation Company. After the companycollapsed, he worked for Stephen Simpson ofWoogaroo, as a surveyor. Following adisagreement, he left Simpson at the end of1851, and bought land beside the river inWilliam Street, Brisbane. With £200 ad-vanced by his brother, Robert, he beganerecting a sawmill, first building a shed 80feet long and 24 feet wide to house it. He alsobuilt his own wharf. These works occupiedmost of 1852.

After preparing to erect a chimney 40 feethigh, and studying available literature onsawmills, Pettigrew went to Sydney inFebruary 1853. He visited local sawmillswhile waiting for his own sawmill. It arrivedin Sydney in March. Pettigrew travelled northwith the machinery, which was insured for£1300. It was landed from the Palermo on 25April 1853 and sawing commenced at thenew mill on 28 June. Pettigrew had bought abullock team of his own and contracted withbullock drivers to bring timber to the mill.The timber came from Seventeen Mile Rocks,around Woogaroo (Wacol-Goodna), Moggilland from as far as Wivenhoe. The river wouldhave been used for the greater part of the haulto the sawmill.20 Despite setbacks, includingdestruction by fire, the sawmill operated formore than 40 years, and provided much of thetimber used in early Brisbane buildings.

Moreton Bay's second sawmill was con-structed by Cox and Robert and WalterBirley, on the south side of the river, atKangaroo Point. It commenced work in 1857.Cox retired from the partnership in 1865. Thismill likewise operated for decades.21


Near Ipswich, in the Bundamba area, andfronting the Bremer River, Joseph Flemingestablished an industrial complex in the mid-1850s, comprising a steam flour mill, steamsaw mill, boiling down works, brick works,wharf and cottages for 300 workers.Construction was supervised by DavidRodger from Sydney. The flour mill wasreportedly commissioned in 1856, and poss-ibly the sawmill at the same time. The sawmill adjoined the flour mill and had a verticalsaw frame able to cut logs four feet (1.2metres) diameter and two circular saw ben-ches plus turning lathes, all driven by a 25horsepower steam engine.22

These three mills supplied local needs untilseparation on 10 December 1859. Thenumber of mills expanded substantially in the1860s, with several new mills built atMaryborough, and at other coastal localitieswith good access to the sea. The exceptionwas the Darling Downs where there was asubstantial local market close to standingtimber. In the main, sawmills were locatedwith good water access and close to themarket rather than close to the raw resource.This continued to be the practice for morethan half a century, with shipping and thenrail transport the chief means of bringing logsfrom the forest to the saw mill.

Development in Queensland post Separ-ation

The population of Queensland expandedrapidly after separation in 1859, doubling andredoubling at less than ten year intervals forthe rest of the century. Timber was abundantand the major building material. The mildclimate in most of the colony provided littlestimulus for building in stone and brick.Timber, and then timber and iron inconjunction, were the main building ma-terials. The timber industry developed to meetthe growing demand. The sawpit continued toprovide a substantial portion of buildingtimber. Only as sawmills gradually spreadthroughout Queensland did the use of sawpitsdecline and end. Sawyers continued to cut uplogs in this manner until machine sawntimber was more competitive after adding thecost of transport to the point of consumption.

Given the relatively high cost of transportrelative to the market value of the timber, itwas natural that pit-sawing remained in vogueon the edge of settlement for some decades.

The export of significant volumes of logs tothe southern colonies, through to the 1880s,represented a loss in terms of retarding thedevelopment of sawmilling in Queensland.Cedar, hoop pine and other rain forest specieswent south, especially to Victoria. Some wasdirect exploitation, with Victorianentrepreneurs financing teams to cut and raftcedar and chartering ships responsible fortaking much of the cedar from the Daintree inthe 1870s.

William Pettigrew expanded his Brisbanesawmilling interests and as a result, his milland to a lesser extent Birley Brothers millsupplied the bulk of the growing market inthe Brisbane area. Gladwell and Greatheadopened the first steam sawmill atMaryborough in 1861. Within a year Petti-grew moved to establish his own Dundathumill and village downstream. Maryboroughquickly became a major sawmilling centre.Water access enabled logs from a wide areaof forest including Fraser Island to be broughtto these mills and then exported as sawntimber to the rapidly growing northQueensland market. This saved Maryboroughfrom an early decline. Although J.D. Johnstonestablished a sawmill near Rockhampton inthe early 1860s, the comparatively smallresource ensured that south-east Queensland,and particularly the Maryborough sawmills,continued to supply a substantial portion ofthe central and northern Queensland markets.Although the Pettigrew empire collapsed inthe 1890s, the Maryborough sawmillersWilson Hart and especially the laterestablished Hyne sawmilling enterprise cameto be major components of Queenslandindustry. Although, from the 1880s,sawmilling in the Cairns district reduceddependence on the Maryborough district, thefar north remained a major importer as wellas exporter of timber products.

In the late 1860s, sawmilling was one majorfactor in the rapid early growth of Bundaberg(the others being mining and sugar). Sam


Johnston established his Waterview sawmillin 1868; it later became a sugar mill. Thecombination of sawmilling and sugar millingin the same enterprise came to be common inQueensland in the early years, until the landaround the mill was gradually cleared oftimber. The timber industry quickly moved tothe Gladstone area, and like Brisbane,Ipswich, Maryborough and Bundaberg, theemphasis was on sites located close to water.

The Logan Steam Sawmills, established in theearly 1860s, likewise utilised the Logan andAlbert Rivers. Despite the financial collapseof this mill in the economic depression of thelate 1860s, the district subsequently becameone of the state's major timber regions. It wasdominated by the sawmills erected by theLahey Brothers. In the 1860s the local marketwas small and the Logan mill would not havebeen able to sell sawn timber in Brisbane ascheaply as Brisbane mills which rafted timberfrom the Logan and Albert rivers. Theliquidator advertised the mills for sale in1866, and unable to find a buyer, closed bymill by 1868. A year later the mill burntdown.23

Where there was a substantial local marketsawmills developed successfully away fromthe major rivers. The rapid rise of goldmining at Gympie led to establishment of asawmill by Luya, McGhie, Goodchap andWoodburn on the banks of Lake Cootharabain 1869. It was heavily dependant on watertransport and its output largely went toBrisbane. Gympie gold's major role was inproviding capital for the initial investment. Atthe same time, however, William Ferguson,who had worked for Pettigrew in Brisbane,established the Union Sawmills in Gympie inconjunction with Dath, Bartholomew andlater Henderson, all to become significantfigures in the industry. Their sawmill quicklybecame a successful and long-lastingenterprise. The natural resources of Gympie,the local market and the ability to supplymore distant markets with the building of therailway from Maryborough (opened in 1881)and from Brisbane (opened in 1891), gave theGympie district a growing role in theQueensland industry. As the railways

expanded the importance of a watersidelocation diminished.

Likewise, and before the discovery of theGympie goldfields, the local market andresources of the Darling Downs stimulatedthe development of a number of sawmills.The waterwheel used to pioneer the industryon the Downs near today's Killarney, quicklygave way to the steam sawmill. In 1858James Taylor purchased a steam sawmill,apparently from Redbank between Brisbaneand Ipswich, and rapidly established steamsawing on the Downs. John Affleck built asteam sawmill on upper Swan Creek nearWarwick in 1862. Although neither had along time involvement in timber, Edward W.Pechey did. He was a partner in theHighfields Steam Saw Mills which erected amill at Highfields, 24 kilometres north ofToowoomba in the early 1860s. This mill wasburnt down in 1865, but a new mill was builta short distance further north near today'sCrows Nest. The Albert Mill at what wassoon called Pechey, continued to operate until1924. Although it closed, the machinery wassold, relocated and reused, the commonreason for the paucity of relics at most formersawmill sites.

The needs of the Downs also provided thestimulus for cutting down the timber reserves,particularly Bunya pine, in the BunyaMountains, starting with the Great BunyaSawmills established in 1882. The nearcollapse of Aboriginal culture provided ajustification for removing the prohibition onthis species.

Although some enterprises grew and ex-panded, development of sawmilling withinQueensland was mainly the province of thefamily business. As the basic equipmentbecame more affordable, minor capitalistsand family businesses dominated the industry.This may be seen more clearly in the regionaloverviews. A small minority of mills werecontrolled by women, usually subsequent tothe death of their husband. The comparativelysmall size and distributed nature of theQueensland market encouraged this trend.Most mills were first established either in theforest or by rivers at places to which logs


could be rafted or brought by ship.Increasingly, where railed transport wasavailable, sawmills were established nearrailways, not infrequently on leased railwayland and a number had their own siding.Local demand ensured that small family millscould sell sawn timber profitably, minimisingoverheads and transport costs.

Fire

The largest, unpredictable but almost inevit-able cause of major loss to sawmillers wasfrom fire. Many sawmills burnt down morethan once. Steam powered mills were thenorm for many decades. As boiler fires werebanked overnight rather than doused, fire wasan ever present hazard. Firefighters generallyconcentrated on saving timber stocks as mostfires were too far advanced before detectionfor serving the mill to be an option.

Insurance was an expensive option, theannual premiums representing several percent of the mill's value. Under-insurance wasthe norm and fire losses by proprietors heavy.In 1885 in an optimistic but regrettablydoomed attempt to improve the situation,several of the colony's chief sawmillersjointly invested to float the QueenslandUnited Saw Mills Mutual Fire InsuranceCompany Limited. The inaugural directorswere William Pettigrew, Henry Jordan,Abraham Fleetwood Luya, Josias Hancock,Robert Dath, Richard Seymour and AndrewHeron Wilson, major millers from Brisbane,Ipswich and Maryborough. Little more thansix years later it was obvious that thecompany could not trade profitably in view ofthe claims. Shareholders voted in late 1891 towind up the company, appointing Pettigrewas liquidator. The debts were paid in full anda small balance returned to shareholders.24

Licensing Harvesting

New South Wales implemented a system oflicensing sawyers in the 19th century. Theseregulations applied at Moreton Bay, and inQueensland on separation in 1859. In 1842,when Moreton Bay was opened to freesettlement, it was specially proclaimed that

timber licences were not available for crownlands at the northern end of the Moreton BayDistrict where Bunya trees were prevalent.25

This limitation on cutting Bunya trees,because of their value and significance to theAborigines, remained in force for somedecades. Queensland's own regulations fortimber licences were tabled in parliament on26 October 1860.26 The licensing systemrequired a minimum of administration andwas the government's only source of revenuefrom the 'sale' of timber resources. Apart fromcharging a higher rate for a general licencewith the right to cut softwoods, comparedwith one limited to hardwoods, there was noattempt to match the charge with the value oftimber removed. Licences were issued for 6and 12 month periods expiring on 31December and 30 June. The only limitationon timber removal was inclination andphysical ability - each person had to hold alicence. By 1861 there were 121 licensedcutters in the colony. The regulations weremodified in 1862 to impose time limits on theremoval of cut timber to reduce waste. If notremoved within the time allowed, the logswere liable to seizure by government rangerswho sold it at auction.27

Special timber licences, which gave exclusiverights to timber in specified areas, were madeavailable under the regulations issued in1864. This gave a degree of secure access totimber resources, needed to justify capitalexpenditure on roads and tramways to fa-cilitate removal of logs, or the construction ofa dedicated sawmill close to the resource.

In their 1868 version, the licensing regulat-ions applied to the whole colony, and localmagistrates were given complete discretion intheir issue. The rate charged was increased to£2 per annum for hardwood and £4 for alltypes of timber. Each licence was restricted tothe Police District in which it was issued,unless the local bench of magistrates agreedto its recognition in another district. Threemonths only were allowed for the removal ofcut pine timber, and 12 months for hardwood,logs to be branded when cut. Special Timberlicences cost £12 per square mile, and weretransferable on payment of a £1 fee. Thespecial licence fee included the licence fees


for the first three men employed on eachsquare mile.28

Although licensing was a crude means ofsecuring a form of royalty to the crown andcontrolling exploitation, it was tolerablyeffective while the ability to fell timberdepended solely on muscle-power and whenregulations requiring the removal of timberwithin a specified period were enforced.Enforcement was notoriously ineffective innew and especially remote areas from thetime of their discovery until the appointmentof local rangers. Competition from othercutters provided an added incentive forovercutting and waste.

The land selection system added materially tothe waste. Selectors had to make im-provements to their land equal in value to theprice of the land. Besides permanent fixturessuch as fencing and buildings, the entire costof clearing was counted as a capitalimprovement, resulting in substantialamounts of timber being burnt. It was notuntil 1884 that selectors were restrained oreven discouraged from such practices. Theabsence of nearby sawmills, sawpits ormarkets and the high cost of transport to thenearest market made burning the only optionfor selectors who needed to clear land so theycould generate an income from it, whetherfrom grazing or cultivation.

Timber-getters frequently took up selections.By paying a year's rent, they secured effectivemonopoly rights over valuable stands oftimber, usually for about three years until theprocess of forfeiture took place. This loopholeensured at least some timber was felled andsawn rather than felled and burnt.

The move towards Forestry Control

A combination of diverse interests put pres-sure on the government to control the ex-ploitation of timber. It was not just those whovalued forests for their aesthetic qualities andtheir scientific value. Sawmillers had both asubstantial amount of capital invested whichcould be threatened by rapid over-exploitation

and a family and life-time commitment tosustaining the timber industry.

Some of the most rapacious and wastefulexploitation near Brisbane took place in theconvict era when there was no public opinionto protest at the rapid denudation of thevaluable stands of cedar. Although higherlicence fees were charged for private cuttersfor softwoods, there was no effective controlof cedar exploitation until well into the 20thcentury when it had become rare. The ex-ploitation of cedar in the Daintree in the1870s and the Atherton Tableland in the1880s had much in common with the ex-cesses of the convict era. By this time readilyaccessible cedar had practically disappearedfrom south east Queensland.

William Pettigrew who, at the time, had thegreatest single investment in the timberindustry, wrote in 1875 to advocate control ofcutting, and particularly to end the grosswaste resulting from "freshing" - cuttingtimber and waiting for a flood to bring it tomarket. He referred to a party of cedar getterscutting a vast amount of cedar on the AlbertRiver, south of Brisbane, around 1860. Mostof the cedar lay in the scrub and was ruined.Some of the surviving logs only reachedmarket in the early 1870s.29 Despite supportfrom a number of influential millers such asCharles Cox of Toowoomba and Robert Hartof Wilson, Bartholomew and Company (laterWilson Hart) at Maryborough, and frompublic servants in the Lands Department,there were few changes. One of the first, andultimately unsuccessful responses, was theestablishment of a pine tree nursery on FraserIsland where the failure of naturalregeneration had led to concern as to theindustry's long term future. An inspector ofState Forest was appointed in 1882. His firstfield trip was to inspect the reported waste ofcedar in north Queensland.30

Timber reserves were intended chiefly toensure that timber was effectively harvestedbefore land was opened to selection andcleared. State forests were established with alonger term view in the hope of creating morepermanent areas which could be exploited ina natural cycle of harvesting and regrowth. By


1884, 16 state forests had been declared, allbut one in the study area, and totalling justover 200,000 acres. At the same time therewere 161 timber reserves totalling nearly 1.6million acres, 80 percent of them by numberand over two thirds by area being in the studyregion.31 Area comparisons can be misleadingbecause of the large areas of relatively sparseforest west of the Great Dividing Range, bothinside and beyond the study area.

Increasingly the annual reports of the LandsDepartment drew attention to the inadequacyof the licensing system. The 1896 reportrecommended that the licence system bereplaced by a royalty on timber cut, afterpointing out that two men, paying £5 each fora licence, could in a year cut timber worth£2000 to the Crown.32 The timber licencerevenue for the whole of 1896 was £6309.The Brisbane district producing the largestproportion, followed by Gympie andMaryborough, the other major contributors.

Each annual report called for a return to theroyalty system. The government responded,finally, with the creation of a Forestry branchin the Department of Lands from 1 August1900. L.G. Board, an experienced LandCommissioner, was appointed Inspector ofForests.33 The licence system was graduallywithdrawn and a series of inspections wereundertaken to assess the state's timberresources. This eventually provided a soundbasis for investment in softwood plantationsto overcome the shortage of naturallyregenerating timber. The appointment ofN.W. Jolly in 1911 marked the beginning ofthe era of the professional forester inQueensland.

During 1903 the Lands Minister called aconference of timber industry representativesto discuss how best to conserve timber andmaintain a permanent supply for an industrywhich, without regulation, faced a limitedfuture. At the same time, the state's firstnational parks were being declared.

Growth in Sawmill Numbers

It is not easy to delineate the growth insawmill numbers as the statistics published in

the parliamentary papers are not particularlyreliable. For instance, from 1879 to 1880 thefigures indicate a drop in sawmill numbersfrom 44 to 23 in a single year. Closerinspection shows that in 1879, 10 wererecorded in the Brisbane district but none in1880. Likewise the Warwick andToowoomba areas which had 8 and 3 saw-mills respectively in 1879, apparently hadnone in 1880. Other discrepancies are not asextreme, but still suffice to cast doubt on thereliability of the figures. The accompanyingtable should therefore be read with caution.

The earliest figures for the state, 32 in 1868,demonstrate a rapid growth from Pettigrew'ssingle sawmill in 1853. The drop to 18 in1870 is partly accounted for by the failure torecord any sawmills at Maryborough.Consequently only the broad trends appear tohave any reliability. This shows sawmillnumbers reaching a hundred in the mid1880s, the 1880s being a period of rapidgrowth.

There are other difficulties interpreting thenumbers. For example, quite a number ofsugar mills also had sawmilling equipmentthat either operated just for the needs of theproprietors or operated only in the off-seasonwhen cane was not being crushed. In-consistency of inclusion or exclusion ofsawmills which were not the principal in-dustry would also have had an impact on therecorded data.

The 1871 census gives the most detailedpopulation breakdown available, and listspopulation at a number of saw mills andlumberer's camps. These figures included, 39,near Maryborough, Dundathu saw mills onthe Darling Downs, Highfields Saw mills 136and south of Gladstone, Eurimbulah


Tabulated Sawmill Numbers 1868-1885 1868 1869 187072/73 1874 1877 1878 1879 1880 1882 1883 1884 1885

TOTAL 32 31 18 26 22 47 38 .. 44 23 54 74 104 116Allora - - - - - - - .....- - - - - 2Beenleigh - - - 1 - - - .....- - - - - -Bowen 1 - - - - - -..... - - - 1 2 2Brisbane 2 2 2 4 5 10 10 .. 10 - 12 13 14 25Bundaberg - - - 1 1 2 2.... 3 3 2 - 4 4Cairns - - - - - - -.....- - - - 2 -Cardwell - - - - - - -..... - - 1 - 1 -Charleville - - - - - - - ..... - - 1 2 2 1Charters Towers - - - - - 2 2 .... 2 2 - 3 4 3Clermont - - 1 - - - -..... - - 3 2 1 2Cleveland 1 2 - - - - -..... - - - 1 1 1Cloncurry - - - - - - -.....- - - - - 1Cook - - - - - - 1..... - 1 1 1 1 1Crow's Nest - - - - - - -.....- - - - - 1Dalby 2 2 2 2 - - - .....- - - - 2 1Douglas - - - - - - -.....- - - - - 1Drayton & Toowoomba 6 5 2 1 - - - .....- - - - - -Esk - - - - - - -.....- - - - - 2Gatton - - - - - 1 - ..... - - 1 2 4 4Gladstone 1 1 1 2 3 - 2 .... 2 - 1 4 5 -Goodna - - - - 2 - - ..... - - - 1 - -Goondiwindi - 1 - - - 2 - .....- - - - - 1Gympie 1 3 1 1 - 1 1 .... 1 - 4 4 5 4Herberton - - - - - - -.....- - - - - 3Highfields - - - - - - -..... - - - 3 3 -Hughenden - - - - - - -..... - - - 2 - 1Ipswich 6 4 3 1 2 6 5....5 4 5 4 6 3Leyburn - - - - - 1 2 .....- - - - - -Logan 2 2 3 - - 3 5 ..... - 4 5 5 14 17Mackay - - - - - - -..... - 1 - - 1 -Marburg - - - - - - -.....- - - - - 2Maryborough 4 4 - 5 4 6 5.... 8 8 9 12 11 12Nanango - - - - - - -.....- - - - 1 -Port Douglas - - - - - - -.....- - - - 1 -Ravenswood - - - - - - -.....- - - - -Rockhampton - - 1 1 - - - ..... - - 2 2 4 6Roma - 2 1 2 1 2 2.... 2 - 1 2 4 5Sandgate 1 - - - - - -.....- - - - - -St George - - - 1 - - - ..... - - - 1 - -Springsure - - - - 1 - - .....- - - - - -Tambo - - - - - - -..... - - 1 - 2 2Tenningering - - - - - 1 - .....- - - - 2 1Toowoomba - - - - 1 9 1 .... 3 - 3 - - -Townsville 1 1 - - - - - ..... - - - 3 2 3Warraba 2 - - - - - -.....- - - - - -Warwick 2 - 1 3 - - - ..... - - 2 - - 5Warwick & Allora - - - - 2 1 - .... 8 - - 5 5 -Woogaroo 1 - - 1 - - - .....- - - - - - (Source: Statistics of Queensland in Votes and Proceedings various years)


saw mills 40. The Gympie district includedTin Can Bay lumberers 35 and Mount Bopplelumberers 50. A number of smallersettlements were also recorded including 7sawyers at the Bunya Mountains.34

Sawmill numbers were not recorded con-sistently until the introduction of registrationin 1936.Broadly, sawmill numbers increased steadilyfrom none to around 43 in the late 1870s. The1880s were a boom time in the Australiancolonies. Queensland reflecting this with anestimated 74 sawmills in 1883 and 122 in1888. The depression of the early 1890s saw acontraction, to 106 in 1893. Again, the surgearound the turn of the century produced 150sawmills by 1902. This figure drifted downwith closures until the rapid expansion late inthe decade produced 186 in 1909 peaking at258 in 1912. Numbers fell with reduced localactivity during the war.

The industry was volatile, subject to botheconomic and climatic forces. The 122 millsin 1888 cut 60 million superfeet of timber.The 140 million superfeet cut in 1901 bynearly 150 mills was an exceptional figure,halving to 72 million in 1902, a year whensevere drought both reduced economic ac-tivity and made it difficult to find feed foranimals. Dry conditions could have a moretelling impact than wet weather inQueensland. This is in marked contrast toVictoria and Tasmania and helps explain themuch smaller dependence on timber tram-ways.

When registration of sawmills was finallyintroduced in 1936, the figures appear to haveincluded sawmills which may have actuallybeen closed at the time, but registered to keepthem available for operation and for applyingfor log quotas. Also, some sawmills whichwere adjuncts to other businesses werecounted for the first time. Some 600 sawmillswere registered and postwar this rose to 800in 1951.

After meeting needs deferred from war-timeas well as migration, the trend towards largersawmills, encouraged by efficient road

transport as well as economics, brought abouta period of steady decline, falling to 354 in1988 and 338 in 1996 in a continuing trend.

Government Sawmilling and Depression

Apart from the convict era, the timber in-dustry has been almost totally one of privateenterprise. The industry came to be domi-nated by large numbers of small familybusinesses, especially when the capital cost ofsawmilling equipment fell relative to wages.This trend was well established when theRyan Labor Government, elected to power in1915, decided to enter sawmilling as part ofits program of state enterprise. Although not afinancial success,operational losses were modest. The sawmillswere subsequently sold on a depressedmarket, the experiment lasting for nearly twodecades.

The investment was justified on the basis thatsawmillers were colluding to keep pricesartificially high. Such collusion was notillegal at the time but as some of the mostsuccessful collusion was aimed at keepingdown the price millers paid for logs from theForestry Department, the collusion was notnecessarily bad for consumers.

In December 1915, the government purchasedRaymond and Hossack's (formerly Raymond& Co's) sawmills in Fortitude Valley,Brisbane and at Taromeo near Benarkin in theupper Brisbane Valley. The next year a millwas erected at Imbil largely using sparemachinery from the Brisbane mill. CharlesHenry Bromiley was appointed GeneralManager of the State Sawmills and Hossackwas appointed to take charge of the Brisbanemill.

The Select Committee appointed by theLegislative Council in 1917 to inquire intoState Enterprises, did not favour the concept.It concluded that the government hadblundered and had paid too much for thetimber in stock at Raymond's mill. Theiraccountant gave evidence that the mill waslosing money at the time of purchase, andthere was little likelihood of the continuing


losses being turned around. Furthermore, thegovernment had spent £31,000 on buildingsto house the State Joinery Works. This in-vestment was totally unproductive as nomachinery had been purchased and thebuildings lay empty.35

A fourth government mill came into operationin 1919 at Liverpool Creek south of Innisfailafter a favourable report by the managerconcerning an application by local settlerswho were clearing the area and had littleoption but to burn the timber. It soon had tobe admitted, however, that this mill, known asthe Silkwood mill, was badly located, "half amile from rail, obsolete and not worthshifting."36

As from 1 July 1920, the state sawmillingoperation was transferred to Forestry. Theprimary aim of the new administration wasnot cash profit but marketing secondarywoods not ordinarily saleable as logs. Bydoing so it would enhance the value of thestate's reserves. Public prejudice was based onthe experience of warping resulting frominadequate seasoning techniques. Further, theForestry Department favoured country sawingto save transport costs and thus enhance thevalue of logs at the stump. The Brisbanesawmill was quickly closed and each of themills placed on a self-accounting basis,selling their output to the central timber yardsin Brisbane. Operations then becameprofitable.37

In pursuance of the new policy, a small millwas erected in the Injune forest to millcypress pine for building purposes in westernQueensland. It never achieved its potential.The shortage of timber was the result of ashort-lived building boom and the time it tookprivate enterprise to respond with extrasawing capacity. In central Queensland thesawmill at Birimgan was acquired andreconstructed, but there was little generalmarket and soon it was chiefly cutting railwaysleepers.38

In its 1923 annual report, the Brisbane TimberMerchants' Association pointed out that the

government sawmills sold timber at pricesonly 2.5 per cent less than its official list (andfor which early payment discounts were notuncommon). This, they claimed, reinforcedby the closure of the government's Brisbanemill, could be taken as "an admission that the'vultures' in the timber industry" were onlyimaginary.39

Rationalisation began in 1923 with closure ofthe Injune mill while the Birimgan mill wasdevoted solely to cutting sleepers for theRailway Department. The need to moderniseand possibly relocate the Imbil mill wasrecognised but not acted on. Two majorinvestments, however, substantially increasedthe investment in sawmilling: the purchase ofMcKenzie's sawmill and tramway on FraserIsland and the purchase of the Yarraman bandsawmilling plant in 1925. McKenzies hadbeen unable to sell its hardwood in Sydney ata profit, especially when forced to use unionwaterside labour. Meanwhile, the Yarramanmill was operating below capacity through theoperation of the sawmilling cartel (to whichthe Yarraman mill belonged). The cartel,having purchased all the local milling rightsoffered by the Crown, divided the harvestamong its members, resulting in largenumbers of logs being railed to Brisbanewhile Yarraman workers facedunemployment. Under government ownershipthe mill received all the logs it needed.40

The depression of the 1930s and the changeof government combined to end governmentsawmilling. The most efficient mill, atYarraman, had been burnt down in 1929. Itwas rebuilt on a modest scale with the in-surance money. The Injune, Birimgan andSilkwood mills were sold in the 1931-32financial year and neither the Taromeo norImbil mills operated. A substantial proportionof private sawmills also closed for theduration of the depression.41

When the loss for the 1931-32 financial yearreached £6877, the Minister ordered aninvestigation. With no prospect of being ableto operate profitably, the mills were offeredfor sale. The timber yards at Newstead,Brisbane together with the mills at Yarraman


and Taromeo were sold to Yarraman Pine PtyLtd for £16,000 cash. The land and mill atImbil were sold separately.42

With the closure of milling on Fraser Islandin the mid-1930s the experiment of statemilling ended. The Department retainedsufficient land at Newstead and erected amodern seasoning kiln which was experi-mental rather than commercial, providingvaluable information on timber seasoning.This led to the commercial exploitation of anumber of timbers previously rejected forbuilding purposes.43

The Commonwealth Government entered theindustry in 1920 through the War ServiceHomes Commission. On 8 September 1920the Commission announced the acquisition ofLahey's operations at Canungra (including10,412 acres of freehold) and from J.F. Brett,his interests at Beaudesert, Blackbutt,Killarney and Samford (totalling 10,271 acresof freehold land). The acquisitions wereintended to provide secure supplies for theCommission which did not directly engage insawmilling.44

Emerging from Depression

The substantial fall in building activity duringthe depression meant that sawmilling was oneof the industries most affected. Companymills laid off workers and many family millsclosed altogether. Where possible, the assetswere retained, and many gradually reopenedas the depression lifted. The 1936 legislationrequiring the registration of sawmills wasintended, at least in part, to help reduce thenumber of sawmills. Economics, however,remained the driving factor.

The growth of the banana trade in the 1920sand 1930s and fruit production, particularly inthe Granite Belt, stimulated demand for cheappre-cut timber for making fruit cases. Usuallythe timbers were cut at mills and the fruitcases assembled in the fruit growing districts.Where suitable timber supplies existed in ornear fruit-growing districts, numerous casemills sprang up specifically to supply thistrade. Using internal combustion engines -

and electricity as it became available - thecase mills represented much smallerinvestments than sawmills supplying thebuilding trade. The mills were able to usesmall diameter timber logs and tops and helpprovide a better market for tops than firewoodor being left to rot. The case mill almostdisappeared during the 1960s and 1970s whencardboard and plastic packaging replaced thefruit case. The market for packing case timbershrank but did not entirely disappear.

Besides adapting to changing markets, saw-mills had to adapt to changing resources.Many small mills could be regarded as semi-portable. Until the development of modernheavy lorries, it was easier to relocate asawmill than incur heavy ongoing transportcosts. Such mills generally had fewer thanseven employees. In the western cypress pineforests, shifting the mill every decade or soseems to have been the norm rather than theexception. In many cases sale of a sawmillwas also the precursor of a move to a sitewhich had greater standing timber resources.

Post-War Resurgence and Rationalisation

Although World War II brought a severereduction in housing activity, after a shortresurgence when the depression lifted, thedeclaration of war with Japan at the end of1941 was followed by a huge upsurge ofconstruction for military purposes. As struc-tures were needed quickly and were expectedto be temporary, the demand for milled timbergrew rapidly. Closed mills reopened andothers worked long hours.

Unlike the 1920s, there was no diminution ofbuilding activity after the war, with a hugebacklog in housing demand resulting in theopening of many new mills and pressure tomake more standing timber available forlogging.

The comparatively low capital cost of smallto moderately sized mills powered electricallyor by internal combustion, and availability offinance given the assured returns in thehousing industry and buoyant prices, resultedin a large number of new sawmills being


established in small settlements close to theforests, either using private or public timbersupplies.

The last quarter century has been marked byamalgamations, closures, takeovers andinvestment in large modern mills. Newproducts based on wood chipping to use theoutput of massive and maturing pine plant-ations, and declining hardwood reservesrelative to growing demand, lessened the roleof small mills. As local hardwood suppliescut out, some mills closed while othersinvested in modern logging trucks andequipment and enlarged their mills to gainsufficient economies of scale to enable pro-fitable operation while drawing logs fromdistances of one, two and three hundredkilometres.

Modern technology reduced the labour con-tent in milling, the new products enabledmore use of low grades of timber previouslynot used for construction purposes, andcomputer-controlled cutting equipmentenabled boards to be cut with much greaterprecision and optimum cuts to be made tomaximise the value of the output.

Technological Development

Queensland, being late to develop its timberindustry, and for more than a century beingdominated by family concerns, importedtechnology rather than developing its own.Descriptions of sawmills that have survivedusually praise them as incorporating the latesttechnology. Once imported, that equipmentoften remained unaltered for decades, apartfrom local adaptation. The industry worldwide remained relatively unchanged once thecircular saws, band saws and gang saws hadbeen 'perfected' in the mid to late 19thcentury, along with the benches feeding them.Fire, although causing losses, often providedthe opportunity to replace equipment that hadbecome dated with more modern machinery.45

Throughout the nineteenth century the steamengine was the principal source of mechanicalpower. Every steam sawmill had its boiler.

Although pressure boilers were in commonuse wherever mechanical power was needed,the timber industry became notorious after asequence of fatal explosions in 1872 and1873. An explosion on 6 August 1872 at theUnion Sawmills, operated by Pettigrew andSim, and owned by John Meiklejohn,eventually took seven lives. Only a monthlater there was an explosion at the Calliopesawmill near Gladstone. After a further fatalexplosion in July 1873 at the sawmill besideLake Cootharaba, a government inquiry wasordered.46

Statistics in the subsequent report showedonly 27 boilers at sawmills compared with 41on the goldfields and 211 on farms andstation properties. The report found thatsimple shell boilers were least likely toexplode. The more modern multitubularboiler was less likely to explode although theexplosion of two in railway locomotives in1898 was to have major ramifications for thegovernment railways. It was the flue typeboiler which most commonly exploded.When the water level dropped below the safelevel, most likely when the boiler wastemporarily unattended, the area above theflue became exceedingly hot and weakened.An explosion could then be expected whensteam was drawn off, for example, after ameal break. This disturbed the remainingwater inside the boiler which on contactingthe top of the flue was instantly turned tosteam, causing a rapid increase in pressure farbeyond the capacity of the safety valve.47

Better supervision, regular inspection bygovernment inspectors and a system ofissuing ticket to boiler attendants after qual-ification by examination, overcame theproblem.

Felling timber changed little until after WorldWar II. Especially in pine, the crosscut sawoperated by two men was the preferredmethod, and the use of axes was notencouraged and was rejected as causingwaste.

The development of portable saws after the1940s increased productivity enormously.Chain saws appeared on the local market after


the war, the heavy two man versions beingquickly followed by one-man versions whichhave steadily become lighter, safer, morereliable and more productive.

There is no simple universal classification ofsawmills. While there is the broad divisioninto softwood and hardwood mills, manymills handled both by suitable change of sawblades, or converted from one mode to theother as supplies altered. The case mills werea distinct category, many only cutting casetimber and closing when their marketevaporated. Those that survived were adaptedto specialist or other markets.

Tramway versus Road Haulage

Snigging logs to a road or tramway was thepreserve of bullock teams for decades. Bul-locks were often preferred to horses both forstrength and for their ability to survive onfeed grown in paddocks in or near the forests.Unlike Victoria, there has been little use ofhigh wire systems to remove timber fromrugged terrain. Early this century, LaheyBrothers used an electrically-driven wiresystem to feed logs to their Canungratramway, but it was not regarded as econ-omically successful. In the 1920s, LarsAnderson employed a number of wire sys-tems, generally referred to as flying foxes, butthe multiple handling led to their replacementafter new owners acquired the operation.Such systems were generally adopted inQueensland where land transport wasimpossible because of the terrain. Only inrecent decades has a wide range of specialisedmechanically-powered equipment been usedto fell and recover logs and draw them to andload them onto road transport. Heavy tractorsand bulldozers were scarcely available untilthe disposal sales by military authorities afterWorld War II.

The first use of motor trucks dates from about1919. Although trucks were available beforethis, their limited capacity meant they wereused more for farm work and light usuallyhigh-value goods transport rather than heavyduty log haulage. The introduction of the half-tracked Linn tractors by T.H. Spencer to the

Goomeri area in 1928 provided the firsteffective reliable mechanical means of logrecovery. Linn, the United Statesmanufacturer, visited Goomeri to ensure theunits were working effectively. In more levelterrain with a trailer they could haul as manyas 13 logs or 9500 super feet.48 SubsequentlyLinn tractors were used by Hancocks in theFassifern Valley and the Mount Mistake areaat the head of the Laidley Valley andelsewhere but less than a handful of thesepioneering machines were brought toQueensland.

The versatility of both tractor and motor truckand their successful introduction wouldappear to have ended any thought of retainingtimber tramways. Subject to further study, theuse of timber tramways in the transport oflogs would appear to have ended in the mid1930s. By comparison, some were still in usein Victoria and Tasmania after World War II.Queensland had no area of dense networks oftramways found in those two states.

Transport and its effect on Sawmilling

There have been three phases - water, rail androad - in the transport of logs and sawntimber, each shaping the sawmilling industry.The industry emerged when there was littletransport infrastructure and water transportprovided the most cost efficient method oftransport. Although navigable rivers wereextremely limited, the widespread timberresource and the comparatively smallpopulation enabled demands to be met easilyfrom supplies readily exploited by shippingand rafting. Substantial amounts of softwoodtimber, lighter than water, were floated downstreams in flood time and then rafted to themill. This substantially increased the amountof timber accessible to water transport. Somerafting grounds were used for a number ofyears, and are perpetuated in local names,such as the rafting ground marked by RaftingGround Road in the Kenmore-Brookfield areaof today's suburban Brisbane. Rafting fromthe South [Gold] Coast to Brisbane took anumber of days, and small shelters were oftenerected as temporary living quarters on the


rafts as they crossed the bay and were towedup river.

The development of railways substantiallyexpanded the amount of timber that could beeconomically exploited, at a time when thepopulation was rapidly expanding and thecoastal timber resource was shrinking.Shipping was not displaced by rail since sea-transport was cheaper, but it expanded therange of timber available for logging andprovided a more reliable year round supplythan that provided by waiting for floods orfreshes in non-navigable rivers to deliverlogs.

Although the first railways were constructedto bring wool from the Darling Downs toIpswich and expanded to serve the maingrazing regions of western Queensland andthen the mining and agricultural districts, itwas not long before log and sawn timberbecame an important commodity. TheMaryborough to Gympie and Bundaberg toMount Perry railways, built in the early1880s, were both built to serve miningcommunities. Light standards were adoptedand soon proved inadequate, largely becauseof the large volumes of log timber beinghauled to mills at Maryborough andBundaberg. This trade had not been expectedto be significant when the lines were built.Timber became a major commodity on manysubsequent extensions.

The realisation that timber provided a sub-stantial and profitable commodity for therailways led to the availability of timberreserves being one main reason to promotethe rapid extension of the rail networkthroughout Queensland, financed by capitalborrowed overseas. For the extension of theBrisbane Valley line from Esk to Yarramanand the Kilkivan branch through Goomeri andMurgon to Kingaroy and Nanango, therevenue from the timber industry provided thechief justification for railway construction. Asdepletion of timber reserves was frequentlyfollowed by cultivation, new traffic developedas the timber traffic fell. Where this did nottake place, the early years were often the mostprofitable in the line's history.

The Manumbar State Forest, with 200 millionof the state's 1070 million super feet ofstanding pine in 1925, was described as an ElDorado to a state facing rapidly dwindlingsoftwood reserves (until the situation wasremedied by maturing largely government-planted pine plantations). Although a 33 milelong railway was surveyed from Goomeri toCoothing, capital expenditure on roads wasby then drawing funds away from railwaysand it was realised that the timber freight onthe branch could never pay back the £200,000or more the line would cost. There was noprospect of permanent closer settlement oragriculture. Motor transport feeding therailway was examined as well as a Forestry-owned tramway. A third option was adopted,establishing new mills in the forest and truck-ing the output to rail.49 This avoided heavycapital expenditure, and trucking of sawntimber rather than logs became Forest policy,on the basis that the more efficient harvestingand milling was, the more the governmentcould secure in royalty or stumpage chargesfor logs without making the local industryuncompetitive.

Although road transport has now largelydisplaced rail, this transition, in itself, has notresulted in major change. The industryinitially was located in the large towns, closeto the market not so much for economy butbecause sawmills were initially a majorcapital investment with technology that wasrelatively new. Because of the substantialcapital investment, there was a tendency tolocate mills near the resource only wherethere was an assurance that supplies wouldnot be exhausted during the life of theinvestment.

Even at the height of the rail age, log hauling,by bullocks, horses and traction engines, wasof considerable importance. The heavy loadsand the effects of narrow steel rimmedwooden wheeled wagons on road surfaces ledmany local authorities to impose wheel taxes.These were resisted by industries as were therestrictions imposed by local authorities ontraction engines which had a tendency todamage and destroy bridges constructed with


horse-hauled loads in mind. On the otherhand, sawmillers were also prepared, at times,to pay for road works which would facilitatelog hauling and which were not justified orunlikely to be made from rate revenue alone.

William Chippindall, chairman of the WidgeeDivisional Board centred on Gympie, told theLocal Government Royal Commission (ofwhich he was a member in 1896), of thedifficulties local authorities had. Timbergetting contributed to the revenue of theLands Department but left local authoritiespaying for the roads. He wanted thegovernment to pay for roads from licencefees.50 The wheel-taxes imposed by localauthorities reduced as the width of the tyre onthe wagon increased, thus encouraging theuse of wagons causing less damage to localroads.

As the importance of the capital investmentdeclined, and family sawmills became thenorm, the expansion of the rail networklessened the need to locate mills near theresource to remain cost competitive. It tookactive efforts by the Forestry Department tomake bush sawmilling the focus. This wasfacilitated with the development of cheap andreliable internal combustion engines whichdisplaced the steam engine from small familymills and subsequently from the larger mills.Electric power availability initially favouredtown based mills.

The role of tramways and short distancetransport

Transport of the felled logs to a road was andoften remains a separate phase of transport tothe mill. Bullocks were widely used. Varioussledge devices were used, to raise the front ofthe log so it did not dig into the ground, andto reduce the number of stones embedded inthe log.

Where timber was being brought from highcountry, chutes were employed in a numberof areas, particularly in the Bunya Mountains.The more elaborate ones were fully lined withtimber but quite commonly only the top waslined, or they were not lined at all. This

increased the problem of stones becomingembedded in the logs. They had to beremoved before debarking and mechanicalsaws could be used. On lined chutes, speedswere higher and frictional forces created greatheat. The process was hazardous. Logssometimes jammed part way down the slope,especially unlined chutes. A dump area wasprovided at the bottom to cushion thedeceleration at the end of the chute andreduce damage to logs.

Tramways were used in a number of areas,although in Queensland it was generally onlythe larger proprietors who had sufficientcapital to invest in them. Compared withVictoria and Tasmania, there were substantialperiods of relatively dry weather that maderoad haulage of timber from forest to mill andfrom mill to railway or port much morefeasible. Consequently only a smallproportion of mills had an associated bushtramway (as distinct from the use of shortlengths of tramway within the mill to assist insawing and stacking). Most of the tramwayswere used to bring logs to the mill.

Tramways to take sawn timber from mill torail head, common in southern Australia,were rare in Queensland, Neranwood beingan unprofitable example. Incline tramways,which were used to lower logs with morecontrol and without the damage from chutes,were uncommon, and are chiefly associatedwith Lars Anderson. Pettigrew's Cooloolatramway of the 1870s, a pioneering tramwayin the Australian context, was unusual in thatthe wire rope system was used to raise andlower logs up and over a ridge. The commonincline tramway, with a common centre railexcept where the rising and descending truckspassed halfway, used the weight of the emptytruck as counterbalance to the weight ofloaded truck, and necessitated braking as wellto steady the descent. Only Lahey's tramwaysystem south from Canungra was a majornetwork comparable to larger systems inVictoria and its use of a substantial tunnelgave it an unusual feature. It shared withMunro's Tramway north of Toowoomba theuse of geared locomotives which were acommon feature of the North American


timber industry, enabling tramways to usegrades twice as severe as on conventionalrailways without the added capital cost ofrack-type railways or the inconvenience of thetransition to wire rope systems.

Most of the tramway systems had a com-paratively short life and were supersededearly in the age of motor transport, or whenthe resource was exhausted.

The longest single route tramway was built bythe government railway department, to carrysleepers for major railway construction inwestern Queensland. It was built fromChinchilla to Barakula, west of the study area,and was more comparable in standard to thelogging tramways in Western Australia. Itutilised conventional railway departmentlocomotives and rolling stock, although builtto cheaper standards than any of the officiallyauthorised railways. It lasted for nearly 60years. A similar tramway in CentralQueensland, where one third the length,lasted for little more than half this length oftime.

Belated Modernisation

The depression did not produce manywholesale failures because many familysawmills had little or no debt. The failure toinvest in new equipment aided businesssurvival at a time of declining wages andsurplus labour in the 1930s. Postwar, theupsurge in demand promoted the establish-ment of many small bush mills. Buoyantconditions and a seller's market meant therewas little pressure to modernise or increaseproductivity. Even the large increases inlabour costs could be passed on with tariffsand quota regulating the flow of imports.

While sawmilling technology remainedrelatively static, sawmills numbers remainedhigh or proliferated in response to demand.Only in recent years have labour cost pres-sures, combined with the need to adopttechnological advances to remain competi-tive, forced a new wave of centralisation toprovide access to the necessary capital. Thisprocess has been aided by the development of

road transport which facilitated a greatercentralisation of sawmilling. These forcestogether have resulted in the development of asmall number of major computer-controlledmills now responsible for a large proportionof the state's total output. Such enterprises asHyne and Son, the Northcoast SawmillingCompany and Brandons are treated in moredetail in the regional overview.


Endnotes

1. In tracing the history of the saw and sawmills I havedrawn heavily on Hiram Hallock, "Sawmilling Roots",Electronics in the Sawmills, Proceedings of theElectronics Workshop, Oregon 1979, San Francisco,Miller Freeman, 1979. This also refers to H. Dissonand Sons, The Saw in History (New York, *publisher,8th Edition, 1926) and P. D'A. Jones and E.N. Simons,The Story of the Saw (London, Newman Neause,1961). 2. Bible, 2 Samuel 12 vv. 30,31 (NEB); 1 Kings 7 v.9(New English Translation). 3. Hallock, loc.cit. 4. Peter Taylor, Growing Up: Forestry in Queensland(*place, Allen & Unwin, 1994). 5. John Dargavel, Chapter 1, "Convicts and Com-mercial Cutters" in John Dargavel ed., Sawing, Selling& Sons (Canberra, Centre for Resource andEnvironmental Studies, 1988) 6. Peter Taylor, op.cit. pp.35-38. 7. Cecil Allport, Degraves and the first sawmill in VanDieman's Land in John Dargavel ed., op.cit. pp. 23-8. 8. John Dargavel, "The first sawmills" in John Dar-gavel ed., op.cit. pp. 19-21. 9. ibid. 10. Norman Houghton, "Melbourne's pioneer sawmill"in John Dargavel ed., op.cit., pp. 29-30. 11. John Dargavel, op.cit. 12. ibid. 13. Barney Hutton, "The first forest sawmills at MountMacedon" in John Dargavel ed., op.cit. pp. 31-3. 14. Rod Fisher and Ross Johnston, South EastQueensland 2001 Cultural Heritage Places StudyStage 1, Volume 2 Part 2 pp. 1-2 and p.9 15. J.G. Steele, Brisbane Town in Convict Days 1842-1842 (St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1975)p. 17. 16. ibid. pp. 7-9. 17. ibid. p. 47, 86 and plan 59, 75. 18. ibid p. 56, 54; location inferred from plate 68 cf p.178 and the footnote. 19. E.J.T. Barton ed., Jubilee History of Queensland(Brisbane, H.J. Diddams, 1909) p. 223; John H.C.McClurg, Historical Sketches of Brisbane (Brisbane,Library Board and RHSQ, 1975) pp. 10-1. 20. R.S. Kerr, "Construction of Pettigrew's Sawmillclose by the Commissariat Store in 1853", RHSQJournal Vol.XIV No.5 Dec.1990 pp.177-9. 21. WF Morrison, The Aldine History of Queensland(Sydney, Aldine Publishing Company, 1888) Vol.2,unpaged section on industries. 22. Biography David Rodger, in WF Morrison, op.cit.,Volume 2, unpaged. Ipswich Heritage Study 1992(University of Queensland Archaeological Services,Ipswich City Council, 1992), Volume 2, inventory item14-1219-0031. 23. Maryborough Chronicle 15 September 1866;Brisbane Courier 21 March 1868 and 11 September1869 p.5. 24. Company 131, Book 3, A/21378, QSA. 25. NSW GG 19 April 1842 No.31 p.587. 26. V&P 1861 pp.3-4.

27. Rod Fisher and Ross Johnston, op.cit., Part 4pp.42-43. 28. V&P 1868 Session 1 pp. 423-30. 29. William Pettigrew 29 June 1875, in Report ofSelect Committee on Forest Conservancy, V&P1875,2, 30. Lands Department 1882, V&P 1883,476. 31. Lands Department 1884, V&P 1885,2,1217-20. 32. Lands Report 1896, V&P 1897,3,817. 33. Lands Report 1900, V&P 1901,4,45. 34. Census 1871, in Votes and Proceedings 1872pp.965-1250. 35. PP 1917,3,1161-2. 36. PP 1920,2,1012-5; PP 1921,1,985. 37. PP 1920,2,580; PP 1921,1,985. 38. PP 1921,1,985; PP 1922,1,918-9. 39. Architecture and Building Journal of QueenslandNovember 1923 p.10. 40. PP 1924,1,1122; Annual Report ProvisionalForestry Board 1925-26. 41. Annual Report Forestry 1929-30. 42. Annual Report Forestry 1931-32 p.28; PP1933,2,418-9. 43. PP 1934,2,372. 44. Interim Report upon the purchase of sawmills andtimber areas in Queensland, CommonwealthParliamentary Papers, 1920. 45. For a review which is generally applicable toQueensland, see Kevin J. Frawley, Historical Survey ofAustralian Logging Technology and Forest CuttingPractices, Report to Australian Heritage Commission,1990. 46. Maryborough Chronicle 10 May 1865, 8 Augustand 28 September 1872; Gympie Times 30 July 1873. 47. V&P 1874,2,1047. 48. Dulcie Logan, Where Two Rivers Run (Kilkivan,Kilkivan Shire Council, 1988) pp. 195, 209. 49. Annual Report 1925-26 p.12. 50. Royal Commission on Local Government, 1896,pp.52-3.

sawmills and timber tramways in south east · pdf filesawmills and timber tramways in south...

Documents