Spanning the Centuries: a history of AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd

Spanning the centuries:

Spanning the Centuries: a history of AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd

Spanning the Centuries is the story of a family-owned firm and its part in the construction of Australia over more than a hundred years.

grown to become one of the largest privately-owned building and mechanical services contractors in Australia, with construction, maintenance and engineering facilities across Australia and New Zealand.

Spanning the Centuries is the story of the AE Smith family, including, as well as the three men who owned the company from the end of the last century, some of the many men and women who worked with them for up to thirty years.Through the history of one firm, we glimpse the changing built environment of Australia as AE Smith & Son put their mark on stately homes and gardens, modest suburban houses, towering City apartment blocks, prisons, shopping centres, hospitals, hotels and many other buildings across the country.

Juliet Flesch & Rosemary Francis

Beginning as a one-man plumbing business in 1898, AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd has

Juliet Flesch & Rosemary Francis

Spanning the centuries:

Spanning the Centuries: a history of AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd

Spanning the Centuries is the story of a family-owned firm and its part in the construction of Australia over more than a hundred years.

grown to become one of the largest privately-owned building and mechanical services contractors in Australia, with construction, maintenance and engineering facilities across Australia and New Zealand.

Spanning the Centuries is the story of the AE Smith family, including, as well as the three men who owned the company from the end of the last century, some of the many men and women who worked with them for up to thirty years.Through the history of one firm, we glimpse the changing built environment of Australia as AE Smith & Son put their mark on stately homes and gardens, modest suburban houses, towering City apartment blocks, prisons, shopping centres, hospitals, hotels and many other buildings across the country.

Juliet Flesch & Rosemary Francis

Beginning as a one-man plumbing business in 1898, AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd has

Juliet Flesch & Rosemary Francis

Spanning the Centuries a history of AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd

ii

Spanning the Centuries a history of AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd

by

Juliet Flesch & Rosemary Francis

Melbourne AE Smith & Son 2008

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First published 2008 by AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd 21-29 Miles Street Mulgrave Victoria 3170 Copyright ŠJuliet Flesch and Rosemary Francis, 2007.

ISBN: 978-0-9804325-0-3 (paperbound) 978-0-9804325-1-0 (hardbound)

Layout and cover design by Design Space www.designspace.com.au

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Table of Contents

Author biographies . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .vi Introduction. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 Acknowledgements . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 3 Chapter One. From Bendigo to Melbourne 1898 - 1923 . . . . . . 5 Chapter Two. Expanding Horizons 1923 - 1964. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Chapter Three. Australia-wide 1964 - 1980 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 Chapter Four. Onward and Upward 1980 - 2000 . . . . . . . . . . .71 Chapter Five. Into the New Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 Bibliography. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .123 Appendix. Long serving staff at AE Smith & Son . .. .. .. .. .129 Name Index . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .132

Author biographies Juliet Flesch came to the study of history after a 30 year career as a librarian, principally in building research collections including the creation of the only mass-market collection of popular romance novels in any Australian university. Her books include Love Brought to Book: a Biobibliography of 20th Century Australian Romance Novels (1995), From Australia with Love: a History of Modern Australian Popular Romance Novels (2004) and Minding the Shop: People and Events that Shaped the Department of Property & Buildings, 1853-2003 at the University of Melbourne (2005).

Rosemary Francis embarked on her career as a professional historian after a twenty year career as a secondary school teacher-librarian, having completed a PhD in History at the University of Melbourne in the year 2000. Since then she has worked on a range of oral history and online projects including the Australian Women’s Archives Project and the Australian Dictionary of Biography online project. She is currently researching a biography of Muriel Heagney (1885-1974).

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Introduction AE Smith & Son had its beginnings at the tail end of the nineteenth century when one man set up business in Richmond, Victoria. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the firm employed over seven hundred men and women in all Australian States and across the Tasman.

The core business of the firm changed over time. When the first Albert Edward Smith began work, it was as a plumber, employed by builders or working on his own within the geographical area he could reach on foot, by bicycle or with a horse-drawn cart. His son (also Albert Edward), whose working life spanned the first six decades of the twentieth century, used a car and by the 1950s he employed more than fifty men. He had taken the business all over Victoria and expanded its activities from plumbing to heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, working principally on larger, more complex projects.

This trend towards complexity became even more marked with the third generation of Smiths. Under Barry Smith, AE Smith & Son worked on some of Australia’s largest and most complex mechanical engineering and building services projects, including hospitals and university teaching facilities, prisons, hotels and apartment blocks, shopping complexes and malls, scientific research vessels, casinos and museums. At various times, the firm also co-operated on projects overseas.

Spanning the Centuries is both a history of a family and a story of the development of Melbourne. However, just as it does not aim to include all family members or all aspects of the family’s history, it does not aspire to cover every significant achievement of the company. A detailed list of Great Projects would, whatever the interest of each one individually, prove exceptionally boring reading. What we have attempted is to choose individuals, events, and projects which can serve as examples of many others.

What you are about to read is above all a celebration of a successful family firm, which owes its success to intelligent and dynamic leadership, to dedicated men and women who have contributed to the directions taken by AE Smith & Son and to very many others who have done the hard physical work involved in bringing architects’ and builders’ dreams to reality.

Spanning the Centuries was commissioned by Barry Smith, grandson of the founder and Chairman and long-time CEO of AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd. Sadly, he did not

live to see its completion. The authors are grateful for his contribution to their work, in providing interviews, photographs and documents. This history would not have been written without his inspiration. It is a celebration of his life’s work and we dedicate it to his memory and the future of the firm he led for over forty years.

For the sake of clarity, we have taken the liberty of differentiating the two Albert Edward Smiths by referring to the founder of the firm as Albert and his son as Bert. We wanted, wherever possible, to allow the voices of people we interviewed to be heard. We have, however, occasionally reworded a phrase, without in any way changing the sense of the quotation. We have also corrected, without the use of sic a few minor spelling errors occurring in printed and manuscript sources.

Acknowledgements Many people have contributed to this book. Most notably, past and present staff of AE Smith & Son gave generously of their time in interviews and responses to emails and letters. We thank them all and hope the result does not disappoint them.

From outside the company, we acknowledge with thanks valuable assistance from: Ros Anderson, OTG Registrar Trinity Grammar School; Lynette Auchetti and Sandy Gillam, RMIT Archives; Suzanne Fairbanks and Jason Benjamin, University of Melbourne Archives; Associate Professor Don Garden; Gerard Hayes, Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria; Sara Jervis, Coordinator Swinburne History and Artefacts; Vic Jennings; Sarah Lethbridge, Noel Butlin Archive Centre, ANU; Liz McKenzie and other staff, National Library of Australia; Tony Morris, Freemasonry Victoria; Dr Carolyn Rasmussen; Kristina Starnawski, Metropolitan Fire Brigade and Kevin Whitton, genealogist extraordinaire. Deborah Wright’s expert interview transcripts were of material assistance and the transcripts will provide a permanent resource.

From Bendigo to Melbourne

Chapter One From Bendigo to Melbourne He built a business there on good quality work, reliability, and close relationships with his builder customers.1 The founder of the firm of AE Smith and Son was born on 20 February 1871 into interesting times. A bare month after his birth, the Paris Commune, which lasted till May 30 and is widely seen as the first successful workers’ revolution, convulsed the government of the French capital. On 8 October the Great Fire of Chicago killed 300 people, left 90,000 homeless and caused property losses of $200 million.

On 27 July, Melbourne welcomed Anthony Trollope, the great Victorian novelist, who was to lecture in December that year to three thousand Melburnians on ‘English Prose Fiction as a Rational Amusement’. P.T. Barnum opened what was to become The Greatest Show on Earth in New York and Verdi’s Aida premiered in Cairo.

Kezia Smith (1845-1898) Barry Smith Collection

Thomas Smith (1844-1930) Barry Smith Collection

Albert Edward Smith (1871-1923) was born in Gipps Street, Collingwood, the son of Thomas Smith (1844-1930), a shoe-maker, and Kezia Rundle Trebilcock

Spanning the Centuries

(1845-1898), whom he had married in 1866. Thomas was born in Macquarie Plains, Tasmania, his wife in the parish of St Columb in Cornwall. Kezia had set out for Victoria on the Arabian in May, 1863 with her sister Elizabeth and brother-in-law Samuel Tretheway. Samuel died at sea. Thomas and Kezia had many children, although only three, Alfred Ernest (1874-1877), Alice Victoria (18771936) and Francis Lionel (1882-1890), are registered as being buried with them in the Melbourne General Cemetery. After Kezia’s death in 1898, Thomas Smith remarried. His wife Jeanie Lynott already had several children of her own.

Albert was two years old when the Plumbers’ Union was established in Melbourne and just seventeen years old when the first classes in plumbing were taught at the Working Men’s College, which was to become the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, later RMIT University. Albert himself began his plumbing apprenticeship around the age of thirteen.

His choice of plumbing as a trade was a wise one in view of the rise of ‘Marvellous Melbourne’. Graeme Davison tells us: The sheer volume of new building, and the consequent growth of the city’s building workforce, were simply phenomenal. The annual rate of house construction more than doubled between 1883 and 1888, and even in 1891, when the recession had already set in, the number of building tradesmen was between two and three times what it had been a decade earlier. …

The concentration of the fastest-growing occupations, such as architects, plasterers, slaters, painters and bricklayers, in the metropolis was indicative of the increasing division of labour in city building. The tasks of the omni-competent bush carpenter were being broken down into a variety of specialized professions and trades.2 In 1889 the third tallest building in the world and Australia’s tallest, was completed.

The APA (Australia) Building at the corner of Elizabeth Street and Flinders Lane, Melbourne was designed by Henry Kemp, who had already designed Stage 2 of the Working Men’s College. Kemp was also responsible for the design of the Assembly Hall at 156-160 Collins Street, built during the early years of World War I. It is known that Albert Smith worked on the Australia Building, probably during his apprenticeship. Its twelve storeys were made possible by the Austral Otis hydraulic lifts which in turn depended on access to the waters of the Yarra River.3 Graeme Davison has provided an amusing comment on this building: Elizabeth Street was once an old watercourse (it still floods in a very heavy downpour), so to ensure the building’s stability, architects Oakden, Addison

From Bendigo to Melbourne

The Australia Building La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria

and Kemp planted the APA’s granite foundations on a 1.8 metre concrete base. The twelve-storey superstructure, then one of the two or three tallest office structures in the world, used iron columns and steel bearers bolted and braced with angle iron and boiler plate. At its opening in 1889 the official party boarded the hydraulic lift and shot straight to the top, where the recoil springs bounced them 3 metres back again. Mindful of such hazards, the city council imposed a 40-metre height limit on city buildings. This remained in force until 1958, when the ICI building set off Melbourne’s second office boom.4 Albert Smith married Phoebe Elizabeth Skinner (1872-1955), the daughter of Thomas Skinner and Phoebe Hickman, in 1892 and moved to Bendigo where they lived in a wattle and daub cottage in Wattle Street. The first three of their eight children were born in Bendigo: Florence Edith (1893-1969, later Mrs Hart), Phoebe Ethel (1894-1971, later Mrs Skuse) and Elsie (1896-1973, later Mrs Stockdale).

Albert set up as a plumber and it is known that he worked on the Bendigo Law

Spanning the Centuries

Phoebe Smith in Bendigo with Ethel, Elsie and Florence Barry Smith Collection

Court building. He built a timber house around the original structure and our pictures show his wife and three little girls standing outside it and another view showing how it was extended.

The Smiths’ house in Wattle Street, Bendigo Barry Smith Collection

At the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century opportunities for plumbing contractors in Melbourne were about to grow exponentially with the establishment of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) and the development of the city’s first underground sewerage system. This development was desperately needed. About 4.5 per cent of the 9,300 deaths in Melbourne in 1890 were caused by typhoid. Three years earlier, the number of people infected had been so large that the Alfred Hospital had been obliged to accommodate patients in a tent. The Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition of Melbourne reported in 1899 that Sydney and Adelaide had fewer than half Melbourne’s typhoid deaths, attributing this to the fact that the former was partly and the latter entirely sewered.5 The Melbourne Argus picked up the campaign.6 Legislation enabling the establishment of the MMBW was enacted in December

From Bendigo to Melbourne

1890 and it began operations in 1891, with William Thwaites (1853-1907) as Engineer-in-Chief. The Australian Dictionary of Biography tells us that ‘It was by far the largest building project in Melbourne during the depression, providing work for several thousand men and contracts for local businesses.’7 The amount of sanitary plumbing work available can be seen from the increase in the number of connections to the system. In 1897/98 the number stood at 3,899, by 1901/02 there were a total of more than 47,000 connections, and by 1909/10 the number of connections was 105,993.8 Dingle and Rasmussen note that: Most of the construction on all parts of the system was done by local contractors. This was the usual way in which public bodies built harbours, roads or railways. A French contracting syndicate had offered to construct the whole system, but Thwaites preferred to use local contractors. He split the whole project into a large number of small contracts with only one costed at over £100,000 and another over £50,000. This enabled small local contractors with only limited equipment to tender, although a handful of contractors did take on many contracts and greatly expanded the scale of their operations.9 Although the terrible Depression of 1893 was on the horizon, it was clear that plumbers would be required by the MMBW and we cannot know why, with all this work available, Albert Smith decided to leave Melbourne for Bendigo in 1892. He was, however, far from being alone in moving out of the depressed suburbs of inner Melbourne. About 56,000 inhabitants left between 1892 and 1895, with the greatest number moving from the old working-class areas, such as Collingwood, from which 5,085 people fled.10 A simple sense of adventure, a desire to live apart from his Melbourne family, other family or friends in Bendigo – all these are possible motives. Certainly, Bendigo at the time provided a fertile field for a plumber. In the wake of the second great mining boom of the 1870s, Bendigo in the 1880s had more than one hundred operating mines. Significantly for the mining industry a permanent water supply from the Coliban river was opened in 1877. The Art Gallery was established in 1887 and opened in 1890 in what had been the orderly room of the Bendigo Volunteer Rifles. The year 1887 also saw the completion of the Post Office (now the Tourist Information Centre). Some idea of the wealth of the town can be gained from the fact that the Post Office took five years to build and cost £50,000.

The Law Court, on which Albert Smith worked, was completed in 1894.

In 1898, the year Albert’s mother Kezia died, the young family returned to Melbourne, and the birth of their fourth daughter, Muriel Dorothy (1898-1972), pretty much coincided with a fire in their recently-purchased premises at 472

Spanning the Centuries

Swan Street in Richmond. This address was to house the firm’s headquarters until 1935 although Albert also bought a number of other Swan Street properties. The Sands & McDougall’s directories show the firm as operating from a succession of addresses, but does not indicate which properties were owned simultaneously.11 Nominal ownership of the various properties was probably determined as much by tax and inheritance considerations as by commercial ones. For example, 431 Swan Street had been acquired in the name of Phoebe Smith in 1906. She sold it in the early 1920s (the year on the title deed is obscured by the Registrar’s signature) and the property passed through three sets of hands before being re-purchased by her son Bert in 1940. It was re-registered in his daughter-in-law’s name in 1941.

AE Smith Pty Ltd acquired it in October 1955, immediately registering a mortgage in the name of Marjorie Belle Smith, the previous owner. In 1981, the mortgage was re-registered with the National Mutual Life Association and discharged the following year.

Phoebe Smith (1872-1955) and Albert Edward Smith (1871-1923) Barry Smith Collection

The 1898 fire which greeted the young Albert Smith, his wife and four little girls in the first Swan Street premises was far from being an isolated occurrence in Melbourne at the time. Until 1891, fire fighting in the city was seriously disorganised, being in the hands of volunteer brigades, sponsored by bodies ranging from the Carlton Brewery to the Fitzroy Temperance Society. Specific brigades considered themselves responsible for specific premises and no other brigade would fight a fire there.

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From Bendigo to Melbourne

The death of half a dozen firemen in 1889 had led to the Act of Parliament which established the Melbourne Fire Brigade (MFB) in December 1890. On April 30, 1891 the fifty-six volunteer Fire Brigades then operating in Melbourne were disbanded and fire-fighters who wished to join the new organisation were offered employment. Some idea of the risk to premises can be gained from the 1891 Annual Report of the MFB which stated that it employed fifty-nine permanent fire-fighters, 229 auxiliary fire-fighters, four steam fire engines, twenty-five horsedrawn hose carts and fifty-eight hose reels. They had at their disposal only thirty-

Albert & Phoebe Smith with their family, Centre back: Florence Middle row: Bert, Phoebe, Albert, Muriel Front: Elsie, Thomas, Rita, George, Ethel.

Barry Smith Collection

three horses and forty-eight fire stations and in 1890 the Brigade had attended 816 calls and 485 fires, of which 188 were described as serious.12 At the time of the birth of their first son on 11 April 1900, Albert Smith’s family was living in Stawell Street, Richmond, which runs off Swan Street, almost opposite number 472. The boy was named Albert Edward after his father, and known as Bert in the family and AE by business colleagues. (Although Bert Smith was a 11

Spanning the Centuries

convivial man and his lifelong colleague and Alec Bell was a relative, Bell always addressed him as AE during working hours.)13 Two more sons, George Clarence and Thomas Reginald, followed in 1902 and 1904 and the family was completed with the birth of Rita Evelyn (later Mrs George Ewenson) in 1906.

Elsie and Lance Stockdale’s wedding Rear: Muriel Smith, Bert Smith, Lance Stockdale, Elsie, Charles Tate, Rita Stockdale Front: Allan Barry Smith Collection

Bert Smith attended State School 2853 (since demolished) in Stawell Street, leaving at the age of twelve with his Merit Certificate. At the age of thirteen he began his apprenticeship with his father. His subsequent career is covered in the next chapter.

Albert and Phoebe Smith’s third daughter, Elsie, was particularly close to her father.

She worked before her marriage in 1919 at McDonald Engineering, where she met her husband, Lancelot Benjamin Stockdale (1893-1941), who later formed his own company, LB Stockdale. He was the inventor of a pop-up garden sprinkler system based on a brass tube, and AE Smith installed many of these in Melbourne gardens, including ‘Miegunyah’, the property of Sir Russell Grimwade. This property was later bequeathed to The University of Melbourne.

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From Bendigo to Melbourne

Miegunyah La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria

Albert Smith’s considerable success in business was reflected in his building a house in Athelstan Road, Camberwell, into which the family moved after the First World War, when the area around Richmond and Burnley had become somewhat rougher. Even in Richmond, however, his youngest daughter recalled that: the front room was reserved for her father’s customers to be brought into, and she said, “He only dealt with the best people.”14 During the period when Melbourne was being sewered Albert Smith did a considerable amount of work with a Richmond builder called Rayner. Much of it consisted in refurbishing buildings which had fallen into disrepair following the failure of the Land Boom. Sanitary work especially was changing fast. The Metropolitan Board of Works: followed American practice in recommending the use of galvanised, wroughtiron piping which was far cheaper than lead pipe and could be simply threaded and jointed by an ordinary fitter; the jointing skills of a master plumber were not required for most ordinary household work.15 In accordance with the recommendations of the Sanitary Commission plumbers were licensed only after passing theoretical and practical examinations. About two hundred licences had been issued by 1896. These men had to face problems from a community unfamiliar with flush lavatories as well as a heavy work load. At any 13

Spanning the Centuries

time two thousand Board employees and private contractors might be employed in making connections and they had to instruct householders in the use of sometimes recalcitrant machinery. Some cisterns required considerable force to pull the chain,

Albert Smith in Masonic regalia Barry Smith Collection

and none were equipped to cope with the jars, tins, or hospital bandages people tried to dispose of through the sewer.16 Whatever innovations he embraced in his professional life, Albert Smith drew the line at handling the internal combustion engine. He never learned to drive a car, using a horse and buggy instead. The whole family enjoyed many holidays together at their holiday house in Aspendale as well as day trips in a charabanc to Healesville and Launching Place. Although he was far from well (he suffered from epilepsy and may also have had other health problems) in 1922, just a year before his early death, Albert took his wife on an extensive trip to Europe and North America, visiting Naples, London and Banff in Canada.

Apart from his family, the centre of Albert Smith’s social life was the Freemasons.

Initiated in the Duke of Richmond Lodge, Number 39 in 1908, he served as Master in 1919. In 1922 he joined the Burnley Lodge, Number 299 as foundation 14

From Bendigo to Melbourne

Master. His enthusiasm for Freemasonry was shared by his son. Bert Smith was initiated into the Burnley Lodge in 1923 and was to join both the Lodge of the Golden Fleece, Number 300 and the Australia Felix Hiram of Lodge Number 4.

Barry Smith was a member of the Wesley Collegians’ Lodge, Number 358 from 1963 to 1985.

Bert Smith inherited his father’s business before he turned twenty-five, and in the next forty years was to expand its activities from plumbing in Melbourne to providing building services all over Victoria.

Some of Albert Smith’s plumbing tools Photographer Juliet Flesch

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Spanning the Centuries

Endnotes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16

Barry Smith interview with Rosemary Francis 25 July 2006.

Graeme Davison. The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004. p 86-88.

Kristin Otto. Yarra: a diverting history of Melbourne’s murky river. Melbourne: Text, 2005.

Graeme Davison, ed. Melbourne on Foot: 15 walks through historic Melbourne.

Melbourne: Rigby, 1980. p 34.

Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition of Melbourne. Progress Report. In Victorian Parliamentary Papers. 1899 v. 2 no. 27.

Tony Dingle and Carolyn Rasmussen. Vital Connections: Melbourne and its Board of Works, 1891-1991. Melbourne: McPhee Gribble, 1991. p 40-42.

Tony Dingle. ‘Thwaites, William (1853-1907)’, Australian Dictionary of Bibliography v. 12, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1990. p 227-228.

Dingle and Rasmussen p 102.

Ibid. p 70-71.

Davison. The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne. p 208-209 Sands & McDougall. Sands & McDougall’s Melbourne and Suburban Directory.

Melbourne: Sands & McDougall, 1883- . In 1905, the address given is 470 Swan Street, in 1908 the firm has crossed the road to 433, in 1910 it is at 431 but in 1925 the headquarters are listed back in number 472. Barry Smith recalled that his father purchased number 429 in addition to 472 in 1935, and in 1937 it is 429 which is given as the firm’s address. When Bert Smith bought number 431 for the second time in 1940, it became a two-storey warehouse.

Information from http://www.mfbb.vic.gov.au/default.asp?casid=569#act.

Undated reminiscences of Alec Bell, provided by AE Smith & Son 28 February 2007.

Barry Smith interview with Rosemary Francis 25 July 2006.

Dingle and Rasmussen p 78.

Ibid. p 81.

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Expanding Horizons

Chapter Two Expanding Horizons I think one of the legacies left with the firm, was that he never lost the love of teaching people.1 Albert Smith’s decision to move his family from Richmond to Camberwell proved a happy one for his son Bert whose future wife lived in nearby Rowell Avenue. In 1924, the year after his father’s death, he married Marjorie Belle Mitchell (1904-

Bert Smith (1900-1964) Barry Smith Collection

1994), daughter of James and Hetta (Tomkin) Mitchell. The young couple set up house in Donna Buang Road, Camberwell, moving in 1934 to 11 Toorak Road, South Camberwell.2 They were to live there until 1956, when they moved to Moule Street, Brighton.

Bert Smith’s professional career was exceptional. Formal study during his own apprenticeship had been undertaken, as was customary at the time, in the evening 17

Spanning the Centuries

and on Saturdays. During the day, he worked with his father. Bert qualified as a plumber in 1917, and in 1918, at the age of eighteen, became an assistant instructor at Swinburne Technical College (now Swinburne University of Technology). He had just been awarded the Apprentices’ Gold Medal for the year’s best apprentice.

His father took him into partnership the same year and the firm began trading as AE Smith & Son. In March 1922 he was appointed by Swinburne as a part-time evening Instructor.

Bert Smith’s interest was not solely in plumbing, although he enjoyed teaching and gave it up in 1930 only because of the pressure of business. Swinburne at the time offered the State’s most highly-regarded plumbing course, and Bert Smith could be a hard master. He had a special regard for returned servicemen, who could on occasion be difficult to control: his son Barry was told that on one occasion his father had kept an entire class back until 2 o’clock in the morning. Many employers, however, would be grateful for his high standards, and Bert himself had probably heard tales of the poorly-trained men of his father’s generation of whom Graeme Davison paints such an ominous picture: Melbourne’s early builders had come through a rough school in the shanty towns of the 1850s, and, though conditions settled down in succeeding decades, the constant traffic of arrivals and departures made the industry almost as hard for contemporaries to follow as it is now for the historian to reconstruct. The frontier vice of improvisation debased immigrant standards of workmanship. … The demand for skills so far outran supply that unindentured ‘improvers’ were accepted as journeymen, raw journeymen became subcontractors or even masters, while unlettered builders set themselves up as architects.3 Bert’s regard for the men who had served during the War was attributed by his son Barry at least in part to the fact that Eric Earl Hart, the husband of his eldest sister, Florence, had been killed in action at Mont Saint Quentin just one month short of his twenty-fifth birthday, on 1 September 1918, leaving an infant son.

Bert was determined to learn all he could about heating and ventilation and kept many notebooks on the subject. Barry commented in 2006: I think he had a natural bent to learn, and even his notebooks show drawings of heating systems and gravity feed etc., etc. It was before pump systems, so there was a lot of work in working out specific gravities and water flows.4 It was Bert Smith who took the firm into the field of heating systems. (Air conditioning was a later development.) Large offices, factories, etc., were being 18

Expanding Horizons

built during the boom following the First World War which led to a considerable demand for extensive and complex radiation heating systems, operating either through hot water pipes feeding radiators in each room or through pipes encased in concrete slabs.

Unlike his father, Bert Smith took early to the horseless carriage and by 1920 was able to take his future wife (chaperoned by his elder sister Florence) to see the construction of the Yallourn Power Station in his T-Model Ford car. By 1934, the firm had an A-model Ford truck which was used for jobs further afield than Richmond, although pushcarts and bicycles were still used for work in the neighbourhood. Alec Bell, who joined the firm in 1942, recalled one cyclist in particular: Alf Vandersluys was a plumber who worked for the company almost entirely on Real Estate Agent work. He could often be seen riding his bicycle round the streets of Burnley and Richmond with various items of plumbing hardware draped around his body. … He knew the old Mahoney Street cottages like the back of his hand and kept meticulous detailed pencil reports of his activities on the job for the company.5 Roy Denman, who began his apprenticeship with AE Smith in 1935, recalled the way equipment was taken to a local job and an inauspicious start to his fifty years with the company: We had an A-Model Ford, 6x4 tray with two buggy wheels with a couple of fairly long handles with a handle across the front. You simply pushed these around. You loaded them all up with your shovels, pick and crow-bar. It stood alongside you while you dug a trench across the road. … My first job that I was sent to was Bryant & May’s match factory … that’s the corner of Church Street and Balmain Street in Richmond … the first thing I got into trouble with. … They were working under the ceiling of a factory and they were putting up a scaffold. I pushed a plank up and knocked the sprinkler out, so within half an hour of me getting onto the site, you’ve got the Fire Brigade sitting on the site. 6 By the time he turned eighteen, Roy Denman was trusted to do relatively distant jobs on his own: 1938 I think it was, I went down and put in a new hot water [system] in the Dromana Bush Nursing Hospital, which is right on the corner of Nepean

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Spanning the Centuries

Highway and Beach [Street]. … At that time I had been in the game for three years and I went down on my own. I was riding a motor bike then.7 When petrol was rationed during the War, and Denman was able to get only one gallon of petrol a month, he was fined £6, the equivalent of a week’s pay, for burning illegal fuel – a mixture of petrol and kerosene. He was lucky, however, not to have his vehicle requisitioned.8 Bert Smith was elected President of the Master Plumbers’ Association (MPA) in 1935 and 1936 and awarded life membership in 1960. His name stands second on the Association’s commemorative board, after that of his predecessor as President, AE Atherton Senior, who had presided for the first time on 23 October 1900.

The MPA was the result of the amalgamation of various state master plumbers’ associations, formed to represent the interests of employers in negotiations with employees and unions as well as those employing plumbers such as builders, engineers and government instrumentalities. It is worth noting that, although relations between the Master Plumbers’ Association and the Operative Plumbers’ and Gasfitters’ Society (as the Plumbers’ and Gasfitters’ Employees’ Union was known until 1911) were sometimes strained, Albert Smith did not leave the Operative Plumbers’ Union until 1922, although he had been in business in his own right for almost a quarter of a century. His reason for resigning was stated to be his imminent overseas trip.

Many Plumbers’ Union members did resign as soon as they set up in business on their own, although this was not required by the Union, which had determined at meeting on 4 April 1905 that any member starting in business on his own account might remain a member, although he forfeited voting rights and could not stand for office. These non-voting members could, however, participate in discussions and were eligible for all benefits of membership. Hearing what was being discussed at Union meetings, and contributing to the debate would have had obvious advantages to a self-employed man able to pay the membership fees.

Many matters occupied the MPA during Bert Smith’s time on its Committee and during his term as President. In 1931, the year after Bert gave his last class at Swinburne, the Association considered a report to the Trade Committee of the Apprenticeship Commission. Although the MPA opposed demanding various educational prerequisites, it proposed raising the minimum age for apprentices from fourteen to fifteen. It opposed a proposal for ‘proficiency pay’ as well one obliging employers to pay tuition costs and grant time off to attend classes. The Trade Committee had recommended that apprentices be supplied with tools, but the MPA disagreed: 20

Expanding Horizons

In our opinion apprentices should provide their own tools in Technical Schools. It would relieve the public purse and at the same time enable the boy to build up a kit of tools for the time he entered into his journeymanship.

The Association also felt strongly that transfers of apprentices should be able to be achieved without the involvement of third parties.9 The issue of employees being transferred between jobs was not new. In 1917 the Plumbers’ Union had registered its opposition to Master Plumbers ‘borrowing and lending’ plumbers on the grounds that this was degrading and implied that the men were mere chattels.10 Interestingly, as we shall see, the capacity for workers to be ‘lent’ to another company is now seen as a benefit, as it allows them to retain continuity of employment and benefits despite a downturn in activity of a particular firm.

It also, of course, gives the ‘borrowing’ employer a greater chance of getting a project finished on time, while the ‘lender’ does not lose employees permanently.

The question of time off work for study was to arise again in 1934, when Bert Smith chaired the meeting of 19 September. The Union had proposed that apprentices should be accorded one week’s study time per term, rather than several hours per week. This in turn sparked a debate with the Technical Schools which doubted that they could cope with such a scheme. In any event, the Association saw some serious difficulties in the Union position, with Bert Smith declaring: The main question seemed to centre round whether the Union favoured the absorption of boys into the industry or not. It was not clear from the previous conference whether they were really in favour of boys being employed in the industry. It would be useless to continue the discussion if fundamentally they were opposed to it.11 Despite this degree of ongoing conflict between the Plumbers’ Union and the Master Plumbers, we should not assume a situation of perpetual confrontation.

As we have seen, Albert Smith, himself a self-employed man, was a member of the Plumbers’ Union until he went overseas. While we have been unable to find any record of Bert Smith joining the Union, his brother Tom became a member in 1926 and there is no evidence that this was a cause of conflict. Some men resigned their membership of the Plumbers’ Union when they set up on their own: others did not, and in any case, sociable relations were maintained with former fellowmembers. There are many instances of Smoke Nights, Picnics and other social functions hosted by one body to which members of the other were invited.

The MPA took a very firm stand in 1931 on the balance of theory and practice in the plumbing course, suggesting that it should be adjusted to at least 80% practice 21

Spanning the Centuries

and 20% theory. This is especially interesting in view of Bert Smith’s personal role as a plumbing instructor at Swinburne from 1918 to 1930. Insistence on the importance of practical experience in the mechanical services trades echoes down the years, with Brian Chasteauneuf commenting in 2006: If they haven’t been out on the job site or spent time in the factory or manufacturing part of it, then the scope of their abilities has got to be limited to what is theoretical rather than practical. And that is, I believe, one of the difficulties that the industry is facing today.12 In 1935, Bert Smith summed up the previous year of his Presidency of the MPA, noting with pleasure that a full-time Supervisor was to be employed by the Apprenticeship Commission, a development which, it was hoped, would end the ‘employment of boys under the lap’.13 He also noted the continuing battle, in which the Union and MPA stood united, against ‘labour only’ employment at rates lower than those specified by the Wages Board. In an eerie echo of the problems of standardising the railway gauges, Bert Smith reported on amendments to the MMBW’s by-laws which had been circulated to other States: ‘the difficulties of securing unanimity among those sewerage authorities throughout the Commonwealth has been so great as to render the adoption of any standard code almost impossible’.14 Demarcation issues between MMBW employees and privately contracted plumbers with regard to clearing stoppages in house connections had been resolved by that time, with MMBW employees debarred from crossing the building line. There had also been difficulties regarding the responsibility of the plumber and the MMBW for flushometers which were installed by private contractors and inspected by the Board.

Absorption of unemployed youths in the building industry had been made a little easier, Bert Smith reported, by modification of regulations governing their employment, but legislative change was still required.

A Special Committee of Investigation had been established by the Building Industry Congress in order to regulate the industry as a whole more effectively.

It had proposed – and the MPA, which was represented, had agreed – that each firm or company in the building industry should join and be registered with its appropriate sectional Association. These registers would combined form a comprehensive register of the ‘proper and authorised persons to be employed within the industry’.

Celebrations of the centenary of the establishment of the City of Melbourne were also held in 1935 and Mr Charles Wright, the Senior Instructor in Plumbing at 22

Expanding Horizons

Swinburne Technical College from about 1913 to 1935, had organised an historical exhibition of plumbing which had been three years in the planning. According to Bert Smith’s report to the MPA: In addition to what may be termed a wide range of practical exhibits showing the evolution of the industry during the last century a great deal of valuable documentary evidence was also in view. It is felt that efforts of this kind are to be encouraged from the point of view of bringing the general public into closer touch with the plumbing industry.

Sadly, no trace of this exhibition remains.

Bert Smith was also able to report the passage of the Health Act Amending Bill.

He believed: The Board which it is proposed to set up will be a composite one upon which this Association will have at least two representatives and I think it can at least be said that a scheme for the proper registration of plumbers is now an established fact.

All in all, he believed that the industry was at last turning the corner, pointing out that the value of buildings erected in Melbourne, which had reached a peak of £7.5 million in 1929 and declined to £1.25 million in 1931, was now almost back to £6 million in 1935.

The first few years of the 1930s changed the company which Bert Smith headed in several ways. In 1934, just before being elected President of the Master Plumbers’ Association, he chalked up another personal accomplishment by being granted membership of the British Institution of Heating and Ventilation Engineers.

Founded in 1897, the Institution amalgamated in 1976 with the Illuminating Engineering Society to form what is now the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. In the United Kingdom, ‘plumbing’ was used to denote domestic services, including sanitary plumbing and hot water services. Heating, ventilating, refrigeration and fan engineering formed a separate branch of the trade, and Bert’s move reflected his and the firm’s expanding interests and skills.

He was one of very few people admitted to membership of the Institution without an engineering degree.

While the 1920s had been profitable for AE Smith & Son, business had been hard hit by the Great Depression. The year 1934, however, was a watershed for Bert Smith personally and for the development of the firm, in addition to being 23

Spanning the Centuries

marked by his admission to the Institution. As well as buying a new family home in Toorak Road South Camberwell, Bert Smith bought 429 Swan Street, while retaining ownership of the premises at 431. Perhaps more importantly for the history of the business, 1934 was the year in which George Denman joined the firm with his brother Roy arriving in May 1935 as one of the first apprentices. A third brother, Herbert Denman, joined in 1936. George Denman – hired initially

George Denman (1911-1971) Barry Smith Collection

to look after the mechanical services business while Tom Smith was responsible for the plumbing side – was to become Bert Smith’s right hand man and one of the company’s three directors.

George Alfred Denman (1911-1971) had joined AE Smith when Barry Smith was two years old: He was, like most of the employees, a plumber, from one of the hardworking Richmond families. I understand his father was foreman of the pickle factory, Southern Pickles. How my father judged his capabilities at that early stage, I don’t know. But he was an outstanding individual, with marvellous people skills, and developed into a very capable and senior executive over the years.15

24

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George Denman was an excellent estimator who also built up a staff with particular skills in heating and ventilation – skills which were to prove especially valuable during the Second World War years. Before that, however, George had suffered an horrific car accident. In 1937 he was working at the Mooroopna Hospital, one of several bush nursing hospital jobs undertaken by the firm during the 1930s. Typical of the expanding interests of the firm, this project involved both plumbing and heating installation. Despite needing months to recover from his injuries, Denman

Barry Smith, Father’s little helper Barry Smith Collection

Barry Smith with the chooks Barry Smith Collection

was to derive one lasting benefit from his time in Mooroopna. In 1941, he married the young woman who had nursed him.

The increasing prosperity of the firm was reflected in Bert Smith’s home activities.

He established a tennis court at the back of the property, which his son Barry remembered ‘helping’ his father build. Barry also recalled: When we were growing up during the war years, we had a massive vegetable garden in the back and a chook-yard, and he would like nothing more … than to put his old pants on and a flannel singlet - which was a labourer’s singlet and a hat, and dig the vegetable garden. He would trench it, he would manure it: we had vegetables growing on which you could support a family of ten, not four.

As well as his gardening and membership of the Freemasons, Bert Smith was a member, like so many people in the building trades at the time, of the Victoria 25

Spanning the Centuries

Bowling Club, which existed from 1876 to 2001 on Grattan Street, Carlton. The Club has since amalgamated with the Fitzroy Bowling Club (formed in 1877) and Edinburgh Park Ladies Club to form the Fitzroy Victoria Bowls and Sports Club in the Edinburgh Gardens in St Georges Road, North Fitzroy.

In 1939, business at AE Smith & Son had recovered sufficiently from the Great Depression for Bert to make good a promise to take his wife overseas as soon as he made one thousand pounds on a single job. He gave her two weeks’ notice and they sailed from Sydney to Southeast Asia on the New Holland, visiting Sumatra, Java and Batavia. They were in Singapore when World War II broke out.

By this time, Bert Smith had succeeded in reorienting the business of AE Smith & Son to incorporate heating and ventilation as well as plumbing. In 1949 the business was formed into a proprietary limited company, with an issued capital of £50,000 and a paid up capital of £24,000. Throughout the War the company’s principal employer was the Department of Works, with the focus on munitions.

Barry Smith estimated staff numbers at around a dozen until the late 1930s: by 1948, they had risen to about fifty men. When it came to employing staff, Bert was a man of his word. In 2006 Barry recalled one encounter with a staff member from the early days: I had an interesting meeting one day at the Master Plumbers at one of the award-giving [ceremonies]. I met a man called Curtis. He said, “I’ve got to tell you a story.” And he said, “I joined your father’s firm in 1942.” I said, “Goodness me, that’s a long while ago.” Then his age came out. I said, “How did you come to join AE Smith?” He said, “My father came back from the war and was taught by him at Swinburne Tech. When he finished his apprenticeship he said, ‘If I can ask you one thing; if I have a son, will you employ him?’” My father said, “If you have a son and he wants to do plumbing, I will employ him.”16 One aspect of Bert Smith’s management would greatly have pleased the firm’s creditors – he paid his bills promptly. Jack Mills, who had joined the company in 1963, recalled: Black was black, and white was white; there were no greys with AE - he was as straight as a die. That’s why they had a wonderful reputation, even then, both with the mechanical and the sewerage field. …

The cheques had to go out in 30 days. He wouldn’t go to bed, go home, or go at all unless all the cheques had gone out.17 26

Expanding Horizons

Another personal memory was of being taken for a drive in Bert’s Jaguar towards the end of his first year with the firm. Bert told Jack that AE Smith & Son were happy with his performance, and as well as buying him an ice-cream, offered him the more substantial bonus of a paid holiday at Christmas. Nor was this the only perk. At the time, the firm sold off its scrap copper, and the proceeds were divided between Mills, George Denman and Barry Smith.

Ron Forsyth, who worked for half a century with the firm, and won the Plumbers’ Apprentice Gold Medal in 1948, had another memory of his boss: On this job I was on my own, out at Deer Park on these huts, the truck used to come out to bring the pay out - it was a Thursday. So I’m up on the roof, and it’s a nice day: it was a curved roof which they lined with bitumen into the spouting. I’m on the roof and I can’t see the truck coming anywhere - there’s cars coming along into the place - so I just sat back on the roof and had a lie down in the sun for a while. Shortly after, there’s a voice down below: “What’s going on up there? Is this a strike?” I look over the edge of the roof, and here’s AE Smith with his eyes glaring! …“Oh no, no - I’m just surveying the countryside.” “Well spring up off your arse, or you’ll survey the countryside somewhere else!”18 Even at the end of World War II, the administrative staff of AE Smith & Son was relatively small. Ron Forsyth recalled: The office was at the front of the factory at Swan Street … and then from the end of the office was the sheet metal shop, went to the lane at the rear; then there was a pipe yard and store across the lane from there to the next street back. … In the office in 1945, was Albert Edward Smith, the boss; George Denman, the head of the mechanical services; Tom Smith, head of the sanitary and roofing plumbing; Alec Bell was the accountant; and I think it was two girls in the office; and that was about the extent of it. It certainly grew to vast proportions in later years.19 Albert Smith’s youngest son, Thomas, had a somewhat problematic association with his father’s firm and office gossip suggested that he held his job there only because his mother would not countenance his dismissal. Ron Forsyth was interviewed by him for his first job in 1945 and recalled the interview being interrupted by a call from Tom’s SP bookie.20 Roy Denman, who had begun work with AE Smith ten years earlier, recalled the two brothers fighting ‘like cat and dog’.21 Officially, Tom left the firm later that year to set up on his own, but the break may not have been complete. Forsyth recalled: 27

Spanning the Centuries

AE Smith & Son staff, Christmas 1948, including the two women who formed the office staff, Shirley Grimshaw and Joan McDonald.

Barry Smith Collection. Photographer Alec Bell.

The storeman at Richmond was Vin Griffin … Old Vin used to get the material out, ready to go out on site, because we had a store with all the plumbing fittings and all sorts of things in there, and you’d order stuff up. He had this batch of material made up to go out on a job on Monday morning, and he came in Monday, and it’s disappeared, it’s not on the floor. So he has a look around, and in his little office there’s Saturday night’s paper. Someone had been in Saturday night. According to Vin the only other one who had a key was Tom Smith, who used to do a few jobs on his own bat.22 Barry Smith recalled Vin Griffin as a master at installing the Stockdale lawn sprinklers so that one could not see where the grass had been disturbed. As we shall see, this was a skill of which Ron Forsyth was also proud.

Tom Smith had joined the Plumbers’ Union in 1926, and the Master Plumbers’ Association’s Service Bulletin registered a generous tribute on his death in 1964: In last month’s issue we had, unfortunately, to record the passing of a veteran member – Mr AE Smith. It is with profound regret that we now have to mention the loss, in mid-October, of his brother Thomas, who for many years has become known affectionately throughout the trade as ‘Tom Smith’.

Although not as prominent in the industry as his brother, Tom was well known and well liked as a thorough and reliable contractor, and as a friend who would always co-operate and would help, where possible, those in need of help.23 28

Expanding Horizons

George Denman’s brother Roy (1920-2002) joined the firm in 1935. He came as an apprentice and retired in 1985 from the position of Personnel Officer responsible for all site labour. Before that, he had been Project Manager on some of the firm’s large jobs, including the General Motors Holden body and assembly plant at Dandenong.

It was a huge factory, and we won the job for putting in … high pressure hot water pipes, that would have been about five feet in diameter. Huge pipes.

They went all around - like a ring - all around the factory and they just had a big boiler house and so forth that put high pressure hot water going through those pipes all the time. Then in different sections of the factory they would drop down smaller pipelines to be steam or something like that; or they might have been used for putting into heaters to heat people in the factory: but nevertheless they tapped into this high pressure hot water job, which was a huge job in those days, for the whole of that big factory.24 The third brother, Herbert Denman, joined the company in 1936 and retired in 1979. He was a sanitary plumber, who took primary responsibility for most of the apprentices when they joined the firm. This could be a demanding job, since the firm tried to employ one apprentice for every three tradesmen. At the end of their second or third year, apprentices made their choice between sanitary and mechanical work, with most choosing the former. Under Barry Smith, Herbert was given another responsibility. With several projects on the go at the same time under different project managers, clashes would occasionally erupt when a truck which was needed to deliver or collect supplies for a particular job would be diverted to another. Finally, Barry Smith decided to put Herb Denman in charge: Barry nicknamed him the “Minister of Transport”; he put him in charge of the trucks. So to stop all this sort of crossing over, he said that Herbie was in charge of trucks, and you had to go to Herbie, and Herbie would organise which was going, and what was the most important job. But Barry even overrode him a few times.25 From the staff ’s point of view, Herb Denman had another, crucial task. When Graham Everitt joined the company in 1964 and he worked on a system for recording tooling in an effort to minimise loss, they shared an office.

I used to get a lift out with Herb whenever he was visiting sites and so forth.

Also he was in charge of the pay distribution on a Thursday, and I think he was in charge of collecting timesheets from people prior to that. It was always a problem getting times from people into the pay department so they 29

Spanning the Centuries

got their money on time. We used to pay in cash in those days, so it was quite a job to get an armoured car to bring the cash in and then distribute it out to various jobs out on site.26

Alec and Dorothy Bell, 1979 Barry Smith Collection

The third man in the triumvirate which was to form AE Smith Pty Ltd in 1950 joined the firm as its first accountant in 1941, although with the vicissitudes of the call-up, he really began work there the following year. He was, however, already part of the family. AT (Alec) Bell’s mother was Albert Smith’s sister and the two families were very close. Bell (1914-1996) came from an Adelaide family, where his grandfather, a cabinet-maker, had been one of the first settlers. Educated first at St Paul’s Cathedral School, he attended Trinity Grammar School, Kew from 1927 to 1931 and was Dux of the school. Before his appointment, AE Smith & Son’s accounts had been made up by a woman employed on a casual basis, and essentially showed no more than income in relation to expenditure over the year.

Certainly, Alec Bell had no very high opinion of the way the books were kept before his arrival: As the business was growing rapidly, the one thing which consistently took a ‘back seat’ was the accounting management. I remember clearly that day in May 1941 when I started at AE Smith and I realised the enormity of my task after a quick look through ‘the books’. The accounting system was the most primitive you could imagine with really no job costing or proper management controls. However the business was still expanding very profitably – what an opportunity for a keen accountant! … Here was the challenge I had been looking for.27 Soon after that day in May 1941, Alec Bell was called up. Within days, however, he was summoned to the Camberwell Court House to be told he was being transferred 30

Expanding Horizons

to the control of the Manpower Civil Construction Authority and was to report back to AE Smith & Son immediately.

So there I was, back at work again. … Apart from the munitions work the company was primarily involved in, we soon found ourselves working on temporary camps for the American Red Cross at Albert Park, the Showgrounds and other locations around Melbourne. I found I had an enormous amount of work to be done in the areas of material supply and stock control. It was really a dull, hard, long slog for four years.28 Between them, George Denman and Alec Bell were to transform both the forward estimating and record-keeping of the company. Alec Bell also reflected the firm’s changing focus when, in 1966, he succeeded Allan Coombs and preceded Barry Smith as President of the Air-Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors Association.29 Founded in 1961, the Air-Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors Association is an organisation of air conditioning and mechanical services companies which acts as the industry’s voice in dealing with governments at all levels, other construction and service industry groups, and the unions. Its members design, install, and provide ongoing service of air conditioning and mechanical ventilation systems.

Jack Mills, who was recruited to the firm in 1963 by Bert Smith, was in a good position to observe Alec Bell’s relationship with the man who succeeded him. Bell, who was Company Secretary at the time of Bert Smith’s death, may have hoped to succeed him as Managing Director of the firm, but his loyalty to the man who got the job was rock-solid, despite occasional tussles over expenditure: Alec used to be always complaining about the money that Barry would spend on say machinery, and he [Barry] was always looking for a better way or a quicker way to do things. … And I did quite a few things along those lines - and it was great fun in terms of finding new ways, and better tooling. Barry would jump at that: never hesitated in buying good, new tooling. He used to stretch the purse-strings a bit … eventually, Alec was resigned to it.30 These arguments over Petty Cash were a source of good stories: Barry never had money … he was always losing things and what not, and he’d borrow money out of petty cash. Alec would try and get the petty cash out of him - he never had any money to pay it back. In the end, Alec used to just send an account to his home address for how much he owed petty cash, rather than argue with him.31 31

Spanning the Centuries

With the advent of computers and their lightning-quick calculations, another of Alec Bell’s talents might be less useful than it had been in the previous century.

He used to play a piano, he liked jazz piano playing, so he could rattle an adding machine just like you wouldn’t believe, so fast.32 In fact Bell’s musical skill was not confined to jazz piano. For thirteen years he was the organist at the old Lutheran Church of St John on Southbank. The original St John’s church was constructed in 1927 and located off City Road not far from the present building. The site had been chosen because of its central location and access to public transport. The original church was demolished in 1989 to make way for the Southgate development and replaced by the one we see today.

During the Second World War, materials became very difficult to obtain, and Bert Smith’s friendships with the managers of firms like Lysaght and Stewart & Lloyd, the tube makers, were of considerable help in securing the materials needed to fulfil the firm’s contracts. At this time, Bert Smith also obtained a licence for an allocation of sheet steel, which enabled him to acquire from Sydney a complete plant for the manufacture of spouting, downpipe, roof guttering and ridging.

He formed a separate, wholly-owned company for this purpose: Britannia Metal Industries, which functioned as part of AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd until 1996.

Sheet metal work increased in importance in the heating and ventilation business, and while the necessary machinery was imported from America, the post-war labour force was greatly enhanced by newly-arrived immigrants from Europe, with highly-developed skills in sheet metalworking and duct manufacture.

Although Alec Bell recalled the Second World War as ‘a dull, hard, long slog for four years’, Roy Denman experienced it as a time of industry transformation: The war changed this industry, there is no doubt about that. We had to learn the welding, we had to learn about different techniques to go and do war production stuff, so from 1939 to 1945, it changed the industry. … We went from sanitary plumbers to mechanical engineers in that time. … Everything was heated by steam up until about 1939 and that was dangerous.33 It was at this time that engineers found that if a system was completely sealed, water could be heated to a temperature of 360 degrees, creating a very high pressure without turning into steam, and resulting in highly efficient heating.

32

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For most of the War years, the AE Smith workforce was almost entirely committed to munitions work. Roy Denman spent the time at a succession of munitions factories, spending six months at Derwent Park in Hobart, another six at the Gun Factory in Ballarat and six more at a new factory in Mulwala, as well as a considerable time at the one in Deer Park. It was perilous work: At Deer Park, when they were making TNT, if they ever spilt any of it and it fell into cracks in the floor, etc., it was dangerous. … So the whole of the factory was covered in lead, on the floors, up the legs of the tables, etc. You rolled the spread sheets of lead out, and you had to lead burn to join the two sheets together and then scrape it off, nice and level, and if there was any indentations in it at all, you went over it again, and you kept doing this until the whole room was covered in lead, up the legs of the chairs, tables, etc. And I spent goodness knows how long doing this – years! 34 There were lighter moments, however: Ballarat Factory was the first time I had seen a streaker. Because they needed the people to be making the munitions … you weren’t allowed to join the Army. One fellow was apparently trying to for two years. Anyway, it was lunchtime, and everybody heads for the canteen. In front of five hundred people, this chap rips all his clothes off and did a streak up the road to the canteen. Anyway, they grabbed him and tossed him out. … He knew what he wanted.35 One job in particular stood out in Denman’s war memories. One Saturday in 1942, announcements started coming over the radio every ten minutes recalling all naval personnel and early in the afternoon: [Bert] came around to my place and said, ‘I want you and George and … about six blokes …We’ve got a job. … You will not be coming home for a week or so.’

All the oil tanks sitting in Williamstown were just freestanding oil tanks, but then when the War started, the government put in two-foot thick brick walls, bomb blast walls, so that if there was a bomb anywhere near it, it would not crack the tank. … They did not probably realise that in doing so … when they filled this tank up … it sank about three inches. A cast iron valve snapped in half, so that ten million gallons of oil [were] running out of this tank, and all the sailors that were called back were all handed a shovel … and they built a dam around the tank to contain it, because it was a danger to Melbourne. …

33

Spanning the Centuries

And somebody got onto Smithy, from Government, and we had to re-pipe.

There were about eight or ten of these. When one went, they were afraid the others would go, too. A main pipeline went straight through and they had to have branches out to each tank. … And we went down on the Saturday and I think I came home the following Thursday. You slept a couple of hours, if you were lucky, in one of the sheds. But for the first three days we did not shut our eyes day or night .36 The priority given to war work meant that other work was delayed. This was brought home to Roy Denman in an especially sad manner. His eldest brother, Corporal Thomas Reuben Denman died of his injuries on Wednesday, 6 September 1943, at the age of thirty-four. At the time, Roy was working at Deer Park, and the engineer in charge informed him that he would be required to work at the weekend. Denman replied that neither he nor his other brothers would be available as they would be attending a memorial service.

He said, ‘The bloody trouble with you blokes, is none of you know that there is a war on.’

I said, ‘Now hang on, … my brother was killed in it yesterday.’ And he said.

‘I don’t want to know.’ I said, ‘Well, the way you’re acting, I would say he’s a better man dead, than you are alive, standing up here, saying what you’re saying.’ And he said, ‘That’s the end of it. Smith out. Pack up everything and get off the site.’

I thought, Jesus, what have I done now! So I raced around to the office … and I told the lass what had happened, and she said, ‘Thank Christ, we haven’t wanted you around there for ages. We have got that much back here. Pack up and get yourselves over here.’ So we packed up and did not go back on the Monday.37 The War years were profitable ones for the firm, although labour was hard to find.

Barry Smith recalled: Obviously during the War, the business prospered. It was called an essential service business: tradesmen and staff at Smiths were not allowed to join up, and their work particularly moved into the munition works and hospitals like Caulfield Hospital. That’s where the introduction into the business of radiation systems etc., became an important part of the business. So they moved from handling heavy cast-iron pipes, to welded pipes, and the tradesmen had to learn the skills of welding.

34

Expanding Horizons

One early war job was cladding the Holmesglen TAFE building, which was intended to serve as a tank factory. Barry recalled: There is a story that my father was up on the roof one day, early, looking at what was going on. He looked at one fellow working up there and watched him for some short time, then walked away scratching his head. Then came back on the roof two hours later to look at this fellow and he said, “You’re not a roofing hand at all.” The fellow said, “You reckon you’re smart. It’s taken two hours to work that out.” 38 Despite the shortage of labour the business grew. A sheet-metal shop was established at 429 Swan Street, making duct work for ventilation enabling the company to do this type of work as well as plumbing.

In 1949, Bert Smith did something he had been waiting to do for at least ten years: he took his whole family on an overseas trip. His son Barry, just out of school and anxious to get started on his professional qualifications, was rather reluctant, but nonetheless, they spent nine months in England and Europe, leaving the other two directors to run the business. Barry commented in 2006 that, given the difficulty of international communications at the time, this represented an extraordinary degree of confidence in the probity and talent of the other directors and staff.

Records relating to specific projects undertaken by AE Smith & Son during the first two decades of the twentieth century are not easy to find, but some jobs from the later years are vividly recalled by former staff, and photographic records of the buildings, if not of the mechanical services work itself, are available. In many cases this is all that is left, because the buildings themselves have gone. During the 1930s, the Caulfield Town Hall (built in 1885) underwent one of its many refurbishments, and Bert Smith was involved with this. Barry Smith recalled receiving a letter from one of Australia’s best-known engineers, Sir Walter Bassett: In a letter to me when my father died, he said how proud my father was when he’d done a job at the Caulfield Town Hall; and that he went over - Sir Walter Bassett looked at it - and he said how proud he was of the work; that it was of a very high standard. So that would have probably been in the middle 1930s that we started to move into radiation systems.39 Despite the increasing emphasis placed on heating and ventilation work, during the post-War years, domestic plumbing work was still significant, and many of AE Smith & Son’s jobs were done south of the river. Ron Forsyth recalled working at many of the great houses in Toorak, including ‘Miegunyah’ (with its special 35

Spanning the Centuries

Bert, Marjorie and Barry Smith in London, 1949 Barry Smith Collection

sprinkler system) and the Myer family’s house, ‘Cranlana’, in Clendon Road held memories of both indoor and outdoor work: I was over there one time; we had to dig a trench to fix some storm water drains or something, and old Chester, the gardener, came out and wanted to see how I was going on the garden work. I dug the trench out and put the grass back so you could hardly see where I’d been on the finish: so Chester was quite impressed about that, because the previous guy that had been out doing work had just dug a rough trench across and back-filled anything in, so he wasn’t very impressed with that. …

I went over there one day and Dame Merlyn Myer’s there … so she comes down to the kitchen area where we used to come to the back door, and she’s leading me up the passage, then she stopped and turned back. I’d been over in the shop in Richmond and they told me to go over, so I rode my pushbike over: I didn’t have my boots on, I had my bike-riding shoes on. She stops and turns around and looks at me and said, “Oh, I’ve just had all new carpet put through here, I don’t know whether you’re very clean.” I said, “I shouldn’t be too bad, Dame Merlyn, I just had a shower last night.” “No, no, no, I don’t mean that!” she said. So she turned and walked on, and I followed her up to the bathroom to have a look at what was doing.40

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Dirty boots were not the only problem, or indeed the worst. Graham Everitt remembered Herb Denman taking a call from Dame Merlyn. One of AE Smith’s plumbers had found his way into the cellar and was happily sampling the contents.

Denman rushed over to remove the culprit and the relationship between the Myer family and AE Smith & Son remained cordial. ‘Cranlana’ required considerable plumbing attention, less because of any structural problem than because of the extensive gardens designed by the notable architect Harold Desbrowe Annear. As Everitt recalls: Herb used to spend a lot of time with Dame Merlyn; she was always having plumbers get over there to help with their place. It’s a beautiful home and it had huge trees in the garden and roots were always getting into the plumbing and the pipes and so forth. It was a case of saying, “Well, if you want these beautiful trees to stay,” and naturally they did, “well you’re going to have to get plumbers coming in here to clean out the roots from time to time.”41 Herb Denman’s exploits gained the status of legends and it is pleasant to speculate that Dame Merlyn Myer, a great patron of the arts, may have witnessed one of them. Alec Bell, himself a man of considerable musical ability, recalled that Herb, who had a fine baritone voice, had another talent. He liked playing tunes by blowing, bugle-like, into a piece of copper piping while standing on the roof.42 Both Herb and Roy Denman were singers and were members for many years of the Kookaburra Concert Group, performing at the Mission for Seamen, and the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. They were enticed into the troupe, which included around two dozen members, by Ken Orren, who had joined AE Smith & Son shortly after Roy Denman. The Kookaburra Concert Group performed from 1945 until about 1958, when its comedian left for England and proved irreplaceable.

During the 1950s, the firm worked on a landmark City building and its associated factory in a project which fitted with the expansion from plumbing to building services generally and which exemplified the links between Bert and Marjorie Smith’s social life and the professional work of AE Smith & Son. The ornate five-storey headquarters of Norman Brothers, Printers and Stationers at 175 Elizabeth Street was a Melbourne landmark: generations of Melburnians bought their professional and personal stationery needs there and ordered custom-printed invitations to christenings, twenty-first birthday parties and weddings. AE Smith & Son provided the building services for both the Elizabeth Street building and, in 1959 and the early 1960s, the first and second sections of Norman Brothers’ Fitzroy factory.

When Howard Norman died, his widow Jean bought Keith Norman out and was 37

Spanning the Centuries

Norman Brothers, 175 Elizabeth Street Clements Langford Pty Ltd Collection, University of Melbourne Archives

Managing Director of the firm from 1959 to 1978. On her marriage to Richard Downing in 1965, she employed AE Smith & Son on their house in Eltham. Jean Downing had known the company from childhood, as her family lived just a few doors from the Smiths’ house in Toorak Road, South Camberwell and her parents, Olive and Stuart MacGregor had played both tennis and cards with Marjorie and Bert.

In his essay to accompany the National Gallery of Victoria’s exhibition ‘Melbourne, 1956’, which was on display from 16 August to 1 October 2000, Christopher Heathcote’s comments on what visitors to the Olympic City would find seem almost to mirror the work schedule of AE Smith & Son:

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From the visitor’s standpoint, the most visible indicator of the change was probably the smattering of ultra-contemporary buildings that stood out in what was, essentially, a stately colonial city. The 132-foot limit, set in 1890 on the height of building projects, had been revoked and skyscrapers were appearing. Indeed for the first time since World War II the building industry was not dominated by home construction. History tends to look favourably on the new Olympic Swimming Pool, a venue in which Australia’s swimming team would win numerous sporting medals. But at the time, the architect and cultural critic, Robin Boyd, singled out three ultra-contemporary projects as representing a momentous ‘turning point’ in Australian design. Gilbert Court at 100 Collins Street, the city’s first office block in the steel-andglass international style; Wilson Hall, a bold new auditorium at Melbourne University; and The Legend, a stylish ‘Latin-modernist’ espresso bar in Bourke Street. There was also Alliance House, a much-admired office block in Collins Street, the first building in Victoria with full climate-control air-conditioning; the Royal Children’s Hospital project which had been underway since April; and Hosies Hotel, on the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders Streets, which was being redeveloped and endowed with a landmark geometric-abstract mural.43 AE Smith & Son worked on both Gilbert Court and the new Wilson Hall, built to replace the much-loved nineteenth-century Gothic building destroyed by fire in January 1952. Gilbert Court, at 100 Collins Street, was designed by JA La Gerche, who was also responsible for the Coates Building at 18-20 Collins Street.

Construction of Gilbert Court was begun in 1954 and it was the first curtainwalled building in Melbourne. This free-standing steel and glass office block was one of the first post-War projects in the City, beginning the transformation of the Paris End of Collins Street. Responsibility for the mechanical services of this building was the first job of its kind undertaken by the firm.

Roy Denman spent over a year on the Foy and Gibson store on the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets. He installed the ducted air-conditioning and recalled ducts measuring twelve by eight feet – big enough to drive a truck through. Work on the Foy and Gibson store was followed by the first stage of the Chadstone shopping centre, which initially consisted of a Myer department store, a row of small shops and a supermarket. It was the first such development in Australia and AE Smith & Son were to work on many more in several states. Denman was site foreman at Chadstone from 1954 to 1955, and the centre opened to widespread excitement in 1960.

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Gilbert Court, 100 Collins Street La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria

The mid to late 1950s saw the first years of television in Melbourne, and AE Smith & Son worked on both the Australian Broadcasting Commission studios at Ripponlea and GTV 9 Richmond, on the site of a Heinz Foods factory, in Bendigo Street, just round the corner from the AE Smith office. All three Melbourne stations (ABV2, HSV7 and GTV9) began transmission with the opening of the Olympic Games on 18 November 1956. GTV9 started transmitting two shows weekly starring Bob Dyer and three with Jack Davey, as well as five shows a week with ‘Happy’ Hammond, on 18 January 1957.44 Davey and Dyer had a long rivalry (and friendship) on television, running rival quiz shows, although Dyer’s Pick-a-Box, which ran from 1957 to 1971, was far more successful than Davey’s and brought to national attention Barry Jones, the future Australian Minister for Science from 1983 to 1990. The ABC launched its inaugural transmission ‘on full power’ on 17 September 1957, assuring its viewers of ‘the brightest view’.45 In 1958, Denman had a cheering experience of support offered by the close-knit AE Smith staff to each other. Roy Denman married that year and built his own Mount Waverley house off the plans. He made the spouting, downpipes, etc., in his brother Herb’s garage in Hawthorn, but, just as it should have been installed, he fell ill. The builder notified him that the tiler was ready to start, but would need to be put off unless the plumbing work was completed. Denman rang his brother, 40

Expanding Horizons

to see if ‘two or three of the fellows’ who normally did sanitary work would be prepared to do some weekend work for payment.

So on the Sunday night the phone goes, and it’s the builder, and he said to me, ‘Listen, Mr Denman, I don’t know what sort of place you work for, but I went down to that bloody block on Saturday and there are twenty-two plumbers …I’ve never seen twenty-two plumbers working on a house before!’46 The year 1961 saw the imposition by the Menzies government of a credit squeeze which almost caused it to lose office and had widespread effects on the building industry. AE Smith & Son were, moreover, not well-equipped in terms of skills to undertake air-conditioning contracts as well as heating and ventilation work.

Several people were recruited to make good the shortfall – Jack Mills, a skilled draughtsman with qualifications in engineering, set up the drawing office, Graham Everitt came in as an assistant to Alec Bell on the financial side and estimating, and Bob Redman was employed as an engineer.

Before this, AE Smith & Son had won contracts to install services designed by other firms, and Steve Atherton of AE Atherton & Sons recalled one of his earliest jobs in 1966 after he qualified from Swinburne Technical College. During his time with William Andell & Associates he worked on drawing and designing the duct work and pipe work for the TAB building in Queens Road, South Melbourne. The contract for installation was awarded to AE Smith & Son. 47 One of Graham Everitt’s first jobs was to organise a card system to record material as it came in and left the premises. Tools are high-cost items and they needed to be tracked both to avoid theft and to ensure that only safe items are used. As he recalled: There’d be electric drills; die cutters … thread cutters … hammer drills as well as ordinary electric drills … ladders, planks, to put on trestles. They later on changed; in the early days they were timber. You know, a timber plank between two trestles was what they worked on. But ultimately some of the naughty boys would put a coat of paint over the ones that were wearing out, so they were not safe … So now they have to be metal.48 Bob Redman had worked with AE Smith & Son in the early 1960s, before entering their employment, notably when he worked with Email on jobs at Laverton for the Defence Housing Authority. His work with AE Smith was originally to deal with the consulting engineers employed by building contractors and ensure the firm’s contracts would be fulfilled. As Redman explained, the person or organisation 41

Spanning the Centuries

which commissions a building has a direct contract with the builder, who in turn sub-contracts to the firm providing the mechanical services. In the event of the builder going broke, a sub-contractor such as AE Smith runs the risk of not being paid. Various associations, notably the Master Plumbers’ Association, the AirConditioning and Mechanical Contractors’ Association and the Building Industry Sub-Contractors’ Organisation of Australia have all tried to address this issue. As the President of BISCOA expressed the problem in 1977: The Sub-contract must reflect the requirements of the Head Contract. If the Head Contract is ambiguous, or unreasonable, it does not really affect the Principal Contractor so much, for it is the Sub-contractors who actually perform over 80 per cent (and in many cases 90 per cent) of the actual work.

It is the Sub-contractor who has to ultimately ‘pay the price’ for inadequate Head Contracts Documents.49 This problem was to come to a head as the result of the 1961 credit squeeze, which ultimately saw the collapse of large building firms such as Clements Langford and Johns and Reid. The MPA reported a dire situation in 1968: The casualty of Clements Langford has been a most costly affair as far as suppliers and sub-contractors are concerned. The company, the oldest on Victoria’s records, incurred heavy losses on several contracts in 1960, but creditors voted for it to continue. It later reported a return to profit, but late last year floundered once more, leaving a sorry wake of unsecured creditors.

In Melbourne there have been 14 collapses of such companies already this year. Throughout Australia, building and construction companies default at the rate of three every second day.50

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Dating from around this period is the anonymous Contractor’s Lament supplied to us by Graham Everitt: There was panic in the office for the word had got around That we’d just received a ‘Letter of Intent’.

But everybody wondered if the estimate had blundered, For the figure named was not the one we meant.

The quote in this connection had a telephoned correction And negotiated handouts in at cost.

Then some angry words were uttered when the estimator muttered That apparently the paperwork was lost.

An attempted reconstruction just compounded the destruction When we found that we’d omitted the ‘Provision’, The arithmetic was rotten and the sales tax been forgotten, And the cut price subbie been a bad decision!

With a buzz of speculation on the possible quotation Contents very little had a lot of merit: For the Boss said that on his count, we would have to bear the discount, Grab the job, be more productive, grin and bear it!

We were even more bewildered when we found out that the builder’d Been made bankrupt under other names before.

The job site was a shambles, and ’twas said, ‘the builder gambles And his cash flow isn’t outwards any more!’

Hope ever springs eternal, but alas it cannot earn all So essential to supply our daily bread.

But a job’s a job, let’s take it and by super effort make it Break out even, for it mops up overhead!

To be certain of a profit, as a job, we’re better off it, But we need the work, let’s take it and we’ll fight!

With good engineering relations, lots of juicy variations And good luck, the end result will be alright!

The uncertain economic climate took its toll on the staff at AE Smith as well as on big builders. Roy Denman describes the effect on him in 1968:

43

Spanning the Centuries

I had nine site meetings in a week, and that was one every morning and afternoon and it left me one afternoon, and that was Thursday afternoon, to go around and deliver the pays. … I did not have time to follow up what should have been done.51 Denman was obliged to take sick leave for several weeks, after which he was employed in the office as Personnel Manager. From 1968 to 1985 he not only hired all the new apprentices, but, as they remained with the firm for anything up to ten years, became a mentor for the lads. Interviewed ten years after his departure from the firm, he noted how much pleasure it gave him to see from the house journal how many of them had become site managers and leading hands.

Conditions for plumbers and other tradesmen improved markedly during Bert Smith’s time at the head of his company. During the 1930s, plumbers had won a pay loading to cover nine or ten public holidays a year, as well as the equivalent of one week’s sick leave.52 Immediately after the War, some AE Smith employees clubbed together to cover days off because of illness. Roy Denman recalled: In those days there was no sick pay for tradesmen. If you got sick or injured, if you got a broken leg, you were out of action for six weeks. So half a dozen of us got together and said, ‘Why don’t we start our own fund?’ We called it the Voluntary Aid Fund [and] we all put in a shilling a week. … I was President of that for seventeen years and we had to put a return each year [as a] Friendly Society and we built up a few bob. Not only did we pay the fellows … we also had enough money to run a kids’ Christmas party. We had clowns and all sorts of things. …

Eventually, six days sick leave came in and Alec Bell … said to me, ‘You know, the fellows, with you paying them money, they are getting more to stay at home than they are coming to work. …I think I had better ask you to close your Voluntary Aid Fund down.’ …

So I called a meeting and gave everybody notice of seven days and I did not get a quorum. So I had to put another notice out. …I put on the notice that whilst we were a Friendly Society, we were also a dividing society, which meant we would divide the money legally amongst anybody that was there. I got people at the next meeting that were not even in the thing.53 The Social Club took over funding the Christmas party, and the money went to charities including the Royal Children’s Hospital, the Lion’s Club and other children’s charities.

44

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Long Service Leave after twenty years’ service was introduced by the first Cain Government in 1953, covering cases where Federal awards did not offer it as well as for workers under Victorian awards.

Bert Smith had relinquished almost all active part in the business a couple of years before his premature death, because of ill health. He died on 2 September 1964 and Barry Smith remembered the pathos of his last days: He died rather tragically, because it was found he had pancreas cancer in February 1964. In those days, nobody told anybody about illness. “You mustn’t tell your father. You mustn’t tell your father.” He had treatment after treatment; he went yellow, we all thought he had hepatitis, before that.

Then he was in Freemasons Hospital; he was at Epworth Hospital - Bethesda Hospital I think it was - when he was treated and he went stone deaf. In the end I had to convince my mother that if she wouldn’t, I would, tell my father that he was going to die. And I wrote it on a bit of paper. His question one day was, “What’s happening, Son?” You know, “Where am I going?” I said, “Dad, you’re not going anywhere. You’re not going to live.” It was a very emotional time for both of us. Although, his remark was, “Well, so let’s move on.” Whereas we had this sort of uneasy relationship, and it wasn’t something I was comfortable with. He’d been so open in his life, and to keep something like that - life and death - secret from somebody, is not fair.54 The Master Plumbers’ Association of Victoria paid handsome tribute to their Past President’s achievements. When he had been awarded Life Membership in 1960, they had commented: Men of his calibre are not easily found. He is a clear, progressive thinker, a good speaker, and possesses a strong but pleasant personality.

In the days when the Association was struggling he worked closely with the late Harry Forrester in the interests of the Association, and those who are members today owe much to the work he did then and is still doing in a quiet way on their behalf.55 On his death, his colleagues recorded: The passing of Mr AE Smith leaves a gap in our industry which will never really be filled.

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Bert Smith (as he was usually known throughout the industry) had played many parts in the building up of status and standards among plumbers and had played all those parts well. As a young man he was in turn teacher and examiner of young plumbers, and his firm has long been noted for its efficient training of apprentices.

Bert and Barry Smith Barry Smith Collection

His work on behalf of this Association was wide spread in time and in activities covered. It covered a period when the organization, lacking the strength it now possesses, could be regarded as struggling. It was Bert and his contemporaries who established the basis of our present strength.

In turn his Association honoured him. He was elected President in the years 1935 and 1936 and was later made a Life Member. We well remember his gratification when his permission was sought to name after him those scholarships we know as the Albert Smith Awards.

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Although in recent years, he took no active part in Association affairs his advice, when sought, was always readily forthcoming, was well considered, and was well worthy of attention.

Son Barry now takes a leading part in the conduct of the firm …56 Before we turn our attention to the third generation of AE Smith & Son, it is fitting that Roy Denman, the youngest of the brothers who contributed so much to the firm from the 1940s onwards, should have the last word: He was a beautiful man. He could bawl you out and then, in the next breath, ‘Have a good afternoon, and what are you going to do tonight?’ or something like that. … I don’t mind admitting, I cried at AE Smith’s funeral. I lost a friend. As well as an employer, I lost a very, very good friend and he was a great bloke.57

Endnotes 1 2 3

4 5

6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Barry Smith interview with Rosemary Francis 25 July 2006.

The street has since been re-numbered and the property is a child-care centre.

Graeme Davison. The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2004. p 88-89.

Barry Smith interview 25 July 2006.

Alec Bell’s Story. Undated manuscript provided by AE Smith & Son 28 February 2007.

Undated interview with Roy Denman and others. Manuscript provided by AE Smith & Son 28 February 2007.

Ibid. The Hospital is now Dromana Private Nursing Home.

Ibid.

Master Plumbers’ Association. General Meeting, 21 October 1931. Minutes.

PGEU Melbourne Branch, 1 May 1917. General Minute Book.

Master Plumbers’ Association. General Meeting, 19 September 1934. Minutes.

Brian Chasteauneuf interview with Rosemary Francis 25 September 2006.

Master Plumbers’ Association. Annual Meeting, November 1936.

Ibid.

Barry Smith interview with Rosemary Francis 11 September 2006.

Barry Smith interview with Rosemary Francis 25 July 2006.

Jack Mills interview with Rosemary Francis 13 December 2006 Ron Forsyth interview with Rosemary Francis 19 September 2006.

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19 20 21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55 56 57

Barry Smith interview with Rosemary Francis 19 September 2006.

Ron Forsyth interview with Rosemary Francis 19 September 2006.

Undated interview with Roy Denman and others. Manuscript provided by AE Smith & Son 28 February 2007.

Ibid.

Master Plumbers’ Association of Victoria. Service Bulletin. November 1 1964. p 14 Graham Everitt interview with Rosemary Francis 7 December 2006.

Jack Mills interview 13 December 2006.

Graham Everitt interview 7 December 2006.

Alec Bell’s Story.

Ibid.

Master Plumbers’ Association of Victoria. Service Bulletin. 1 April 1966. p 5.

Jack Mills interview 13 December 2006.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Interview with Roy Denman and others.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Barry Smith interview 25 July 2006.

Ibid.

Ron Forsyth interview 19 September 2006.

Ibid.

Undated reminiscences of Alec Bell, provided by AE Smith & Son 28 February 2007.

Christopher Heathcote. ‘Going ‘All Out’ Modern.’ In Melbourne, 1956 Melbourne National Gallery of Victoria, 2000.

Argus. 18 January 1957.

Herald. 17 September 1957.

Interview with Roy Denman and others.

Steve Atherton interview with Rosemary Francis 3 April 2007.

Graham Everitt interview with Rosemary Francis 8 August 2006.

Master Plumbers’ Association of Victoria. Service Bulletin. November 1977. p 12.

Master Plumbers’ Association of Victoria. Service Bulletin. June 1968. p 3.

Interview with Roy Denman and others.

George Crawford. Footprints: history of the Plumbers’ Union. Melbourne: 1997. p 48 Undated interview with Roy Denman and others.

Barry Smith interview 25 July 2006.

Master Plumbers’ Association of Victoria. Service Bulletin April 1960. p 1.

Master Plumbers’ Association of Victoria. Service Bulletin. October 1964. p 8 Interview with Roy Denman and others.

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Chapter Three Australia-wide “Every year’s a good year, except for that one bad job.”1 Generational change in AE Smith & Son had involved significant expansion and change of focus when Bert Smith took the firm from Melbourne to the rest of Victoria and from plumbing to mechanical services. His only venture outside his home state, however, had been in 1947, when he worked on the Lufra Hotel at

Barry Edward Smith (1934-2006) Barry Smith Collection

Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania for Reginald Ansett, the founder of Ansett Airways.

This was the first Australian hotel to be opened after the Second World War, and Bert Smith was persuaded to undertake the heating and hot water service mainly because of his personal relationship with Ansett, who lived near the Smiths in Camberwell. The Lufra Hotel, which overlooks the cliffs of Pirates Bay and 49

Spanning the Centuries

the Tessellated Pavement, is now a Best Western Hotel. Twenty years would pass before AE Smith’s next Tasmanian project.

The Commonwealth Offices, Spring Street La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria

Barry Smith, who joined the company at the beginning of 1953, was to inspire and oversee another expansion, this time from Victoria to the rest of Australia and beyond as well as his firm’s participation in increasingly complex projects.

Once again, we have chosen a few major projects as typical of particular aspects of the firm’s activities. In chronological terms, this chapter deals with the period from Bert Smith’s death in 1964 to about 1980. This was the year of Alec Bell’s retirement and, coincidentally, of the destruction of one of the first buildings on which Albert Edward Smith worked as an apprentice. Both the Australia Building on the Elizabeth Street corner of Flinders Lane and the Commonwealth Centre on the corner of Spring and Latrobe Streets were demolished in 1980.

The Commonwealth Centre, popularly referred to as the Green Latrine, dated from 1958 and had given AE Smith & Son their first large-scale air-conditioning commission.

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For all the technological, economic and societal changes which have occurred since 1964 and the vast expansion which he inspired and directed, all the interviews we undertook for this history suggest that the company Barry Smith inherited already had a coherent and united vision which endures to this day. Asked what was good about working for AE Smith & Son, Jack Mills responded in part:

AE Smith & Son staff, early 1970s Back: RW Dunstan, Brian Chasteauneuf, RS George, KJ Rogers, Roy Denman, CK Minetti, Ron Forsyth Front: AT Bell, RB Ford, Ken Orren, Barry Smith, Jack Mills, ED Park, Graham Everitt, NT Godfrey Barry Smith Collection

Basically nearly everyone that worked there was always pulling in the same direction. … Barry was a very good boss, a very good businessman. … Barry was always a hard worker and he was always on the job early, and the men appreciated that. … A lot of them had worked under AE himself, and … stayed loyal to Barry.2 Barry Smith, like his father, was a hands-on director, always interested in new ways of doing things, enthusiastic about new developments in tooling such as the automatic drills Jack Mills had seen in use at General Motors Holden, and the new telescopic measure for ceiling heights. Alec Bell, with his hands on the purse-strings and his eyes on the firm’s financial security was more cautious, but essentially resigned to the necessity of change and the expenditure it involved.

Years later, Mills recalled seeing this labour-saving device, which would therefore save money, at an engineering exhibition: 51

Spanning the Centuries

I saw this measuring stick which was telescopic pieces that slid out, that had a tape built into it. Stanley made it. You could measure to ceiling height with this thing. I thought, that’s a good deal, because that would save another bloke going out. With ceilings or concrete, it might be three metres at this end, but you go over the other end, and it’s only 2.75 metres or 2.9 metres. So the concrete is not an absolute thing. So if we’re looking at ceiling spaces, when they put the ceiling through, the ceiling is lovely and flat, but the concrete above it - and the ceiling space may be that big there, and only that big there.

So I said to Barry, “We should buy these things,” and he said, “Yes, get some.”

So we got them, and we were the first in the industry with them.3 Barry was also a boss who knew how to laugh with his employees, and stories about his minor mishaps circulated through the firm: He would always come in and tell you the silly thing that he did, and he wouldn’t make any secret of it. And it would be all around: “Did you hear what the Chief did last night?” You know. Everyone was in on the act if you like; in on the fact that he’d put his car through the car wash but … the sun roof was damaged - he’d forgotten it was damaged and he’d put the car through the car wash and he’d flooded himself, the seat and everything.4 His generosity and concern were recognised as his father’s had been and staff remember him entertaining them in his own home, giving away tickets to the football Grand Final and being aware of and concerned about the family circumstances of his ever-growing number of employees. His business dynamism was another strong feature. He wanted AE Smith in on the big City projects as well as the country hospitals and the regional factories.

Unlike his father, Barry Smith did not go straight into the family business from school. After finishing at Wesley College, he left with his parents and sister on the trip Bert Smith had waited ten years to take after the outbreak of war had forced his early return in 1939. Sailing on the Orcades, the family was away from Australia for over half a year, returning in October 1950. Having failed to qualify for University entrance, Barry embarked on an engineering diploma course and began work at AE Vickery, at 422 Swan Street, Richmond. This was another family firm. Albert Edward Vickery’s father had run an engineering business in Bridge Road, Richmond, which had closed at his death in 1925. His son established his own business in Swan Street during the 1930s, and it was subsequently run by his two sons, George and Albert, who passed it in turn to their sons Alan and Robert.

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In 1956 Barry married Helen Daley. They had four daughters – Jennifer, Wendy, Sarah and Elizabeth. The marriage was dissolved in 1980 and Barry and Barbara Permezel were married in 1986.

Barry was enrolled at Swinburne Technical School from 1952 to 1953 and in 1956.

His subjects were Machine Shop, Physics, Engineering Drawing, Mathematics, Building Construction and Heat Engines. In 1954 he completed the two-year course in High Pressure Refrigeration at the Melbourne Technical College. This

AE Smith staff late 1960s.

Back: T Court, K Rogers, B Roache, P Williams, R Forsyth, L Johnston, F Baker Middle: G Smith, K Smith, K Horak, F Richardson, J Bohmer, L Scotland, M Clarkson, M Gaffney, T. Prichard, B Kennedy, J Marshall Front: G Warland, S Rogers, George Denman, Barry Smith, Roy Denman, Jack Mills Seated in front: Michael Ong, Francis Pak, Bob Redman Barry Smith Collection

course, which was available as an alternative to the Metallurgy for Mechanical Engineers required for the Department of Education diploma, consisted of theory and laboratory work on ammonia and carbon dioxide machines. The two hours per week cost students ÂŁ1 per term.

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Although he did not always find Albert Edward Vickery (1901-1995) a congenial employer, Barry thoroughly enjoyed his work. He served his apprenticeship with Vickery’s as a fitter and turner before joining his father at AE Smith in January 1953. He worked with Roy Denman on the Sale Hospital, a situation not entirely to Denman’s liking: AE said to me, ‘I want you to take Barry with you for a couple of years,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, no. Not the boss’s son!’ You know the sort of funny things that go on on sites, that you do not want the boss’s son or the boss to know.5 Barry did not spend a long time ‘on the tools’, since his father, increasingly unwell with high blood pressure and depression induced by the medication he was prescribed for it, had retired from active management of the business by the early 1960s. From the late 1950s Barry assisted George Denman in estimating, which at the time was done entirely manually.

The mid to late 1950s had seen an enormous expansion in industrial sites, beginning for AE Smith & Son with the construction of the Volkswagen works in Clayton and the Holden automotive proving ground at Lang Lang, as well as Chadstone shopping centre and Channel 9 as we noted earlier. The Volkswagen development consisted originally of the engine manufacturing plant. The press shop had thirty presses, including a bank of eighteen capable of exerting almost 2,000 tonnes of pressure. In the press shop huge gantry cranes travelled the roof to move dies to and from the presses. An overhead conveyor system, snaking its way round the roof over some 2,250 metres, transported the pressed panels around the plant, while simultaneously acting as a storage facility: some six months’ supply of panels could be stored in this fashion.6 The Home Heating Section of the Master Plumbers’ Association was set up in late 1963, a development in which both Bert Smith and Alec Bell had been instrumental.

This organisation was to form the basis of the Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors’ Association of Australia. In November 1964, it reported conducting a survey of members interested in sales and installation of home heating which had attracted responses from 160 participants.7 As we have seen, a reorganisation of the company itself was already under way when Barry took over. The change of ownership showed a change in the social and educational background of the directors, with a trend towards professional qualifications evident in the company to this day. Bert Smith, with his lifetime commitment to teaching and learning, would have approved. Albert Smith and Bert both attended local State Schools and did their trade training at Technical 54

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School. In the next generation, Barry Smith attended Wesley College, Alec Bell, Trinity College and Graham Everitt, Scotch College – a fair representation of Melbourne’s Establishment schools. Connections made there lasted a life-time.

Some less formal ways of doing business remained unchanged, however. Jack Mills recalled the importance of the Rising Sun Hotel in Swan Street in the social and commercial life of the firm, especially when it involved George Denman: He used to target the consultants that loved to drink, because George … in his lunchtimes he loved to drink, and he’d get the consultants that liked to drink. And he got a lot of work that way too. He used to say to me, “We’ll get this job.” …

Rising Sun Hotel, Swan Street, Richmond Photographer Juliet Flesch

It was Richmond and it wasn’t a very flash pub, but we went up there of a Friday night. Usually it would be Graham Everitt, myself, George, Barry.

The ones that used to stay late, that never went home. The senior people were always still there at quarter to six - so on Friday nights we used to go up there. Often there’d be a meeting - George would arrange something up at the Rising Sun with these blokes. … I think there were 54 pubs in South Melbourne and he knew every one of them.8 This business culture predated Barry Smith of course. Alec Bell recalled that George Denman was as good at judging character as he was at estimating: He did a lot of work in Melbourne’s pubs. Whenever he was giving someone directions to a job, it would always be via pubs as landmarks. He worked on what he used to call the beer standard. George and Bert used to drink a lot of 55

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beer in those days. Bert used to go down Swan Street Richmond on a Saturday morning and meet all the trade reps in different pubs. Bells Hotel in South Melbourne used to be a favourite watering place for George and Bert.9 Melbourne in the 1950s had seen an explosion in the growth of many tall City buildings, as well as of suburban shopping centres and factories. Also during the

Wilson Hall, University of Melbourne Photographer Juliet Flesch

1960s there was a burst of activity in the university sector, with new buildings at both Melbourne and the fledgling Monash Universities. One of the most complex and demanding was the new Medical Centre on Grattan Street at the University of Melbourne.

AE Smith & Son had done earlier work at Melbourne University, including one project of which Bert Smith had been particularly proud. On 25 January 1952, fire destroyed one best-loved buildings of the University – the nineteenth century Gothic Wilson Hall. All of Melbourne had mourned the loss of the gracious structure which embodied the University’s very ‘soul’. Its replacement 56

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was a decisive break with the nineteenth-century resonances of the University Quadrangle and Old Arts and looked nothing like the building it replaced. All the firms which worked on what Robin Boyd described as the crowning jewel of Australian Featurism were at the top of their professions: Osborn McCutcheon of Bates Smart & McCutcheon was the architect; Grant Featherstone designed the furniture of the dais; the exterior and interior art-works were by Douglas Annand

Medical Centre, University of Melbourne Photographer Juliet Flesch

and Tom Bass. The mechanical services were provided by AE Smith & Son. The limited competition held in 1965 to design the Melbourne University Medical Centre resulted in a winning design so complex and expensive that the University did not only appoint a Project Officer. It finally (almost thirty years since the idea had first been mooted) appointed its first Staff Engineer for the project.10 The Yshaped Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences Building was opened in 1969.

Ron Forsyth worked on the Medical Centre from the start of construction in 1967 and his reminiscences highlight several of the technical problems to be overcome, as well as some of the unexpected sights which confronted the workers.11 Cast iron sewer drains were laid under the concrete floors. David Seedsman recalled that the design differed from the traditional cast iron stack and galvanised pipe 57

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waste system. Copper pipe work could not be used in the isotopes area, because of the corrosive nature of the waste. In the animal washing area, traditional cast iron pipe work was used to limit the amount of expansion caused by the large amounts of hot water used there.12 The site of the building caused problems in its own right because the southwest part of the Melbourne University campus is prone to flooding. The drain in Royal Parade, which takes water from College Crescent as well as the University buildings, was built of bricks and is obstructed by the roots of the elm trees lining the road, broken bricks and earth.13 It was an interesting spot because at the end, there was an ejector pot there for the sewer - it was down too low to get a natural fall-out to the sewer area - so the bottom area had to go to an ejector pot which had the sewerage pumped up until it got to the gravity outlet level. One of the things … which we hadn’t struck before was the autopsy area where the mortuary tables and the dissected parts, coffin store, and all the bits of bodies were kept that might be called on to be sent up to the demonstration rooms for the students. … When I got the final inspection with the plumbing inspector on that job, we had to go into the bottom area and it was all locked up, but I had to get a key to get in, and there’s a body lying on the table hooked up to a formalin drip ...14 Robert Redman joined AE Smith & Son a few weeks before Bert Smith’s death in 1964 as their first qualified engineer. He had worked previously with Gordon Brothers, a privately owned Australian industrial refrigeration company, and for four years as a contracts engineer with Email Limited, Air Conditioning and Industrial Refrigeration Division. At Email, Redman worked on air conditioning installations in hosiery mills, office blocks, restaurants and on many other special applications.

The work involved rechecking basic design data prepared by estimating engineers, preparing drawings for construction by either the factory or sub-contractors, site supervision of installations, selecting, ordering and purchasing of all equipment associated with the particular contract, and final setting into operation and testing of equipment as well as liaison with the client and consulting engineers.

One of his first jobs with AE Smith & Son was at 172 William Street, between Bourke and Little Bourke Streets. This is a multi-storey building, constructed as offices and since converted to sixty-eight serviced apartments, known as Quest on William. The construction was unusual. There was an underground car park with normal ventilation with open grilles. The first floor slab had a pipe heating system installed in it to eliminate the coldness of the garage ceiling, which constituted 58

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the first floor level. The piping was set in concrete, pre-insulated before it was poured, and leak tested to avoid problems at a later stage. It was connected to the boiler heating system in a plant room on the roof. Another unusual factor was that the building had under-window induction units, for which Redman needed to do a design check to ascertain the resistance against which the fans needed to work. It was the first such job he had undertaken, and it was to lead to another development in the firm. Once 172 William Street was leased, AE Smith & Son were contracted to provide ongoing maintenance after the original twelve-month maintenance period had elapsed.

This was to lead to a significant change in the way the work at AE Smith & Son was organised and allocated. One of Redman’s first actions on joining the firm was to have all service calls routed through him, so that he could record and coordinate them. Until that time, the foreman of a team which had initially done the work would attend to any service calls. This involved leaving whatever new job he was working on at the time. Redman undertook to take the calls. He would either attend himself or send an appropriate person. It was his responsibility to ensure that the right man was sent to address the problem, rather than running the risk of having a plumber sent to fix an electrical malfunction. The new system also meant that jobs were no longer disrupted by the unforeseen absence of a foreman because he had been summoned to a service call.

To work in the service/maintenance area, Redman recruited his stepfather, Frederick Ferguson, who had run his own business in Brunswick before being employed by Frigrite as a refrigeration mechanic. Ferguson joined the firm in 1964.

This was the beginning of the Service Branch of AE Smith & Son, with its regular maintenance contracts.

The current Group General Manager, Service is Aldo Cevaal (1961- ), who joined the firm in 1997. Cevaal’s Bachelor of Science degree from Monash University and Graduate Diploma in Marketing from RMIT University are indicative of the shift in some parts of the management team at AE Smith & Son away from technical qualifications to other aspects of the company’s work.

The manufacture and stocking of pipe and duct work became a big issue in the 1960s and 1970s. Bert Smith had purchased a succession of properties (427 to 431 Swan Street) largely because of the need to house as well as manufacture pipes and ducts. Among them was a derelict house on the corner of Farmer and Cutter Streets, behind the Swan Street premises.

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Aldo Cevaal Courtesy AE Smith & Son

Around 1966 he had bought a site in suburban Clayton, for the manufacture of duct work. When Kingsley Industries stopped trading in the early 1970s, Barry Smith bought their Weltyway automatic duct-making machine, installing it in the Clayton property, while the Swan Street premises became the pipe factory. This in turn led to the prefabrication of pipes for country jobs, which permitted the firm to measure the premises to be serviced, make up the pipework in the factory, take it apart and reassemble it on site. Meanwhile, Britannia continued to manufacture sheet metal, chlorifiers and copper vessels.

The house at the corner of Cutter and Farmer Streets Richmond.

Barry Smith Collection

In 1968, in their first venture outside Victoria for twenty years, AE Smith & Son opened their first interstate branch, in Hobart, Tasmania. The Tasma Street factory was bought four years later, in 1972.

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The Tasma Street, Hobart, premises of AE Smith & Son, 1968 Barry Smith Collection

An experienced engineer, Jack Mills, was put in charge. Mills had joined the firm in the last two years of Bert Smith’s life, when the credit squeeze of the early 1960s was still gripping the country. Although George Denman was still greatly valued in the company for his estimating ability, Jack Mills’s knowledge of drafting was of great importance in correctly estimating the cost of a project. He brought a qualified engineer’s skills to the firm, changing the dynamics of dealing with consulting engineers on projects for which AE Smith might tender. His first job, at Melbourne’s new Customs House, constructed between 1961 and 1965 at the corner of Williams and Flinders Streets, had been a baptism of fire. AE Smith & Son were contracted to install the air-conditioning.

As we have seen earlier, one effect of the credit squeeze had been an outbreak of building contractors defaulting on payments to firms sub-contracted for services, so AE Smith refused to be sub-contracted through the builder and negotiated a direct contract with the government. Mills recalled: So the builder was no longer responsible for us as a sub-contractor ... The builder would say, “I want duct work on the fourth floor by next week.”

“OK.” “Otherwise you’ll be holding us up.” So you’d put all this in place and he’d say, “No, it’s the fifth floor, we’re doing the fifth floor - we want the duct work for the fifth floor.” So AE Smith were the scapegoat for any delays - they could justify delays because it was the client delaying them. We were in effect the client, because we had a direct contract with the government for payment. And it made it very, very hard. … I was thrown in the deep end, and just had to learn quickly.15 The first Tasmanian job proved no easier for Mills or the company as a whole.

The multi-storey building in Elizabeth Street, Hobart, was constructed for the 61

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Australian Mutual Provident Society, and the AMP restricted some of the choices the company would normally have made, for example by insisting on the use of certain fittings because the Society managed the superannuation funds of a particular firm. There were other problems, too. Jack Mills, Eddie Park of the Victorian Construction Division and Bob Redman had gone to Hobart from Melbourne, with the rest of the workforce taken from the Hobart team.

When basically the job was finished, we … started to commission it - and we couldn’t get any air down to the lower three floors. Then we added it all up, and the fans were the size for 34,000 CFM - cubic feet of air a minute - but when you added up the drawings of the air that was required, it was 44,000.

Interior of the Tasma Street premises during a break Barry Smith Collection

It was something that was so basic, that you wouldn’t think to check it: that was my excuse at any rate. … But they had 34,000, and it was a doubleduct system. It was a major mistake, and … you couldn’t run the fan faster because with a double-duct system the air outlets or mixing box was set up for a constant volume, and there was no air left over to get down to the lower floors. What it meant was we had to change every one of the mixing boxes …

And there were twelve floors, so [there were] hundreds, and they were all behind plaster ceilings. .... It was … just after metric had come in, and the suspended ceiling was designed on metric, and the plaster tiles that fitted into that were imperial. … So the builder, or the sub-contractor, pushed these tiles in so that they were tremendously tight. ... You’d get one out so you could get into the ceiling to these mixing boxes. But when you got these out, you broke chips off the tile! So I personally vacuumed clean, I reckon, the AMP building twenty, thirty, forty times. … We were over there for nearly five weeks and we worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, to finally 62

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get it right. … From then on, I’ve never made … that mistake of not going right back to the start again. The actual error was the consultant’s. … But the contract was written so that we had to check it all. AMP said, “We don’t care whose fault it is, it’s got to be fixed.” The builder said, “I don’t care whose fault it is, it’s got to be fixed.” I think the costs for the ceiling tiles alone, which we didn’t have to pay, was about $20,000. I don’t know what it cost AE Smith …16 In 1972, Bob Redman went north, to head AE Smith & Son’s second interstate move: to Southeast Queensland. If expansion beyond Victoria had been influenced by local problems with the unions, most notably the Builders’ Labourers Federation, the choice of Queensland was at least partly determined by AE Smith’s relationship with the engineering consulting firm of WE Bassett and Partners. This relationship extended back to the days of Sir Walter Bassett and Bert Smith. Now, in the 1970s, Rod Angus, with whom Barry Smith had worked in Melbourne, had just been appointed manager for Bassett’s Queensland Branch. Redman observed: It didn’t mean that every job that Bassett’s put out we would get, or anything like that, but it was a leg in the door.17 AE Smith & Son leased premises in Kedron. The Brisbane staff initially consisted of five people. The first big job undertaken in the new venture was the Target store at Chermside Shopping Centre. This was especially convenient, as: It was drawn up in Melbourne; some manufacture was done in Melbourne; and the final assembly was done in Brisbane, whilst we were assembling together the machinery in our Glentanner Street workshop. … It was very close, handy to Chermside Shopping Centre, being the next suburb on. So it was very convenient for us, and gave us some work for our staff to put physical work into, and work our machinery that we’d newly installed. It was a fairly small office at this stage, because it was only me and the shop foreman, and whatever people that we had employed, like sheet metal workers that we’d advertised in the paper to get.18 From May 1972 the sheet metal shop was run by John Lewis, who had worked for AE Smith & Son in Melbourne from 1953 to October 1971 and was persuaded to come out of retirement. He had moved to Brisbane to be closer to his son, also John Lewis, who, after apprenticeship and work with AE Smith from 1958 to 1968, had become a Minister in the Assemblies of God in Brisbane. (John Lewis junior was an unsuccessful Senate candidate for the Family First Party in the 2005 federal election.) Bob Redman, who had worked with John Lewis senior in 63

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Melbourne, was delighted to find an experienced former colleague actually living in the same suburb as the AE Smith office. The project was not an easy one. Not only did it involve some big ducts and big bends, but: a lot of it had to be tinmen riveted too, the old-fashioned way, because our spot welder from Germany or Switzerland or wherever it came from, hadn’t arrived at that point in time, so we had to do it the old way: but we did it. But the bends that came off the machine were rather difficult to do.19 The death of George Denman from mesothelioma in 1972 saw the end of an era at AE Smith & Son. Jack Mills had said of George that if he had been in the army, he would have been a general. Barry Smith, reflecting on the man who had taught him the skill of estimating, recalled an outstanding individual, with marvellous people skills, who developed into a very capable and senior executive over the years.20 In 1973, the Brisbane office won its first tender for what was to become a succession of hospital projects in Queensland. It exemplified much of the difficulty inherent in hospital work. The builder of Royal Brisbane Hospital Block 7 was AV Jennings, with whom AE Smith had worked in Melbourne. Their tender was for mechanical services, with the air-conditioning contract being awarded to T O’Connor & Sons (which AE Smith & Son did not acquire until 1980). The mechanical services contract covered medical gases, which require an exceptionally stringent level of testing. The Royal Brisbane Hospital project lasted from 1973 to 1977. It was a significant job for AV Jennings as well as for the fledgling AE Smith branch: The Construction Group suffered a couple of horror years in 1974 and 1975 because of the chaotic economic and industrial environment. Jennings was caught with a number of large, fixed-price jobs under way and was unable to pass on rising costs. As a result, the Group recorded a loss in the 197475 financial year. Jim Wood recollects that the Royal Brisbane Hospital was threatening to be a disaster for the company, but the film Towering Inferno, which was about a fire in a multi-storey building, happened to come out at the right time. The government decided that the hospital would have to have a sprinkler system, so the contract was renegotiated and Jennings was able to put it back on to a profitable basis.21 Several of the Queensland hospital contracts were with a firm with strong links to WE Bassett & Partners – AE Axon & Associates. Work for these contracts was allocated on a tender process rather than by direct negotiation, which meant keeping a sharp eye on newspaper advertisements. Another project which brought 64

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former colleagues together was the Boonah Hospital, southeast of Brisbane. Jack Mills had come to AE Smith from WC Jewell & Partners, and Redman and Ian Petherick of WC Jewell tendered together for the job.

That same year the firm won the contract for Repatriation General Hospital at Greenslopes. Opened in 1941, this was the 112th Australian General Hospital established to treat members of the armed forces. The Repatriation Commission assumed administrative control in 1947, when it was used for the treatment of ex-servicemen from Queensland, northern New South Wales and Papua New Guinea. The hospital treated members of the general public from 1974 and was sold to Ramsay Health Care by the Federal Government in 1995.

The work for which AE Smith & Son contracted (costed at well over half a million dollars) included building and installation of two large cooling towers on the roof and two big reciprocating compressor chiller sets in the basement as well as the associated duct work and air-handing units. The contract was with the Commonwealth Department of Works, and the builder was Mainline Constructions. The work was progressing too slowly, and, disastrously, Mainline went broke. Moreover, the delay meant that AE Smith were left with many thousands of dollars worth of equipment intended for the job.

If this equipment had been brought on-site, it would, under the terms of the contract, have become the property of the builder, so it was vital for Bob Redman to achieve a deal under which the Department of Works would store it in their premises and pay for it, regardless of the builder’s financial situation. A new head contract was negotiated with another builder, Barclay Brothers, and Redman was able to secure payment for the equipment which needed to be kept in storage, as well as settlement of a dispute claim for the delay involved. It was a baptism of fire, complicated by the fact that another job, for the Queensland TAB, suffered a similar fate with its builder also failing.

In 1977, Redman and Mills joined an Australian industry delegation to the Chicago conference of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Other members of the delegation included Kenneth Barr and Bill Siganto from Siganto & Stacey, Norman Davies, a consulting engineer with Lobley Treidel & Partners, Alan Coleman from WE Bassett & Partners and Robert Dunn from Dunn Air Conditioning. The group travelled widely in the United States, visiting firms with similar installations and others from whom they purchased products. In these early days of computer-assisted design, the displays and presentations were of considerable interest to the Australians.

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Graham Everitt had enjoyed a varied career including time as a wool buyer with the UK-based firm of Dreyfus & Co Ltd and Construction Accountant with Alcoa of Australia, before he joined AE Smith & Sons in 1964 as Finance Controller under Alec Bell. He succeeded Bell as Finance Director in 1979. Between then and his departure in 1995, he oversaw the systematisation of an increasingly diverse

AE Smith & Son, 429 Swan Street, Richmond Barry Smith Collection

enterprise and far-flung workforce as well as the introduction of computers both to job and stock control and to human resources management. Administering the company as it grew in size and extended the type of work it did, became increasingly complex. Problems could arise not merely from the difficulty of keeping track of people and equipment and money for a score of divisions, but also from the fact that too few staff had a comprehensive overview of what was going on. Until quarterly management meetings were instituted of the managers from all locations, it was arguable that only Everitt and Barry Smith himself had a comprehensive grasp of the company’s situation at any given time.

From 1964 to 1979, Bell and Everitt ran the financial records of the business. Alec Bell was the senior person: He looked after all the finances and so forth. He became a great mentor to me and … taught me a lot about the construction industry. He was very thorough and very detailed in all that he did for the company, and was very cautious. …

He got me to look after all the monthly balances and trial balances and so forth, and keep pushing through the details. … One of my first jobs there was to get a tooling control system going. I worked with a fellow called 66

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Johnny Fuller who was our tool manager, and got a system of knowing which tools were sent to which projects, and then we’d have a type of double system with the cards for every tool, then a booking sheet with the summary of what was on every job. I know that wasn’t as accurate as we would have liked, but it gave you the trend; it certainly showed up when we were missing and losing tooling, and it was costing us an awful lot of money. I think one of the benefits was that the employees knew that we were keeping records and we were going to ask them to return certain things. But it was a rough area because they’re not really under control, and about twenty different firms would be working on a large multi-storey construction site, and things went missing, regrettably.22 In those pre-computerised days, Bell and Everitt worked with a system of multicoloured cards: As well as a few ladies that were keeping book-keeping records … on an old Burroughs machine [we used] a big card system. One of the girls, two or three days she’d be posting timesheets of … all our employees, what we call labour costing records. They were white cards. … Then the next ones were blue cards which were material purchases from suppliers. Then the third card was a yellow card and [we had] store issue stickers that we used to actually physically post onto the card. … The sum of the blue cards and the yellow cards, we’d add up, and that was the total material cost of a project.23 The late 1970s saw the beginnings of the computer age for companies such as AE Smith, and predictably, the cost of the basic equipment became an issue. As Everitt commented: I’d have to say there was a bit of resistance from one side as to whether you put your money into computers or whether you put your money into guillotines or laser cutting machines or things like that. So there was a bit of juggling perhaps in that area that we had to discuss. And we did it as amicably as we could. But this was dangerous, it was too dangerous.24 The final word, as always, was the Chief ’s.

In fairness, he was torn between buying another $30,000-$40,000 laser cutting machine, which we usually got, or whether you expanded the administration side of computers and things like that. … A lot of the stuff was cumbersome, because we had to grow it, and it was done in a cumbersome way, and was not efficient by today’s standards.25 67

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Like many firms, AE Smith started by building a series of small databases, each designed to provide particular information and found that: In the end there were about twenty, but because of the way it was designed, this one got information from there, and a bit from there, and a bit there, and it was good and it was what we wanted … you couldn’t really get this one until that was processed, and then that was processed, and that was processed: and it was shocking. It was a twenty-hour processing period to get something that today I think they’re probably getting in four seconds.26 Present-day practice is built around a single database, from which all reports can be generated. Computer developments not only mean better-targeted reports, but also mean that they can more easily be shared between Divisional Managers and downwards through each Division.

Computer-assisted drafting was an important component of the work of Brian Chasteauneuf (1932- ), who joined the company from Hall Thermotank Australia as Contracts Manager for the Victorian Division in 1974 and stayed with AE Smith & Son until 1991. Chasteauneuf had met both Barry Smith and Alec Bell through AMCA, and knew other members of staff, but his appointment was one of the first at a senior level from outside the company. He had previously worked both in his native Britain and for several Australian firms. His initial task was administration and control of the construction function to ensure that projects were performed and completed within budget and on time, and met specified standards. This involved the planning and scheduling of all the projects to ensure the most effective and cost-effective use of resources such as labour, materials and equipment, administering contracts and ensuring cash flows as well as supervision, selection, training and placement of staff to cover all the operations on site.

He later became State Manager for Victoria and Tasmania. Like Barry and Alec Bell, Chasteauneuf served a term as President of AMCA in 1991. The President did not normally oversee all the AMCA committees, although he might at times chair one of them. His duties consisted of chairing meetings of the Executive and representing the Association at meetings of other industry associations, client organisations and consulting engineers. Although the Executive Director had specific responsibilities with regard to the Unions, the President might also be called upon to represent the Association in negotiations with them.

Chasteauneuf ’s career spanned a period of tremendous change in both the physical and psychological aspects of the mechanical services industry, as the drafting process became computer-based and the materials used in construction ideally became ever lighter, more flexible and easier to work with. At the same time, 68

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projects increased in complexity, competition over price and time became fiercer and men who had trained as tradesmen found themselves in managerial positions demanding skills not necessarily acquired through work experience. Ensuring the right balance of managerial expertise and hands-on skills and experience in the company is faced by the industry as a whole.

The period from 1965 to 1980 saw AE Smith & Son venture outside their home state and provide an increasingly sophisticated and complex range of mechanical services. If the 1950s were the decade of the office tower and suburban shopping centre, the 1960s and 1970s were the decades of hospitals, universities and more shopping centres. In 1980 AE Smith purchased Quirk’s premises, in Nantilla Road, Clayton. The move from Richmond ended more than eighty years in the area.

The 1980s were to see a change in direction, bringing the management and shopfloor together in new premises as well as significant financial and personnel challenges.

Advertisement for the sale of Nantilla Road premises owned by Quirks Barry Smith Collection

The advertisement for the sale of 429-431 Swan Street, Richmond signals the end of an era for AE Smith & Son Barry Smith Collection

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Endnotes 1

2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26

Barry Smith, quoted by Andrew Permezel in an interview with Rosemary Francis 8 December 2006.

Jack Mills interview with Rosemary Francis 13 December 2006.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Undated interview with Roy Denman and others. Manuscript provided by AE Smith& Son 28 February 2007.

Volkswagen Australasia Ltd. The first 10 years. Melbourne: Speciality Press, 1964.

Master Plumbers’ Association. Service Bulletin. November 1964: 14.

Jack Mills interview 13 December 2006.

Alec Bell’s Story. Undated manuscript provided by AE Smith 28 February 2007.

Juliet Flesch. Minding the Shop: people and events that shaped the Department of Property & Buildings, 1853-2003, at the University of Melbourne. Melbourne: Department of Property & Buildings, University of Melbourne, 2005. p 208.

Ron Forsyth interview with Rosemary Francis 19 September 2006.

David Seedsman. Comment provided on first draft.

Juliet Flesch. Minding the Shop. p 132.

Ron Forsyth interview.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Bob Redman interview with Rosemary Francis 10 & 14 August 2006.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Barry Smith interview with Rosemary Francis 11 September 2006.

Don Garden. Builders to the Nation: the AV Jennings Story. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1992. p 275.

Graham Everitt interview with Rosemary Francis 7 December 2006.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

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Onwards, Upwards and Overseas

Chapter Four Onwards, Upwards and Overseas You can be in as much trouble if you’ve got more work than you can handle … as you can be without much work to do at all.1 During his first two decades at the helm, Barry Smith had taken AE Smith & Son all over Australia. During the second two, the company was to go overseas.

It was also to take over several businesses and greatly expand its involvement in providing ongoing service of projects on which it had worked. Just as projects became more complex – ranging from hotels and casinos with their various types of facilities, through shopping centres with their multiplicity of tenants with differing demands, to gigantic tower blocks, hospitals, morgues and museums – the structure of the firm mutated. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the firm was to encounter problems as serious as those faced by subcontractors during the 1960s credit squeeze. This chapter will take us from the 1980s to the dawn of the twenty-first century.

When Graham Everitt joined the company in 1964, there were perhaps fifty people on the staff. At their peak in the mid-1990s staff numbers rose to over nine hundred, including around one hundred and fifty former employees of JR Wyllie as well as the staff of T O’Connor who joined when AE Smith & Son acquired these two Queensland firms in 1982. (The name of the firm was briefly changed to AE Smith Wyllie, to reflect Wyllie’s state-wide reach.) The new era began with the move to new premises in Nantilla Road, Mulgrave. When this property was resold in 1996 and the company moved to 5 Bastow Place, the two adjoining properties at 65-73 and 75-85 Nantilla Road comprised over 6,500 square metres of office space, warehouses and an engineering facility with its own office space and workshop. In 1981 these new premises allowed manufacturing and administration to be collocated and centralised, although for a short period (1999 to 2001) the administrative headquarters were based at 499 St Kilda Road.

At the end of the 1970s, to most Australians, Iran and Iraq signified distant and possibly romantic locations, associated in the case of the former with the Shah of Persia and his marriages to glamorous women and in the case of the latter, with childhood Bible classes and maps of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. For Australian sheep and wheat farmers, however, both countries were important 71

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Aerial view of the Nantilla Road premises Barry Smith Collection

export destinations. In 1981, AE Smith & Son suffered a rude introduction to the perils of off-shore activity, when a promising project was aborted through events over which they had no control. It made a disappointing start to Ray Underwood’s long association with the company.

Underwood came to AE Smith after eighteen years with AG Coombs. Born in Melbourne in 1939, he moved to Bendigo with his parents and did his plumbing apprenticeship there. He won a Victorian Overseas Foundation Scholarship in 1961 and spent the next two years working in the United Kingdom. Towards the end of this time he spent six months in Aden, gaining experience which was to govern his early work with AE Smith. With AG Coombs, Underwood was involved in the development of Collins Place. Work on this fifty-storey hotel and shopping complex at the corner of Collins and Exhibition Streets began in 1973.

Construction lasted eight years, punctuated by long bouts of industrial action. It was the first project on which a site allowance was paid. The strikes and lock-outs lasted for weeks as the unions, led by Norm Gallagher of the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation and George Crawford of the Plumbers’ Gasfitters’ and Electricians’ Union tested their will against AMP and ANZ. By the end of the project in 1981, Underwood was in his early forties and decided to take early retirement from AG Coombs to find a less stressful life.

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Retirement did not last, and by December, he received an offer too good to refuse.

Barry Smith approached me and said that he knew that I’d worked in the Middle East - albeit it was only six months, in Aden - but he had this job in Iraq, and he was interested in talking to me about that. … I joined the company on a contract basis initially, just to do that particular job in Iraq.2 Saddam Hussein assumed power in Iraq in 1979. By 1981, in an endeavour to portray himself as a modernising leader, he was establishing a number of model sites to display the country’s progress. Live sheep were already being exported to Iraq from Australia, but there were difficulties in dealing with the skins and fleeces, principally because of sand getting into the wool, and a new processing plant was to be established about fifty kilometres from Baghdad. AE Smith & Son were engaged to work on the project by the Australian Wool Board. The company was to design the facility and manufacture the equipment, duct work, etc., as well as supervising its installation by locally-engaged tradesmen. The long and arduous process of manufacture and draft design of components which were then to be assembled virtually unaltered in Iraq was paralleled by the equally difficult one of obtaining work permits. Then, within ten days of departure for a preliminary visit, everything fell apart: We were then less than two weeks off going over there - because we’d been given a lot of documentation, but you really need to be on the ground and make sure that - the documentation we’d been given with the layouts of the plant and whatever - were exactly or near enough to what we had been given, and if it wasn’t, to upgrade it. Because if we were going to manufacture gear here and send it over there, it had to be 99 per cent correct, so that it could be installed like a Meccano set really. We were then ten days or so off going, and the Iraq/Iran war broke out. This was early in 1982. So that put an end to it.3 Despite the collapse of this venture, Underwood was to spend a further decade and a half with AE Smith & Son. His experience with AG Coombs was to influence the development of the company in many ways. The histories of the two firms were broadly similar. Both had started as one-man operations (although Allan George Coombs established his Bentleigh plumbing business only in 1945) and both had diversified into heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, as well as providing ongoing service and maintenance. Allan Coombs was the first President of the Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors Association, succeeded in 1966 by Alec Bell, of AE Smith & Son. 73

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The two firms differed in their experience with large projects. AE Smith & Son had less experience than AG Coombs with projects like Collins Place, and Barry Smith decided to establish a Special Projects Division within his company, to enhance its capacity to tender for them. Success came quickly, not in the Melbourne Central Business District, but in Queensland.

Aerial view of Jupiters Gold Coast casino Courtesy AE Smith & Son

Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast was designed by BLSA Pty Ltd, a joint venture established by the American firm of Spankle, Lynd & Sprague and the Australian one of Buchan Laird & Bawden. The builders were AV Jennings. The project was a dramatic one from many points of view. Architecturally stunning, it consisted of a hotel providing 622 rooms (increased from the 520 originally planned) with the casino in front. The convention centre provided seating for 2,300 people and accommodation for one thousand in the banquet/cabaret hall. Controversy erupted over the casino licence which was a focus of attention from the Fitzgerald Royal Commission into Corruption in Queensland and financing the project became a drama of its own as partners in the joint venture were recruited or withdrew.4 The 74

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casino, for which the first tenders were requested in 1981, finally opened to the public on St Valentine’s Day, 1986.

Contracted for the air-conditioning work, AE Smith & Son set up a team different from any previously established by the firm, similar to the way architects and builders establish a team on-site. Underwood commented on the advantages: If you’ve got a problem, you can knock on someone’s door, talk to them face to face, and resolve the thing. None of this letters, phone calls, etc.

Because time is money on any project; but the bigger the project, the more the money. So we decided that that was the approach that we would take. We would look at selecting people for the project team from anywhere within the organization, so that people got those experiences. 5 This dedicated team, directed from Head Office in Melbourne, was recruited from all over the company and consisted of engineering staff, draftsmen to produce the designs from which ductwork and pipework can be manufactured, and plans which ensure that they are properly placed, as well as administrative staff to ensure correct purchasing, timekeeping and maintenance of labour records and leading hands supervising the day to day work of various groups on the job. Finally: At the end of the job, when you’re trying to commission it - the overall company has got commissioning personnel - but you might have one person who’s dedicated to a major project; comes on the job; lives with the final engineering stages of it. And then you bring a team on to support them to actually start up the equipment, balance the air flows, balance the water flows, and make sure that you’re maintaining the various temperatures in the various areas. So you’ve got a broad spectrum of skills on the job, but the key is having people, I believe, dedicated to the project.6 By the time he left, Ray Underwood had spent almost as long with AE Smith & Son as he had done with AG Coombs, retiring for the second time after sixteen years, in 1997.

Much of the company’s Queensland work is outside the capital city and the house journal from 1992 provides a glimpse of an especially challenging project and a bit of interstate rivalry: Mt Isa is AE Smith’s most remote branch with a population of 30,000 people. It is situated 1,000 kilometres from the east coast of Australia near 75

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the Northern Territory border. The branch provides an air conditioning and plumbing service to Mt Isa and district within a 600 km radius. The majority of the branch’s work is local, from both the mine and the town. About 20% of our service and installation work is out of town, some in remote locations.

A typical remote area job was carried out recently at a town called Bedourie.

Bedourie has a population of 49, and is located 600 kms south of Mt Isa and 200 kms north of Birdsville. The job was for Q-Build (D.A.S.) at the local school and involved the supply and installation of 2 evaporative cooling systems to building extensions and an upgraded electricity supply from mains.

This work included provision of a new switchboard, upgraded lighting and heating within the buildings combined with miscellaneous fencing and civil works.

As the principal contractor, Smiths subcontracted the electrical and civil works. The logistics of the exercise were critical as general transport to the town runs only once every fortnight so that what was forgotten had to be done without!

The ductwork and materials were transported to Bedourie (1,200 km round trip on dirt roads) on the Sunday. Work started on the Monday and was completed on schedule within 2 weeks, the duration of the school holidays.

Accommodation was with the Schoolmaster and all food and supplies were sent from Mt Isa. It was a job well done by Ellis Braithwaite, Construction Supervisor and Dale Whitehead, Plumber.7 In Melbourne, a highlight of the development of the Central Business District during the 1980s was the Rialto at 525 Collins Street, built between 1985 and 1986. The Rialto Tower stands 251 metres tall at its pinnacle and has 63 floors.

When it opened in 1986, it was the tallest building in Australia and the southern hemisphere. It has remained a Melbourne landmark with the Observation Deck proving a durable tourist attraction. From our point of view, the project was remarkable for the fact that all tenders for the project were won by local contractors. The Master Plumbers’ Association’s Service Bulletin for October 1984 carries an unusually detailed account of the project, which may suggest that this was not the norm.8 There were twelve separate contracts awarded for mechanical and fire services. AE Smith & Son were responsible for the air-conditioning in the Menzies Hotel at Rialto.

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Menzies at Rialto Barry Smith Collection

The 1990s were turbulent years for Australia as a whole as well as for AE Smith & Son, as the country came to grips with ‘the recession we had to have’, announced in 1991 by Paul Keating, shortly before he moved from the office of Commonwealth Treasurer to that of Prime Minister. For AE Smith & Son the challenges came from attempts at expansion interstate, expansion overseas, computer problems and personnel issues. In the middle of the decade, the company underwent a management upheaval, with the appointment of David Pike as Managing Director in 1996. Pike (whose father was already a member of the Board of AE Smith & Son) came to the company from a St Kilda accounting firm in 1994 and took over from Graham Everitt as Finance Director the following year. He left AE Smith & Son at the end of 2001, at which time Barry Smith came out of retirement to head the company again until early 2006.

It had been a difficult period. Although Barry Smith had officially resigned his position as Managing Director for that of Chairman of the Board, he still took a keen interest in the day-to-day running of the firm. The Sydney side of the business was not doing well, there were some acquisitions of small firms, such as Barclay Engineering in Western Australia and the Sydney firm of Whiffen & 77

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Andrews Air Conditioning in 1999 which did not work out well. The company was eventually to divest itself of Barclay Engineering. Just as troubling was a new computer system, which, in an enterprise growing in size, geographical reach and complexity, was a serious problem.

Cate Long, who joined the company in 1999 as Personal Assistant to the Managing Director remembers some of the problems of getting a customised system to provide what was needed: I was asked to provide … records of how much money it was actually costing us to implement this software package, and what financial damage it was doing to the company. At one stage we had 38 people in an office in St. Kilda Road, that really only seated 16. Around a table with temps and contractors: it was enormous. The amount of additional work that was involved in trying to get this system up and running successfully, and the number of temporary people we employed, was astronomical. …

With the Service business they have a lot of tasking, whereby we have our contracts, and we schedule maintenance throughout the 12 months; what needs to be done at each one of those maintenances. The BAAN system wasn’t tracking any of that tasking, so we didn’t really know where we had been, and where we hadn’t been, or what we’d actually done. Yet the system was still spitting out invoices to say we had done it, and we had been there, and all the rest of it: but we hadn’t. So therefore the customers were turning around saying, “You haven’t been here, you haven’t done this work. You now need to credit these invoices.” So the paperwork was just growing, and it was taking additional resources to try and get it under control. And in the end it proved it was too big, and the decision had to made: what do we do? Do we continue down this path, keep throwing good money after bad? Or do we pull the pin and go another way? 9 A most important innovation in the long-term for which a good system was essential, was the setting up within AE Smith of the LINC system. The newlyappointed Andrew Permezel (now CEO of AE Smith & Son) was put in charge of this. Permezel (1961- ) had come to the company through a very different pathway from most of the staff. After graduating BComm. from the University of Melbourne, he spent five years in sales at Channel Seven in Brisbane and Melbourne before moving to Information Express, a firm which sold financial market information to banks and stockbrokers and other parties needing on-line financial information.

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Andrew Permezel, CEO, AE Smith & Son Courtesy AE Smith & Son

AE Smith had acquired the franchise for the LINC System in 1988 and in 1991, Barry Smith recruited his stepson to oversee the implementation as it had not yet come up to expectations. LINC, which has its headquarters in the United States, works through a world-wide network of locally-owned franchises to deliver a comprehensive range of heating, ventilation and air conditioning services and preventive maintenance. It was to transform the under-performing Service Division of AE Smith and Son. Permezel was first interviewed by the American principals and invited to work in the organisation in Pittsburgh for six months: LINC … have courses for service management, general management, sales; and I was run through all the courses. I also went and worked in contractors’ businesses, and went out visiting various businesses. I looked at good ones and bad ones, and went through the planning sessions: just worked with the LINC organisation virtually for six months.10 Permezel was still in America when Barry Smith asked him to take over as the National Manager of the system. Previously, although the Service Division had – with its origins in the warranty and commissioning department of the firm – grown in importance, it remained part of the Construction Division, reporting to the local Construction General Manager. Permezel’s job was to turn this into an independent, proactive business, entering into specific service and maintenance contracts.

Just as the 1980s had begun with AE Smith & Son engaged in an ultimately fruitless overseas venture in Iraq, the 1990s started with another abortive attempt 79

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to go overseas, this time in Southeast Asia. The joint venture was set up by Barry Smith and Philip Coombs of AG Coombs, who had succeeded his father Allan in 1986. Pacrim Engineering Services Pte Ltd was intended to take the two firms into Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. Early in 1991, David Seedsman (who was then still with AG Coombs) and Ray Underwood undertook an exploratory trip to Singapore and Malaysia. Underwood recalled: We found very early on in the piece that the old carpetbag syndrome was the way some companies were operating: fly in; promise people the world; fly out; and never hear from them again. So it was obvious that if we were going to make a fist of it we had to have people on the ground up there, and it looked like as though it was going to take somewhere around about two years before you would be accepted. 11 Despite some preliminary work on a large building, the Southeast Asian venture was eventally abandoned.

David Seedsman Courtesy AE Smith & Son

David Seedsman (1939- ) joined AE Smith & Son as the National Construction Manager in 1996. He began work as an apprentice plumbing/air conditioning technician with DH Armstrong. In 1963 he was awarded the Victorian Overseas Scholarship in Plumbing to study in the UK and Belgium. Between 1966 and 1996, he worked with AG Coombs, as Senior Estimator, Project Manager, Construction Manager and General Manager/Director. A Past President of AMCA, Seedsman is currently AE Smith’s Regional General Manager of the Southern Region which includes Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales.

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The early 1990s also saw AE Smith & Son undertake several large Sydney projects, which, however prestigious, were eventually to prove difficult and costly for the firm. The culture of the two cities was very different. Ray Underwood moved to head the operation in 1992, and ran into problems: In Sydney, a lot of the companies used sub-contract labour to do the duct work and the pipe work. In Melbourne, and most other places in Australia, the plumbing trade does the pipe work and the duct work on sites. In Sydney, the sheet metal workers did the duct work, and the plumbers did the pipe work. So our labour force was not as flexible. Because here, if a guy hasn’t got something - he might be a pipe work guy - but he hasn’t got some pipe work to do today, you just move him over to do some work on the duct work.

You’re not moving people on and off site all the time, so it’s a much more efficient way. You’ve got one labour force, one union to deal with: there we had two labour forces and two unions to deal with. The fact that we were new in town. …

[Local staff] didn’t have the same connection to the company as a lot of our long term employees had. We struck a bit of union trouble. … We got some good projects: a Piccadilly office tower; ANA Hotel: they were prestige jobs. So it wasn’t as though we weren’t able to win the work, because I think a lot of that was on the basis of Smith’s reputation around Australia. So the building companies and clients knew that we were capable of doing the job right. Our problem was being able to do it to the standard we required, with the level of expertise that we had. We had some good people, but it was spread too thin.12 Even securing a place from which to operate proved difficult. AE Smith & Son attached importance to owning their own premises and Barry Smith, Graham Everitt and Ray Underwood made several trips to Sydney to identify a suitable property.

We thought that we had secured some premises at Revesby, and we said, “Yes, we’ll take them,” and got the people to prepare the … paperwork. A couple of weeks went by, and Graham hadn’t heard anything. … [He] contacted them, and we found out that we’d been … gazumped!13 In the end, the company which had made the rival bid withdrew, and AE Smith got the premises, which were ideal for their purposes. As Underwood explained, air conditioning firms have special requirements: 81

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Interior view of Piccadilly Plaza Courtesy AE Smith & Son

You often find that manufacturing companies have a small office requirement.

But with the building industry, as it is, we had to have our administrative staff, engineers, and accounts departments, as well as drawing office. So we needed quite a significant amount of office space with it, and this particular premises just happened to have that. A lot of the ones we looked at suited us office wise, but not factory wise; or the other way around. So we were really disappointed when we’d been gazumped on this thing. But justice was done in the end, and we were able to achieve them.14 The ANA Hotel (now the Shangri-La) is in the Rocks district. The AE Smith house journal reported in terms which gave a hint of the hard times faced by the industry in December 1992: AE Smith have installed the air conditioning and mechanical service systems at Sydney’s recently-opened ANA Hotel. Referred to by the media as ‘probably the last grand luxury hotel to open in Australia in the foreseeable future’ the ANA Hotel consists of 36 storeys capturing some of the best harbour views in Sydney.15 The project epitomised the problems of operating in the Emerald City. In Melbourne, Barry and his staff could rely on a network of personal contacts when 82

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assessing a prospective job. In Sydney, this personal knowledge was lacking and there was a widespread problem with builders subcontracting to firms that offered unrealistically low tenders, winding up with high uncosted variations. In some cases, as much as 25 per cent of the value of the contract might be outstanding in variations. On the ANA Hotel project this amounted to several million dollars.

The company’s Sydney activity was significantly restructured at the end of 1993 and Achievers was candid about the reasons: Completion of the ANA Hotel, SBS and Darling Park projects have left the Sydney division with only the Westmead Children’s Hospital project and as prices in the market are currently bordering on the suicidal it has been necessary to significantly reduce the size of our operation. We have closed our factory and construction staff are sharing the Meadowbank premises with LINC. Ken Robertson has been appointed Sydney Construction Branch Manager to lead a small but dedicated group actively pursuing work and keeping the company flag flying. We wish Ken and his team all the best in a very tough market.16 From this time, the company’s work in Sydney was to be concentrated in service contracts. Ray Underwood noted the most important aspect of the restructure: I don’t think in any way we damaged our reputation with our clients, because we did the honourable thing and finished off all of our obligations, etc. We had a service division that stayed … and they were able to attend to any items that cropped up on the job. So it wasn’t as though we were walking away, shutting the door, and there was no-one left there to attend to any concerns.

The service department did all the routine maintenance on the projects, and if there was a fault that needed attending to, they did it. So we were able to leave, I believe, quite honourably. It was an experiment that didn’t work.17 In 2000 AE Smith & Son bought Southern Facilities Management, thereby extending its maintenance contracts in Sydney, the New South Wales South Coast and Canberra by twenty-five per cent.

Despite the general economic downturn of the early 1990s affecting the industry nation-wide and the specific problems in operating in Sydney, the company found Queensland a reliable source of work. In 1992, AE Smith & Son were contracted to provide mechanical services for the John Tonge Centre at Nathan, which 83

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brought together the Brisbane Morgue and Forensic Science Pathology Centre.

The experience gained thirty years earlier at the Melbourne Medical Centre must have been valuable. Within what the company’s newsletter described as a ‘layout which provided a real challenge to our drafting and installation personnel’ and an ‘exceptionally short’ time-frame, the main plant room needed to accommodate the chilled-water plant, thirty-six ventilation fans, fume scrubbers and associated ducting systems was completed on time.18 Almost ten years after the opening of the Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast, AE Smith & Son began work on another Conrad Jupiters venture. This time it was not a matter of building from scratch a dramatic and glamorous venue. Transforming the Queensland Government Offices, including the Lands Administration Building and the Treasury Building into the Conrad Jupiters Brisbane Casino and Hotel was a task requiring the utmost care and delicacy. At the very centre of the city, in a block bounded by George, Queen, Elizabeth and William Streets, the buildings were heritage-listed and part of the psyche of Brisbane.

The Treasury and Land Administration buildings are of sandstone, with Spanish cedar redwood internal timber fixtures and Italian slate floors. The Treasury Building was designed by John James Clark (1838-1915) who, as well as being responsible for many of Brisbane’s most notable buildings, also designed the Royal Mint, Old Treasury, Queen Victoria Hospital and City Baths in Melbourne. The architect of the Land Administration Building was Thomas Pye. The description of it by the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency gives some indication of the challenges facing the AE Smith team. All internal and external features were to be protected during the transformation.

The use of expanded metal lathing as a re-enforcement to the concrete floors and ceilings was amongst the earliest application of such technology in Australia, and was a first in Queensland.

The building was symbolic of state pride and achievement, and was seen as a showcase for Queensland materials. Granite used as the base course and plinth was obtained from Enoggera and Mount Crosby. Brown freestone from Helidon was used to face the outer walls, and freestone from Yangan near Warwick was used on the colonnade walls. …The mantelpieces were constructed of a variety of Queensland timbers (maple, cedar, black bean and silky oak) representing the state’s timber resources. Allegorical stained glass highlighted the rural nature of the Queensland economy.19

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All this made the installation of the mechanical services required by a five-star hotel and gambling venue extremely difficult, especially as the entire process took place over a comparatively short time. Conrad Jupiters Brisbane Casino opened in 1995.

Heritage buildings are not the only ones which can impose special constraints. AE Smith & Son began developing the special expertise required in the construction and installation of mechanical services in prisons with work on the Woodford Correctional Centre a hundred kilometres north of Brisbane. This was built on the site of the facility formerly known as HM Prison, Woodford, which had been decommissioned in August 1991. The project, managed by Concrete Constructions Group, Pty Ltd, was completed in March 1997. Senior Project Manager John Hoens set out some of the problems of this kind of work when he was working on the Walston Correctional Centre for Men and the adjacent Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre in 1999: If you find you’re short of material you certainly can’t just ring the hardware shop and get them to send one over. … Any movement in or out of the site has to be carefully organised and monitored.’20 The Walston project involved fifty-two buildings, all of which required full air conditioning serviced from a chilled-water ringmain. It also required compressed air piping, gas for cooking and water heating, kitchen and smoke exhaust systems as well as the installation of piping for argon, oxygen and acetylene gas in three workshops. John Hoens commented: Grilles and registers have to be specially designed, no grille aperture can be bigger than six millimetres diameter. Ductwork has to have bars in it where it passes through the walls – that sort of thing always reminds you where you are.’21 The Woodford project provided the company’s Southeast Queensland team under Site Manager Paul Bloye with an opportunity for innovation. They prefabricated the roof structures on the ground, subsequently lifting the finished structure into position. This allowed the large ceiling ducting and equipment as well as hot water and reticulation to be ‘roughed in’ at ground level, thereby saving hours of labour as well as expenditure on plant hire and materials.22 Other prisons on which the company has worked include the Townsville and Stuart Creek Correctional Centres in Queensland as well as Melbourne’s Port Phillip Prison.

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Despite the economic difficulties, the early 1990s also saw many landmark projects in central Melbourne. The most memorable, both for the company and the population of in general, was the development of the southern bank of the Yarra and the Melbourne Casino. With these two projects, and the construction of Federation Square as well as the Docklands development at the start of the twenty-first century, the shape of the Central Business District was radically changed. Melbourne no longer turned its back to the river and a whole complex of arts, entertainment, residential and commercial venues came into being.

Until the 1960s, with the exception of the Trocadero Dance Hall and Glaciarium Ice Skating Rink, the south bank of the river had been mainly given over to breweries and food processing concerns, with ships accessing the nearby docks and warehouses. The move of the National Gallery of Victoria to new premises on St Kilda Road designed by Roy Grounds in 1968, the relocation of the Victorian College of the Arts in the 1970s and the opening of Hamer Hall and the Arts Centre in 1982 and 1984 respectively created an arts precinct. By the end of the 1990s, hotels, a large shopping complex and the Crown Casino had completely transformed the area, and AE Smith & Son were instrumental in many parts of this transformation.

The house journal for April 1992 describes the joint-venture project set up by AE Smith & Son and Fletcher Projects of New Zealand for the construction of Southgate. The construction manager, Richard Lamb of Fletcher’s, outlined some of its advantages, not least that it had already saved some $1.4 million on a project valued at $680 million: Among the supply items provided to date are 8 chillers (5 centrifugal, 3 reciprocating) with a total capacity of 10,300 Kw, 545 FCUs, 9 cooling towers, 8 boilers (6 heating hot water, 2 steam generation), 37 pumps and 250 fans and attenuators (300-1,800 mm diameter). For the record, the contract includes over 30 kms of pipework and 350 tonnes of sheet metal ductwork.23 The Sheraton Towers Hotel was formally handed over in April 1992, by which time the twenty-six level Tower 2 was well underway. Lamb was able to report: The Joint Venture has secured stage 3 of Southgate, the $10.6 million West Tower, Tower 1. AE Smith have been successful in securing the Piping, Ducting and Drafting packages. The total value of work being carried out by the Joint Venture now exceeds $33 million.24 When the new hotel was opened, the proud project leader told AE Smith staff: 86

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Aerial view of the Sheraton Towers Hotel, Southbank and footbridge over the Yarra Courtesy AE Smith & Son

The new hotel had a ‘soft opening’ on the 1st June and there were no problems. There was apparently an article in the Melbourne Age good food and accommodation section where the writer in question … spent the night there. Apparently he had some problems with the food and more problems with room service, but the crowning touch was his comment that his room had ‘perfect temperature control’.25 Southgate was to provide a great deal of work for Britannia Metal Industries, the subsidiary company established by Bert Smith. Britannia moved from its original premises in South Melbourne to the company’s Clayton site in 1992, having changed its name to Britannia Sheet Metal the year before, to mark the increasing specialisation of its work.

The Southgate project was completed on 2 December 1993. It had involved a considerable exercise in co-ordination and co-operation, with pipework and air handling equipment being prefabricated off-site at Smith’s Clayton factory. The AE Smith Project Manager, Rod Lloyd noted the heartening effect of sequential opening of various parts of Southgate on the construction team as Melbourne embraced the riverside walk, with its many shops and cafes: Most of the time they will come onto a site, work on it and then it’s all turned on long after they leave the job. Here they’ve been able to see all their efforts working and they don’t normally get to see that.26

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Aerial view of the Sheraton Towers Hotel, Southbank and footbridge over the Yarra Courtesy AE Smith & Son

The Melbourne Crown Casino was one of the most significant undertaken by the company and it provided a model for later large projects. The Manager was Peter Staedler (1948- ), currently General Manager, Victoria Construction Division. Staedler came to AE Smith by way of a rather unusual path. Born in Switzerland, he completed his military service and apprenticeship as a mechanical draftsman with Wild Heerbrugg, makers of optical, mechanical and electronic precision instruments. After working there for a further year, he left for Australia in 1970, motivated by a desire to learn English and the fact that he had friends in the country. Already fluent in German and French, Staedler worked at Hayden Engineering from 1970-1971, where he was able to communicate with a multilingual boss while he learned English. In 1971, unlike the many people recruited personally by the Chief, he applied for an advertised position with AE Smith & Son, and was interviewed by Jack Mills.

Within ten years, Staedler progressed from Draftsman to Project Manager. His first big project was the Sale shopping centre, including a Safeway store, Woolworth’s and a mall. The contract was not awarded in a single lot, but piece by piece, and made all the more complex by a toxic industrial climate. Union stoppages were frequent and frequently over trivial issues. Staedler would leave home at 4 a.m. to arrive at the site, and on paydays, with some trepidation, found himself carrying a bright red satchel containing up to $20,000 in cash for distribution to the men.

AE Smith & Son were involved twice in the development of Melbourne Central.

The original project involved a large department store and 180 specialty shops above an underground railway station opposite the State Library of Victoria. It incorporated the heritage-listed Coop’s shot tower, a fifty-metre brick structure built between 1889 and 1890 which now stands beneath a conical glass roof eightyfour metres high. The work on the 211-metre high office tower at Melbourne Central was awarded by Lewis Construction to AG Coombs. AE Smith & Son 88

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Peter Staedler, General Manager, Victoria Construction Courtesy AE Smith & Son

were responsible for the Daimaru department store, retail shops and adjacent Lonsdale Building. The project, under Staedler’s direction, cost $32 million.

Melbourne Central opened in 1991. Just over ten years later, Daimaru closed the department store and the area was redeveloped in 2005 to include a cinema complex, bars and nightclubs. AE Smith & Son also worked on this refurbishment.

AE Smith’s most challenging project of the mid-1990s involved Peter Staedler in a new role, heading a team of two engineers, a construction manager, an administrator and some 125 other men, composed of employees from AG Coombs, Allstaff and AE Smith & Son. They were engaged, between 1995 and 1997, on the Crown Casino on Southbank.

This joint venture was a first for Melbourne. AE Smith & Son had worked alone on the first Melbourne casino through 1992 and 1993, but it was evident to Barry Smith and his team that, for the permanent Crown Casino, the risks for a single firm were simply too high. They therefore negotiated a consortium with two companies they believed had a similar corporate culture. The joint venture company consisted of AE Smith & Son, AG Coombs and Allstaff, soon known to the staff as the A-Team.

Each company initially tendered individually for the work, but three days before the close of tenders the three principals presented their proposal for a joint venture to the developer, Hudson Conway and builder, Grollo Industries (now 89

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Melbourne Central, a development with which AE Smith & Son remains associated through its service contract Courtesy AE Smith & Son

Grocon). The joint venture proved its worth when the cost of the project, which had been estimated at $29 million, blew out over two years to $40 million. There were almost daily changes to the original design and Staedler, as project director, was responsible to three bosses, as well as negotiating constantly with Hudson Conway and Grollo staff. Staedler’s recollections give the flavour of the times and the culture which permeated this ambitious project: My biggest challenge on this was right from the word go. Each of the CEOs wanted me to direct drawing and manufacturing their way. … I said, “Barry, what we need to come up with is a standard and a system which works for all three of us. Otherwise this will not work.” And I had a good discussion with him - “Now if you want me to do it right, then I’m happy to do it. If you want me to favour him here, and him there, it won’t work, I won’t do it. You need to really find another person.” And to his credit he backed off and he realised there was only one way you could do it. If you put up a good argument, Barry would listen and he would accept it. Reluctantly maybe.

And then months later he said, “That was a good decision.” He always used to say that. …

By the way, I gave every company a set of drawings … I made sure that each of the companies were treated equally because I knew that was the only way 90

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Crown Casino from the Yarra Courtesy AE Smith & Son

you could do it. And to this day, they all believe that that was done really well.

Because the minute you favour one company here, and the other, you get into strife. So I never entertained that.27 The success of the Crown Casino project opened the door for AE Smith & Son for other Grocon projects, notably the Eureka Tower and redevelopment of the Melbourne Cricket Ground of which we shall say more later. One important result was in the exchange of staff during down times or times of special stress in the industry. This has an interesting echo in the objections from the Plumbers’ Union about ‘lending’ staff in the 1920s.

The … companies became more comfortable with each other. We developed - once we finished - this incredible arrangement between the three companies I worked with, that when I didn’t have a great deal of work but I had good plumbers and I didn’t want to sack them, I lent them to the other two companies. We have an AMCA so there’s an hourly charge rate established, so nobody is disadvantaged. If AE Smith gave people to Coombs, or Allstaff to Coombs, the rate was set - everybody paid the same rate. 28 AE Smith & Son, in common with the rest of the industry, must contend with a serious shortage of plumbers, draftspeople and engineers. During tough times, apprentices and trainees tended to be seen as a cost, rather than as an investment.

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The company now has a team of twenty draftspeople in Melbourne, whose services can be lent, if local work is lacking, to other firms.

Staedler is convinced that this strategy influenced other projects, notably the Austin Hospital, which will also be covered in our next chapter.

Endnotes 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

Brian Chasteauneuf interview with Rosemary Francis 25 September 2006.

Ray Underwood interview with Rosemary Francis 31 July 2006.

Ibid.

Don Garden. Builders to the Nation: the AV Jennings story. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press,1992. p 327-332.

Underwood interview.

Ibid.

Achievers. December 1992 p 5.

‘Plumbing Australia’s Tallest Building’. Master Plumbers’ Association Service Bulletin. October 1984 p 8-26.

Cate Long interview with Rosemary Francis 19 December 2006.

Ibid.

Ray Underwood interview with Rosemary Francis 31 July 2006 Ibid..

Ibid.

Ibid.

Achievers. December 1992 p 3.

Ibid. p 8.

Ray Underwood interview 31 July 2006.

Achievers. December 1992 p 5.

Queensland. Environmental Protection Agency. Land Administration Building. http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/projects/heritage/index.cgi?place=600… accessed 20 March 2007 AE Smith News. Autumn 1999 p 2.

Ibid.

AE Smith News. Autumn 2001 p 2 Achievers. April 1992 p 2-3.

Ibid.

Ibid. September 1992 p 6.

Ibid. December 1993 p 8.

Peter Staedler interview with Rosemary Francis and Juliet Flesch 21 March 2007.

Ibid.

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Into the New Century

Chapter Five Into the New Century Two steps forward and one step back … but the best is yet to come.1 The new century began turbulently for AE Smith & Son, with the management changes in 2001 we have already mentioned. There were personnel changes, and financial losses, but by the middle of the decade the company’s fortunes had turned around, with a continuing flow of large and small projects in Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania especially. In this final chapter, we will end with a consideration of a number of major Victorian projects which are emblematic of the company’s progress since 2000 and its future direction. First, however, we will look briefly at the context in which developments took place.

Our story of one family firm mirrors the transformation of Australia and the world over a hundred and ten years. One thing has not changed: the work of companies like AE Smith & Son is most appreciated when it is unseen and unheard. These enterprises are the unsung heroes of modern life. Their services – plumbing, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning – are, despite recent efforts to minimise their impact on the natural environment, becoming more complex as buildings themselves become so. In general, however, the people who use those buildings notice the services only when they are badly-designed or stop working.

This has meant that records of the work of mechanical services companies are not plentiful. The names of architects, engineers and builders are often recorded in building histories, but the firms to which work is sub-contracted get much less attention. Throughout, therefore, we have told the story of AE Smith & Son through its people. In this chapter, we will put this more firmly into its historical context and also try to see what ‘makes Smith special’.

AE Smith & Son began with a single man offering the most ancient and basic of all building services: plumbing. Albert Edward Smith’s first years of work coincided with the immense impact on public health and wellbeing of the introduction of sewerage to Victoria. The middle of the twentieth century saw the evolution of sophisticated heating, cooling and ventilation for offices, hospitals, schools, shopping centres, prisons and factories and the last years saw the development of immensely tall, immensely complex structures, governed by technologies virtually unknown until the 1970s. Every aspect of the industry has developed 93

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dramatically over the last century, and long-term employees such as Ron Forsyth, Tom Campbell and the Denman brothers, who clocked up almost two hundred years with AE Smith & Son between them, participated in changes unimaginable at the beginning of their working lives. Their conditions of employment and the technology they use have been transformed.

Some things never change. Installing building services still involves digging, climbing and carrying. Objects still have to be secured with screws, rivets, glues and nails. Working with electricity, insulation materials and other substances involves considerable risks and workers are still exposed to the discomfort of heat, cold, dust, rain and mud. Ron Forsyth, who worked at AE Smith from 1945 to 1992, remembers the old days: It was pretty hard work. We worked with a lot of galvanised piping in those days; and these days you can pick up a length of PVC pipe with one hand, no problem at all. … With the sanitary work, a lot of the stacks were all done in galvanised iron, so you’d be cutting the galvanised pipe and screwing threads with the hand dies, for lots of that, and screwing things together. So there was a lot of heavy work, and especially if you’re running a fire service, two of you would pick up a length of four inch gal pipe and throw it on your shoulder, and off down the street with it, or down the paddock to wherever it was going. They were six metre lengths, and that got pretty heavy going.2 Changes in the materials with which men worked led to an increase in home handymen, prepared to take on complex tasks. To some extent the anxieties expressed by the building industries over this phenomenon echo those we noted during the early twentieth century, when bush builders came to the cities and set up as domestic plumbers. In the mid 1980s, Ray Herbert commented that: The public must be convinced that the ‘handyman’ should not be employed to do plumbing and that only expertly installed plumbing can give them the health safeguards and durability that are their due.3 In the twenty-first century companies like AE Smith & Son will be at the forefront of global environmental concerns. Construction and maintenance of building systems which provide comfort, safety and security while impacting as little as possible on eco-systems increasingly recognised as fragile, will be the great challenge for the company’s fourth generation.

The working environment has changed as profoundly as the nature of the work performed. As Ron Forsyth observed of his early days: 94

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You’d go out on site and … you finished up with your bag of tools which you could usually put in the builders’ shed or the builders’ labourers’ shed … and hang your overalls on the hook. … The concrete would be mixed up, poured into the barrows, and the fellas would push the barrows along planks until they’d concreted the floor or whatever … . On a hot day … the shed got pretty high. So … often in a lunch time or a morning tea break, you’d have to light a fire and boil the billy up to get your morning tea. Conditions on site were a bit rugged.4 By 1972, they were less so. The new Building Industry Agreement covered amenities such as mess sheds, lavatories and changing sheds, insisting, among other matters, on no less than eight square feet per man; hat and coat hooks, suitable and adequate seating for changing boots and enough heat to dry clothes. 5 When Albert Edward Smith began his working life injury and early death were widely accepted among tradesmen generally. During the early years of the Plumbers’ Union (established in 1911) one of the most important and frequently recurring items on its agenda was the payment of ‘mortuary benefit’ to the widows of deceased members. Often, the Union organised the sale of the dead man’s tools for the benefit of his dependants. We can only imagine Albert Edward’s response to the site-wide stoppages which would be called later over issues which might not even involve the Union’s members.

Some of the most significant developments in human terms over the last one hundred years have been in occupational health and safety in an industry which carries significant risks for practitioners. Albert Edward Smith died aged only fiftythree. His son Bert – remembered by Robert Redman as walking with a stick – was sixty-four and Barry Smith, his son, was seventy-four. Bert Smith’s walking stick was possibly a legacy of the knee-crunching work of many plumbers, while Barry, recalling his father’s insistence on the boss getting his hands dirty, noted wryly that installing air-conditioners involved contact with hazardous substances.6 Steve Atherton, Chairman of AE Atherton & Sons a company which in many ways mirrors AE Smith & Sons, noted the devastating effect on the industry of the late discovery of the dangers of asbestos: Smiths have had a shocking experience in it because my understanding was that that was what Barry had and caused his demise. He contracted that horrible disease, which has got a some 30 year gestation period. I remember talking to him in the latter part of his life … Barry did a diploma in engineering - similar background to myself - and worked on building sites during the 95

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vacation periods, and he was mixing up pots of asbestos lagging materials to be wrapped with the calico on pipes etc, much the same as we did. I’ve worked on building sites where the asbestos has been there.7 Although AE Smith & Son have a very good record in occupational health and safety and were at the forefront in appointing an Occupational Health and Safety Officer, there is no doubt that conditions in the early days could be both difficult and dangerous.

AMCA Certificate of Appreciation awarded to Barry Smith, 1996 Barry Smith Collection

We noted earlier the involvement of Bert Smith and both AE Atherton Snr and his son, also AE Atherton and known as Kel, in the Master Plumbers’ Association.

Unlike Barry Smith, who was some ten years older, Steve Atherton was and remains principally involved with the MPA. Both played a large part in negotiations between the Plumbers’ Union and the employers represented by AMCA and the MPA. Of course, solving industrial issues requires good will, and some AE Smith & Son staff found themselves caught up during periods of union militancy in situations 96

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Barry Smith and Doug Pearson accept the first Life Memberships awarded by AMCA, 1999 Barry Smith Collection

which in retrospect seem overblown. Knox City Shopping Centre opened at the end of 1977. The original two-storey complex involved a great deal of outside work on the roof and it had been agreed that workers were to be supplied with sunglasses. Graham Everitt recalled a day on which a whole site, employing a hundred AE Smith men as well as another three hundred from other firms, was closed down because they were two pairs short. Events like this could cost the firm several thousand dollars a day in lost time. 8 We must not, however, let a good story obscure reality. Brian Chasteauneuf joined the firm in 1974 as Divisional Manager Victoria and was responsible for relations with the unions. There were instances of conflict between the industry as a whole, as represented by the Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors’ Association (AMCA) and the Plumbers’ Union which necessarily involved AE Smith & Son, but on the whole, relations with the unions and the firm’s safety record were good.

Some problems, Chasteauneuf observed, are inherent in the structure of the industry: After all, the majority of our workforce are away from the central control; they’re in the hands of other people, under the influence of other organisations.

So the awareness of health and safety is an industry one and a company one.

But I think AE Smith, like many other companies, have had a very good 97

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track record on this, and have handled it very well within the pressures that come from the job sites of wherever they’re working. With respect to the production aspect, there’s the manufacture of sheet metal - and health and safety within the office is much easier to control because you’ve got your management virtually at the workface - but on the job site it’s a very complex matter, and I think generally it’s worked very well in our industry, as well as in AE Smith.9

Interior of Knox City Shopping Centre Courtesy AE Smith & Son

The upsurge in industrial action of the late 1940s, with men protesting against the continuation of the wages freeze which had operated during the Second World War, was repeated during the 1970s, when the introduction of natural gas necessitated new skills. Relations between employer associations and the unions were not invariably confrontational, however. They regularly entertained each other’s members at Smoke Nights and Picnics. In 1956 union/industry cooperation enabled the Plumbers’ Trade Welding Development Centre to be set up to provide the training in arc welding necessitated by demand for industrial pipelines. This was made possible by a loan of £2,000 from the Master Plumbers’ Association and the Plumbers’ Union. It began operations on a site provided by AE Atherton & Sons at Fairfield, and when it was wound up in 1973 its equipment was donated to the RMIT. George Crawford, long-time secretary of the Plumbers’ Gasfitters’ and 98

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Electricians’ Union, describes this as ‘a unique example of successful managementunion co-operation on a matter of mutual interest and benefit to the industry.’10 Steve Atherton sees negotiation through the trade associations as vital, and notes significant improvements in working conditions: It’s very unwise for a company, as a company, to go out on a wing and negotiate with the unions direct; it’s better to do it under the umbrella of a trade association. … I’ve seen the hours per week worked: well back from when I was a teenager it was a 44 hour week, you worked Saturday mornings; I’ve seen it now come down to 36 hours with the two RDOs per month. A dramatic change in the hours that have been worked. 11 The 1980s, which saw actions as diverse as black bans imposed on RMIT sites in support of the immediate construction of a plumbers’ school, the deregistration of the Builders Labourers’ Federation, lengthy strikes by plumbers and the sprinkler pipe fitters and the first payment of site allowances, were also years of unrest, once again offset by positive developments, notably the growth in big building projects such as Rialto Towers, in which, as we have seen, twelve local firms were involved in providing mechanical services.

The 1990s saw a considerable emphasis on workplace reform, a fact noted in the AE Smith & Son house journal.12 This was also a time of trade union consolidation and change, with the Electrical, Electronic, Plumbing & Allied Workers’ Union of Australia established in 1993, superseding and incorporating the Plumbers’ and Gasfitters’ Employees’ Union of Australia, while the following year saw the formation of the Communications, Electrical & Plumbing Union. The enactment of the federal WorkChoices legislation in 2006 signalled the beginning of a new industrial relations regime.

Training of the workforce has undergone enormous development in a century.

Debate over the relative value of theoretical instruction versus practical experience continues, but it is indubitable that apprenticeship conditions are greatly improved since Bert Smith’s time, and his company has played a laudable part in this. Bert Smith’s working life encompassed a period when apprentices were expected to fund their own training, buy their own tools and study in their own time. Indeed he was, as we have seen in Chapter Two, on the Committee of the Master Plumbers’ Association which vigorously defended the proposition that any lad worth his salt would be happy to fund his own training. Nonetheless, AE Smith & Son have a long and proud record in apprenticeship training. Ron Forsyth, having completed his Intermediate Certificate at Brunswick Technical School, was fifteen years old 99

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when Tom Smith interviewed him. All Forsyth remembers of the interview was Tom Smith’s comment that at 5’ 3” (1.6 metres) he wasn’t very tall. He recalled his early days with the firm, where he started in the second year of his apprenticeship training:

George Denman’s certificate of registration as a plumber Barry Smith Collection

On second year schooling, you got half a day a week to go to school at Brunswick Tech, and two nights you had to go from seven till nine. Third, fourth and the fifth year schooling were no days at all, but three nights from seven till nine. So you’d ride home from work, and grab some tea, then you’d 100

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ride back into Melbourne Tech for three hours. So that cut down your night time activity a fair bit . … Most of the apprentices had to spend the first two or three months working in the sheet metal shop, including Saturday mornings; you had to work then if you were in the shop. The working week

George Denman’s certificate of indenture as an apprentice Barry Smith Collection

was 44 hours. Work out on the site was a five day week, and on the time sheets it showed 84/5 hours each day, which made the 44 hours. But in the shop was just 40 hours plus Saturday morning, which was a bit of a pest.13 We do not have the records of Roy Denman’s apprenticeship, but those of his elder brother George, have survived, comprising his original indenture document of December 1924, his Certificate of Registration as a plumber Class 1 in 1937 and his licence to practice from the same year.

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Brian Chasteauneuf ’s English apprenticeship, which he started in 1948, was equally demanding: In my third year of apprenticeship I took on (in addition to the one day a week at the National College) doing three evenings’ study at Woolwich Polytechnic

George Denman’s plumber’s licence Barry Smith Collection

for the National Certificate in Mechanical Engineering. So the days became rather long, and I don’t see many young people today doing these sorts of hours. We started work on the tools at 8.00 am, and I can recall travelling from my home in Plumpstead, walking for just under half an hour to the 102

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railway station, getting a train to London Bridge, then getting a tube train from London Bridge to Ellestree, then on to a bus to a job site at Boreham Wood. We’d leave the job at five o’clock and I’d just make it back to get into evening class, after grabbing a cup of tea, to start the evening class at 7.00 pm. After the evening class, would be a bus home and grab dinner about 9.30, then off to bed, then up again in the morning to get out to Boreham Wood at eight o’clock in the morning.14 By the time he arrived in Australia, conditions there had changed: In actual fact, looking back, even when I graduated to the drawing office, we always worked on Saturday, and I didn’t have a Saturday off work until I migrated to Australia and started work in Australia, and found it was only a five day week.15 The Australian system was very different at the end of the twentieth century, as Peter Staedler, Construction Manager, Victoria explained in the house newsletter.

In 1999, the company had forty-two apprentices and trainees across the country.

AE Smith Construction in Victoria had a dozen, from first to fourth years. They had come from various training programmes, including those run by the Australian Master Plumbers’ Association, the Mechanical Contractors’ Association of Victoria and the Gippsland Group Training Scheme. The principal source, however was the prevocational training selection from Holmesglen TAFE, in Melbourne. In Staedler’s opinion short, prevocational training courses constituted an important screening mechanism indicating to both teachers and students themselves whether they really wanted to work in the industry. AE Smith preferred apprentices who had completed senior schooling. Staedler commented: We look for people with a minimum of Year 11 and preferably Year 12. They’re taking on a four-year apprenticeship and we’ve found that students who only go to Year 10, while they may be physically mature enough to handle the work, tend to struggle with the schooling part. Also, more advanced educational levels give apprentices more flexibility if they want to go further. They may start as a plumbing or drafting apprentice, and later move into estimating or project management, maybe taking on further training or perhaps university degrees to develop other management skills. We prefer to bring our own people through the system if we can. … That way we can monitor their progress and provide exactly the sort of training we think is necessary.16 Alec Bell’s recollections of picking apprentices from the 1940s to the 1960s have a wonderfully old-fashioned ring today. He would never appoint a boy without 103

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seeing at least one of his parents beforehand.17 Roy Denman, who took over the supervision of apprentices from 1968 to 1985, remembered not only the sadness of laying staff off during downturns in the building industry, but also staff recognition that work would be offered to them when it became available: The hard part, I found, was that you would interview these apprentices and their Mums and Dads and we would put them on, and I used to go to their schools, I used to pay them, they could treat me like a father figure. And then, maybe two years later I would have to walk out and tell them, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but you are out of a job.’

Now, the fellows used to say, ‘You worry about it more than we do. … We know that’s when trade’s low, but if you want me back in six months, give me a ring.’ So I would ring them in six months, and they would come back like a shot.’18

George Denman with AE Smith apprentices in the late 1960s.

The raised glass at the back suggests a Christmas party Barry Smith Collection

As well as demonstrating a commitment to continued training, Peter Staedler’s remarks illustrate the same commitment to retaining skilled staff. AE Smith employees tend to stay a long time with the company and return after periods 104

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of leave. The staff list shows many people with over twenty years’ service. The tendency of staff to move after completing their apprenticeship was always stronger among the sanitary and roofing plumbers than among mechanical services staff, reflecting the relative ease with which the former, who do not require so much in the way of back-up, can set up on their own. Of course, training an apprentice who leaves as soon as he is qualified is uneconomic for any company, and this may have been one of the factors which influenced the move of AE Smith & Son away from domestic work.

For some years, those who complete their qualifications have been presented with a certificate by the company to mark the achievement. As well as having interesting and often distinguished careers outside the trade in which they trained, many AE Smith & Son staff members, like Bert Smith himself, have won awards during their apprenticeship. They include Ron Forsyth, who was awarded the Master Plumbers’ Gold Medal in 1948. Although he had joined the firm in 1945, Ron particularly remembered Bert Smith’s congratulatory hand shake at the presentation ceremony.

Garry Dougall came to AE Smith & Son as an apprentice in 1963 and became the company’s welding expert. Conditions for apprentices had changed between Forsyth’s time and Dougall’s, as shown in a report from the Master Plumbers’ Association’s 1963 Annual Conference. By this time, the employer bore much of the training cost: School fees – Fees are primarily payable by the apprentices, but if he produces evidence from the Commission that he has attended the required percentage of day and evening classes and behaved in a diligent and decorous manner while in attendance the employer shall refund the fees to the apprentice.

Daytime attendance at classes – No deduction is to be made for any time spent in attending prescribed daytime classes. This amounts to compulsory day classes of hours of eight hours per week in the first and second years, eight hours a fortnight in the third and fourth years. In these latter years compulsory evening classes of two hours a fortnight are also prescribed.19 Thirty years later, Garry Dougall worked on one of the company’s most important projects – the installation of a paint facility for Dulux Paint in Clayton. The firm’s house journal noted: Care had to be taken in manufacturing the pipes in their correct sequence as the layout of the pipework was so complex that the progress of the installation 105

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could have been held up significantly if one single pipe had been left out of sequence. … In all there were some 5 kilometres of pipe in the project with approximately 4,000 welds. … Our 100% pass rate of the 150 welds x-ray tested speaks volumes for the standard of workmanship.20 A less complex, but intriguing job was written up in a later newsletter: Atmospheric humidity around the muesli-bar line at Uncle Toby’s Wahgunyah, north-east Victoria, plant was causing stickiness in the bars, resulting in product loss and preventing efficient wrapping.

AE Smith senior engineer Kevin McDonnell designed an air-conditioning system which created an air canopy over 40m of conveyor line, regulating temperature and humidity. The installation regained Uncle Toby’s $4,000 output a day, and the company recouped the project’s cost in 50 days.

Garry Dougall Courtesy AE Smith & Son

AE Smith’s relationship with Uncle Toby’s was already well-established. It began with a speculative visit to the Wahgunyah site by AE Smith project manager Garry Dougall back in 1994.

‘We were in the area and thought we’d just call in.’21 Another example of the variety of Dougall’s work with AE Smith was for Ocean Engineering in Hastings, Victoria, who contracted the firm to replace badlyinstalled stainless steel pipework on an ocean-going LP gas tanker. Because of the financial necessity of keeping the tanker in service, the work could proceed only 106

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in fits and starts whenever the vessel came into Westernport Bay over a period of several months.22 Garry Dougall is also well known as a cricketer. He played District cricket in Melbourne, and as a youngster in Brisbane, he played against such notable opponents as Allan Border, Keith Stackpole and Max Walker. He coached the South Melbourne District cricket teams from 1993 to 1995, later serving at both Melbourne and Melbourne University Cricket Clubs as Assistant Coach, before moving in 2001 to the Camberwell Magpies.

Darren McGrath, who joined the firm in 1980 was the winner of the Andrew Letten Gold Medal Award in 1983. This is the highest apprenticeship award provided by the Master Plumbers’ and Mechanical Services Association of Association. It is presented to the plumbing apprentice who receives the highest marks in all external examinations necessary to become a qualified plumber. Darren was to work in 1994 with Garry Dougall on the Dulux plant as Site Quality Manager.

He left the company briefly from 1995 to 1999, before returning to his current position as Victorian Construction Manager.

Also in 1994, Jason Newton, a trainee draftsman employed at AE Smith since 1990, received the AMCA overall Training Achievement Award, with the selection committee noting his ‘outstanding competency over four years’.23 In 2006, Dannielle Kerrigan was employed as the first female apprentice. Dannielle attended the Christian College – Mackay and initially came to AE Smith & Son as a trainee electrician on a two-week work experience block. She applied for an apprenticeship with the company when she completed Year 12. After working on

Dannielle Kerrigan, AE Smith’s first female plumber’s apprentice Courtesy AE Smith & Son 107

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the City Mark Shopping Centre, she has worked on the Porters BBQ and Leisure Centre and Captains Corner high-rise units on the harbour as well as the Cool Schools programme, installing air-conditioning in government schools in Mackay.

Women have, of course, long been employed at AE Smith & Son, starting with the ‘girl in the office’ remembered by Alec Bell struggling with the firm’s accounts.24 In general, however, women have been seen less in the hands-on trade positions than in white-collar work, including drafting and sales. At the beginning of 2007, the firm employed forty-eight women. Of these, two had over fifteen years’ service with the company, and a further eighteen had served between five and fifteen years.

Tracy Ahern, née Bird joined the AE Smith & Son drafting office in 1990 as a trainee and during the first years of her employment also worked in the Planning and Estimating Departments. In 1993 she won the award for Best Graduate in the Advanced Certificate in Plant Service Detail Drafting Course at Holmesglen College of TAFE. She left the company in 2001 but still does contract work for AE Smith & Son. In a family firm handed down from father to the elder or the only son, it is perhaps not surprising to find that there are no women in senior management positions at AE Smith & Son. This is not to say, however, that the company does not number among its staff women in highly important jobs which they occupy for a long period of time. In many cases, they have brought to the company a wide experience of other environments.

Cate Long (1967- ) came to AE Smith & Son after a varied career. She was employed on leaving school as a legal secretary and assistant to the Victorian sales manager of Canon Australia before travelling overseas. On her return to Australia, she worked in the banking industry. After being sent to Perth to set up the new project office for the merger of Challenge Bank and Westpac, Long worked on a special project in the Sydney office before eventually returning to Melbourne to work on the acquisition by Westpac of the Bank of Melbourne. What had started as a one-week temporary appointment lasted six and a half years.

In 1998, Long took what was expected to be a three-month contract as Personal Assistant to the CEO of AE Smith & Son, reporting to David Pike. She is still with the company, now as Executive Manager, having since then been Personal Assistant to Barry Smith and Andrew Permezel. As well as the normal PA tasks of booking travel, screening calls and dealing with correspondence, Long found herself acting as the central point of reference for all kinds of queries.

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Cate Long, AE Smith & Son Executive Manager Courtesy AE Smith & Son

So if other people don’t know where to go to find things, I’m the last port of call. Go and see Cate; Cate will be able to fix it; Cate will have the answer for you.25 As well as the more usual tasks of an Executive Assistant, Long occasionally found herself with less expected work.

Barry and I spent a lot of time on … PCs and things like that … I actually set up a training course for him. Every Tuesday night, down at his house in Toorak, seven o’clock. Take the laptops down, and Barry and I would sit and I’d give him a lesson … we’d do different things each week. … That went on for a month or two. … I got down there one Tuesday night, and there’s Barry and Barbara, both set up at the kitchen table. “There’s now two of us. Can you show Barbara how to do all this stuff ?” “Yeah, no problems.”

So Barbara and Barry and myself start doing it. A couple of weeks after that, I turn up, and there’s Ian Sutherland. He’s starting to bring all friends in because they got wind of Barry getting training. So next thing, we’ve got all these people around the kitchen table with their laptops, and I’m trying to teach all of them how to use the PCs.26 We have noted AE Smith & Son’s involvement from the very early days of the firm with training and industry bodies. This continues and in 2006, the company became the first ‘corporate supporter’ of AIRAH. The Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heating was founded in 1920 and is the official Australian secretariat of the International Institute of Refrigeration. It is also an inaugural member of the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCAus).

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Most large Australian companies undertake charitable work of some kind, and we noted in Chapter Two that when AE Smith & Son’s employees disbanded their Friendly Society, money was given to a variety of groups supporting children.

Barry Smith recalled his father’s personal benevolence: Things like St John of God Hospital in Ballarat.… We’re not a Catholic family, but I know he gave the hospital a movie projector and a camera and films for the children: and that’s just through the relationship that he built with the Mother Superior there. … He would do that sort of thing for no other reason than the warmth he felt for the Mother Superior and the need of the children, to keep them amused.27 Four decades on, another hospital benefited: AE Smith’s community spirit was to the fore in Mackay where it agreed to contribute air-conditioning systems of McCauley House, a 10-room building to house people from outside the district who need somewhere to live while their loved ones are in the Mater Hospital.

AE Smith had just completed the mechanical services for the Mater Hospital, and the Mater board of directors approached various businesses to donate funds and equipment to the new venture, which opens before Christmas. AE Smith, in association with Daikin, supplied and installed split systems in the rooms to make life a little more comfortable for the relatives of the sick.28 In 2007, Peter Staedler estimated that the company has for many years done at least one job gratis each year for charities, typically through installing air conditioning without payment. In 2006, the beneficiaries included a centre for children in Collingwood sponsored by the Reach Foundation and in 2007, a St Vincent de Paul facility in South Melbourne. The Reach Foundation, which was established in 1994, runs programes for adolescents designed to build self-confidence and self-esteem, focussing on the causes of destructive behaviour rather than the behaviour itself.

Sometimes, the bounty goes the other way. In 2000, one unnamed technician received a truly memorable gift for services rendered. AE Smith & Son’s Facilities Management team are responsible for maintenance of electrical, HVAC, plumbing and lighting of the Port Phillip Prison, which opened in 1997, replacing Pentridge Gaol. A full-page article in the house journal recounts some of the challenges in working in a high security environment, particularly with easily-purloined tools 110

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such as knives and screwdrivers. Presumably the prisoners were even more amused than the staff, when: A roof leak was detected in the prison hospital. A flexible hose between the air conditioning unit and the drain was blocked, causing a leak. An AE Smith technician, who shall remain nameless, blew through the pipe and established that the drain was clear. Nothing appeared to be blocking the pipe. The unit continued to leak water into the ceiling below. The not so clever technician then decided to suck on the pipe, clearing it in a flash. However, he was left with half a dead mouse in his mouth, with its tail sticking out.

His response brought nursing staff from all directions. … Within days nearly every prisoner and officer was discussing the nutritional value of mice.

Maintenance unit prisoners engineered the smallest rotisserie spit ever seen to ensure the technician’s future meals were properly cooked.29 In terms of projects, the first year of the new century ended with one of lasting importance to Australia’s historians. In November 2000 the Victorian Minister for the Arts officially opened the new $32 million Victorian Archives building in North Melbourne. AE Smith & Son provided the mechanical services which involved air conditioning to all archival storage and conservation areas as well as those occupied by the staff and readers; mechanical ventilation to the loading dock, toilet and amenities areas; an active smoke management system and a central vacuum cleaning system. As well as housing the State’s archives over some eighty kilometres of shelving, the building provides storage space for the National Gallery of Victoria, for all of which air and temperature control are essential.

One building project followed with keen interest by almost all Melburnians as well as sporting enthusiasts from the rest of Australia and overseas was the refurbishment of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. AE Smith’s part of this great undertaking was worth $20 million, and, like the rest of the work, needed to be executed to a strict schedule, to ensure completion in time for the Commonwealth Games in 2005. The Project Manager was Rod Lloyd, whom we met earlier on the Southgate project. AE Smith & Son were responsible for the mechanical services of the Northern Stand, including the Grandstand, Members’ Dining Room, Hall of Fame, Museum, players’ changing rooms, medical rooms, catering facilities and corporate dining rooms and boxes. The air conditioning involved central plant conjoining chillers and boilers and kitchen exhausts as well as individual air conditioning to super-boxes and toilets.

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Victorian Archives Building Courtesy AE Smith & Son

The total cost of the redevelopment was over $430 million with the first concrete slab for the new grandstand poured in February 2003. Problems encountered ranged from those inherent in trying to keep much of the facility open throughout the process to dealing with the asbestos in the structures being demolished. The MCG is, of course, much more than a sporting track and stadium. Apart from the catering and dining facilities, requiring their own kinds of heating, ventilation and air conditioning, such areas as the Library and Members’ Reserve, with their rare and unique paintings, photographs, artefacts, documents and printed materials, have their own special needs.

Keith Dunstan, a member of the MCG for sixty-five years, writes admiringly of the new Members’ Reserve, noting that: When you enter the Members Pavilion it is like stepping into the Grand Hyatt 5-star hotel. Oh no, it’s better than that. This is bigger, more imposing, at least a 7-star. … Indeed the entrance is really something. For old blokes and ladies, there are lifts. But even better, there is the bliss of wonderful escalators that take you right up to the top level. There is so much light, so much glass, it’s like rising to heaven. … The committee room is equally beautiful and the famous men’s lavatory is much more luxurious. However you must understand that it is just a single urinal that overlooks the ground. There might have to be a law that the urinal should not be occupied for more than one over. … After a brief preview of the Library, one can say that when those English cricket writers arrive they will be so amazed that they might even be tempted to remain there rather than watch the match.30 112

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Redevelopment of the Melbourne Cricket Ground during construction Courtesy AE Smith & Son

This description of a landmark structure of the twenty-first century leads naturally into an issue which will affect all living beings on Earth – energy efficiency. In 2007, AE Smith & Son was the first and only air conditioning company to be associated with Greenfleet. All the company’s maintenance vehicles and service trucks are signed up to the project. Greenfleet Australia, which is based in South Gippsland, Victoria, was established in 2001 as a not-for-profit environmental organisation. It specialises in reducing the environmental impacts of transport both by promoting fuel-efficient technologies and low carbon fuels and by planting native trees to offset current carbon dioxide emissions. The programme is based on the premise that seventeen mixed-species trees will not only absorb the greenhouse emissions of an average car, but also help to tackle salinity, improve water quality and provide essential habitat for native species.

In the MCG redevelopment, as well as using the largest air-cooled chillers in the Southern Hemisphere, AE Smith designed a preventative maintenance programme to ensure that both new and refurbished systems at the MCG have at least another quarter of a century’s efficient life. Planning and providing a proactive maintenance and service programme is vital to energy efficiency, and part of AE Smith & Son’s mission is to convince building owners that appropriate and timely investment represents cost and energy savings rather than simple expenditure. Most projects, especially Government ones, for which AE Smith & Son tender now require a five or six star energy rating and the company has responded with a national approach to environmental issues, coordinated by its Marketing Manager, Raymond Lee. For the MCG AE Smith Service is contracted to provide coverage of the facility 113

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Melbourne from Eureka Tower Courtesy AE Smith & Son

twenty-fours hours a day as well as on-site supervision during events and other special occasions.

Three more projects from the beginning of the new century will serve to illustrate the direction the company is taking, and demonstrate how far it has changed since the days of its founder. All projects are distinguished by their complexity, and all, in different ways, will be of historic importance to the people of Victoria.

The Eureka Tower on Riverside Quay in Melbourne’s Docklands precinct, was completed in 2006. It was built by Grocon and the architect was Fender Katsalidis.

At 297 metres, it is one of the world’s tallest residential towers. It contains 554 apartments. Norman Disney and Young were responsible for the building services engineering. Safety aspects of such tall buildings have come under special scrutiny, notably since such films as Towering Inferno and the destruction of the World Trade Center. The Eureka Tower is broken into three zones, with occupants of various levels being evacuated through different routes, and are able to speed evacuation by using the lifts from various levels. The lifts themselves were supplied by the American company Otis. The men who endured the unnerving first ascent to the top of the Australia Building in 1898 would have been astonished by the thirtysecond ride from the lobby to the observation deck on Level 88 of the Tower. The

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Eureka Tower Courtesy AE Smith & Son

lift manufacturer is the same company. AE Smith & Son were responsible for the mechanical services – heating, cooling and ventilation – for the whole building.

The Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre Redevelopment and Mercy Hospital for Women Relocation Project was a different and equally complex enterprise which was a long time in gestation. All components of the new entity, part of Austin Health, had long histories before the announcement in mid-1994 that

View of the Austin Hospital Courtesy AE Smith & Son

Andrew Brincat, Greg Bookluck and Matt Millar enjoy a joke at the Austin Hospital Courtesy AE Smith & Son

the Austin Hospital, Heidelberg Repatriation General Hospital and Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre at Kew were to be redeveloped as Austin Health. In 1999, psychiatric services formerly offered at Larundel were also transferred there. The Austin Hospital at Heidelberg had existed under various names since 1882. Its affiliation with the University of Melbourne began in 1965 with the establishment of the Austin Hospital Clinical School, and Austin Health now houses University 115

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of Melbourne departments of Medicine, Surgery, Psychiatry, Psychology and Physiotherapy. After the first merger, renal and respiratory services formerly offered at the Fairfield Hospital were transferred to the Austin in 1999. Finally, the Mercy Hospital for Women was located at the site in 2005.

The redevelopment involved: • the reconfiguration of the Austin Hospital site to accommodate all nonacute inpatient services and surgery including 400 new acute inpatient beds, 32 new mental health beds in a purpose-built facility, a new emergency department, new intensive care and critical care units and 2 new additional operating theatres; • a 1,200 space car park with direct lift access to patient services; • consolidation of the ambulatory, no-acute and mental health services on the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital site; • construction of a new Mercy Hospital for Women in the Austin Hospital site with 128 beds, 60 neonatal cots, 17 delivery rooms and 4 operating theatres; and • upgraded teaching, training and research facilities and the development of a dedicated training and research precinct.31 The services for a complex requiring exceptional temperature control, isolation of materials and people, and cutting edge technology to support scientific research and medical procedures required enormous skill and precision in their design, manufacture and installation. AE Smith & Son set Malcolm Wallace up as Project Manager in an office in Bulleen with his team, in order to be closer to the site. As well as working on the new project, the company completed about $2 millionworth of refurbishment of the existing hospital. In all, the project represented work valued at about $36 million or about 10% of the total cost of the project.

The company was responsible for mechanical services, including medical gases but excluding, as is usual in such contracts, hydraulic, electrical and fire sprinkler services, which were separately contracted.

The last project we will describe is probably the least comprehensible to the non-specialist. Once again, AE Smith provided the mechanical services for the whole project. Apartment towers and hospitals are parts of everyday life, but a Synchrotron is not. There are in fact only about fifty of them in the world. The CSIRO announced:

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a new facility under construction in Clayton, Victoria will give scientists in Australia and New Zealand the opportunity to undertake research that currently only happens overseas.

Synchrotrons can tell us things about solids liquids and gases that are not revealed by any other method. In a normal laboratory, reactions proceed at a rate faster than data can be recorded. Using pulses of intense light synchrotrons enable scientists to study reactions at millisecond or even picosecond time frames. Slower reactions can be monitored in exquisite detail as they happen.

The Synchrotron by night Courtesy AE Smith & Son

Synchrotrons have an application in almost every area of science ‌ For example, the synchrotron will help us understand how to make new and more effective drugs, improve sunlight-resistance in car paint and predict where the next Broken Hill mineral deposit will come from.32 The wide scope of applications for the Synchrotron, which was opened in 2007, can be seen from the range of organisations involved in funding it. With an initial investment of $157 million from the Victorian Government for the basic building, it is supported by further funding from a consortium of Foundation Members: CSIRO, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Governments of Queensland and Western Australia and the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes.

They are joined by a consortium of New Zealand universities and the New Zealand Government.

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Aerial view of the Synchrotron during construction Courtesy AE Smith & Son

These few projects, all of them in Melbourne, are just a sample of the complex developments with which AE Smith & Son have been associated in the first years of their third century of operation. They are typical of others under way in Victoria and other states, especially Tasmania and Queensland. This book, however, is not so much a celebration of AE Smith’s construction history as an attempt to describe and commemorate a unique family enterprise. In conclusion, we will try to see what makes it so.

Culture is not an easy matter to define, and at this distance, it is difficult to tell much about the original Albert Smith’s management style. In any case, his grandson believed that his total staff would not have exceeded half a dozen men, which would have meant a fairly intimate relationship between boss and employees.

Barry Smith also believed that the company grew from a staff of around a dozen men in 1930 to about fifty in 1948. Roy Denman remembered a total of nine in 1935 including three pairs of brothers: Bert and Tom Smith, Roy and his brother George Denman, Roy and Bill Brown. ‘Digger’ Watts, Bruce Trevener and Vin Griffin who was so good at installing sprinkler systems, made up the rest of the staff. Because we have his son’s testimony and that of former staff members, it is easier for us to visualise Bert Smith, prepared to bawl out an errant employee one minute and ask in all sincerity about the health of his children in the next. Despite the chaotic bookkeeping system Alec Bell first encountered, Bert Smith was a man who would not leave the office until he had paid all the cheques. The family man who cultivated enough vegetables to feed an army and was generous to his employees was also generous to employers such as the St John of God Hospital who needed help. Bob Redman, who met Bert Smith only at the end of his life, 118

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recalled a ‘stern old fellow’ with a stick, but the recollections of Alec Bell and Roy Denman paint the picture of a hardworking but convivial boss with his social life oscillating between the Rising Sun Hotel for work entertainment, the Freemasons, and excursions to the beach and tennis games with his family and neighbours at home.

Barry Smith inherited a close-knit group of staff and the challenge for him was to expand the business beyond the possibility of day-to-day contact by taking it interstate while retaining the family feeling. The effort put into this is reflected in the company’s system of acknowledging staff achievements, employment milestones and encouraging social and sporting events. After ten years’ service, staff are given a certificate, after fifteen they are presented with a gold watch or clock, and on retirement long serving staff receive a piece of specially-inscribed glassware.

Staff also, although they did not always relish his interventions, appreciated his approachability and delighted in good stories about The Chief. Peter Staedler remembered a particularly interesting result of Barry Smith’s refusal to carry cash: He brought in some people to have a look at this magnificent Melbourne Central, and I showed them the place, and they were impressed, and he said, “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” - he said to his guests - “you’re invited.” So we go down to the coffee shop and bought a coffee and a scone and whatever else, and he said, “Oh - have you got some money? I haven’t got any cash.”

I said, “Yep, don’t worry Barry, I’ll fix it up.” Everybody went their own way, and I went back to my office. I get a phone call from the guard at the car park and he said, “Can you come down here? We’ve got a fellow here stuck at the boom, he can’t get out because he hasn’t got any money.” And I said, “All right, I’ll be down in a second.” It was Barry, at the boom gate: couldn’t go backwards, couldn’t go forward, they wouldn’t let him out. All the blokes behind him were irate. … They were furious! I thought they were going to have a fist-fight to be honest.33 Staedler saw the company culture as closely allied to its training programmes: I was able to grow within the company and have opportunity within. I sort of took that up myself: we’re very careful that we give our young employees an opportunity within. So far it’s worked; they haven’t gone anywhere else to develop - they’re happy to develop here.

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So … a draftsman can go to the estimating department for a year, and then become a project manager. … I don’t believe throwing people in the deep end, and letting them sink or swim, is a good strategy. We train them now, and work out a path to develop with the proper training from the AMCA, with the proper training internally. We’re in the process at the moment of setting up a formal mentoring project system. I honestly believe that’s why a lot of people stay here. Other companies can’t get over that people stay with us 30, 40 years. … The other thing we try and do is we look after them.34

Barry Edward Smith (1932-2006) Barry Smith Collection

When he was asked about the culture of the one hundred year-old firm he took over in 2004, CEO and sole shareholder Andrew Permezel responded: Well, fairly paternalistic, to be honest; and that’s how a lot of external people would see it. And that’s OK, that has its good sides and its bad sides. I think the good side is people appreciate it and like to work in a less corporate environment. I think we take care of our staff, and it’s reflected in the fact they stay for up to fifty years. … I think that’s a reflection of, AE Smith must be a good place to work. We have high standards, and expect quality 120

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work. Barry and I have very similar values and principles about running the business, and levels of integrity etc., etc.; so people feel they’re working for someone that they can trust, and if we say something then we’ll do it.

And people like being able to - as a few employees have said - walk in and they’re talking to the right person. It’s not a matter of layers, or you can’t get to the Managing Director of a public listed company, and head office is somewhere else. So I think it’s a combination of factors. And I think in this industry - in the construction industry, in mechanical services - being private is better.35 Despite the geographical spread of the company, from Queensland to Tasmania, there is a a carefully fostered spirit of co-operation which Staedler sees as a legacy of Barry Smith’s management style: I think there’s more focus on teamwork now. We’re more flexible. … I’ve sent equipment - truckloads of equipment - to Brisbane when they were busy and we were a bit light on. We help with the engineering for the Tasmanian office. … I certainly promoted teamwork here in Victoria very strongly, because I know that’s how some of the projects I did, only way it worked by teamwork. No individual builds a $40 million project.36 Staedler’s comment on teamwork suggests some change in management style, with a greater degree of devolution, but the basic culture remains the same. Permezel sees his responsibility as covering risk management, including reviewing large contracts, marketing and safety matters as well as determining the general thrust of the business in the future. Managers, however, are more likely to close a deal themselves, referring to the board only a project which falls outside accepted guidelines, is significantly more expensive than past projects in that location or is for an unknown contractor.

The ethos of the company remains the same, however, and the ongoing relationship AE Smith & Son seeks to build with its clients is echoed in the loyalty and enthusiasm of its generally long serving staff. As the company celebrates its one hundred and tenth birthday Albert Edward Smith might be amazed to learn that the company he founded is still earning plaudits for its work on very tall buildings. Albert Edward Smith was essentially a domestic plumber but he would, we believe, be pleased that the firm which bears his name continues to reach for the sky.

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Endnotes 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18

19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

31

32 33

34 35 36

Achievers. December 1994 p 1.

Ron Forsyth, interview with Rosemary Francis 19 September 2006.

Master Plumbers’ Association. Service Bulletin February 1985 p 3.

Forsyth interview.

Master Plumbers’ Association. Service Bulletin July 1972 p 13-14.

Conversation with Barry Smith, Andrew Permezel, Rosemary Francis and Juliet Flesch 21 June 2006.

Steve Atherton interview with Rosemary Francis 3 April 2007.

Graham Everitt interview with Rosemary Francis 7 December 2006.

Brian Chasteauneuf interview with Rosemary Francis 29 September 2006.

George Crawford. Footprints: History of the Plumbers’ Union. Melbourne: 199 p 51.

Steve Atherton interview 3 April 2007.

Achievers. September 1992 p 7.

Forsyth interview.

Chasteauneuf interview.

Ibid.

AE Smith News Spring 1999 p 3.

Undated reminiscences of Alec Bell, provided by AE Smith & Son 28 February 2007.

Undated interview with Roy Denman and others. Transcript provided by AE Smith & Son 28 February 2007.

Federated Master Plumbers of Australia. 17th Annual Conference, 1963 p 28.

Achievers December 1994 p 2.

AE Smith News Winter 1999 p 5.

Achievers. December 1995 p 3.

Achievers December 1994 p 6.

Undated reminiscences of Alec Bell, provided by AE Smith & Son 28 February 2007.

Cate Long interview with Rosemary Francis 19 December 2006.

Ibid.

Barry Smith interview with Rosemary Francis 25 July 2006.

Street Talk. December 2003 p 3.

AE Smith News. Winter 2000 p 5.

Keith Dunstan. ‘So Much Light, So Much Glass, It’s Like Rising to Heaven.’

MCG Redevelopment News. no. 7 December 2005 p 8.

Victoria. Auditor General. Reports on Public Sector Agencies: Results of Special Reviews Melbourne, 2003 p 90-91. http://www.csiro.au/science/ps11k.html accessed 16 April 2007.

Peter Staedler interview with Rosemary Francis and Juliet Flesch 21 March 2007.

Ibid.

Andrew Permezel interview with Rosemary Francis 8 December 2006.

Peter Staedler interview 21 March 2007.

122

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127

128

Appendix Long serving staff at AE Smith & Son List compiled May 2007 Many AE Smith & Son staff have stayed a very long time. This list, compiled

by Angela Graham, who has herself spent over a quarter of a century with the company, is as complete as she was able to make it, but inevitably, some names will have been missed. We apologise in advance for any omissions.

Former staff who served more than 25 years Bert Austin Alec Bell Merv Burrows Greg Cummings Roy Denman Brian Evans Noel Godfrey Silvester Hipik Mike Manser Ron Mitchell Jim Owens Tommy Pritchard Robert Redman Kelly Rogers Jim Scarpella Ronald Talbot

Frederick Baker Bob Birtchnell Tom Campbell George Denman Bob Dunstan Graham Everitt John Hampshire Gary Kruger Ray Miller Andrew Olsson George Paterson Louis Punz Frederick Richardson Jo Sainato Dennis Spokes Tom Walsh Neil Woods

Ray Balins Wayne Britt Max Clarkson Herbert Denman Ron Edwards Ron Forsyth Paul Hendrick Claus Lehmann Colin Minetti Ken Orren Alan Pendlebury Frank Rabusin Stan Rogers Dominic Santoro Terry Swannell Geoff Watson

Former staff who served between 20 and 25 years David Atkinson Bruce Biddle Ken Clifford Michael Daly Ray Fuller Bob Kennedy Joe Lesnik Warren McDougall

Geoff Banks John Bohmer Andy Collins Brian Davey Keiren Hackett Robert Kinson John Lewis Ray Morrell-Porter 129

Margaret Beattie Darren Brice Tony Court George Forrester Terry Hollway Sam Kyriacou Rex McCormack Eddie Park

Gary Pearce Siggy Sprie

Arthur Peterson Kevin Stevens Harold Withers

Frank Rogers Graeme Stewart

Former staff who served between 15 and 20 years Don Anderson John Baldwin Rod Blake Brian Chasteauneuf Noel Cleary Ray Cox Eddy Daly Sunny Dann Trevor Dickson Ghylene D’Unienville John Ede Sharlene Ellis Bob Ford Richard Fordham John Fullet Merv Gaffney Ian Gillard Paul Gray Gary Hanlon Barry Harrowfield Ernie Hoppenberg Kevin Hudson Christine Jackson Garry Johnson Arthur Keogh Shane Kerin Wendy Kirkwood Kenny Knee Frank Laurence Peter Livy Stuart Loweth Paul Lucas Bruce Maclachlan Ivan Matthews David McIlwain Leon McMahon Jack Mills Ray Morgan Ron Oakley Derick Osborne Ian Parker Peter Pooles Michael Rach Steve Radic Neil Richardson Mark Rogers Les Scotland Graham Simpson Les Spence Willie Struwe George Szatmary Charlie Taylor Wayne Upton Joe Vielle Norm Wilkie

Ian Blair Paul Chasteauneuf Mick Cunningham Max Dean Nigel Dunlop Peter Fischer Warren Fraser Ross Gamack Shayne Hampton John Hooper Arnold Jackson Michael Johnson Bob Kimlin Ray Lanyon Rod Long Richard Lynch John McDonald Lorraine McNelis Paul Nankervis John Page Joe Prestipino Michael Reid Geoff Sanderson William Simpson Chris Sundblom Ian Temple John Wardrop Rick Witteveen

Current staff who have served over 25 years Peter Allie Graeme Carbery Bob George Ian Harcourt

Phil Bennett Joe Caruana Angela Graham Tony Hawkins 130

Paul Bloye Garry Dougall Mal Griffin Mark Hobday

Peter Jackson Rod Lloyd John Milliner Craig Pinder David Robins Peter Staedler Ian Wallace

Roger Jones Peter Lyons Chris Molinaro Lance Ramah Shane Ryan Vince Tarquinio Alan Wilke

Janja Kotnik Kevin McDonnell Frank Pak Ken Robertson Mick Seers Tim Van-Engen John Willis

Current staff who have served between 20 and 25 years Greg Angus Brian Ash Trevor Bracken Peter Cahill Nicholas Chugg Ian Cook Dwayne Crofts Steve Cullis Philip Dalton Claude Dubois Peter Ffrost Milton Ford Paul Higginbotham John Hoens Steve Jackson Norm Kay Daryl Kister Rick Larsen Peter Lucas Peter Lucente Darren McGrath Trevor McAllan John Mitchell Mike Mulherin Angelo Pascuzzi Neil Pennycook John Taylor Russell Tweedale John Waterworth

Darren Bookluck Harry Chugg Ray Creber Phil Daicos Mark Evans Tim Greet Peter Jackson Kevin Kent Mark Lovelady Vern Marquet Peter McGrory John Mulherin Geoff Rees Graeme Warland Frank Wechsler

Current staff who served between 15 and 20 years Peter Auman Phil Barry Chris Cannon Peter Galtry Frank Lauretta Anthony Mulherin Andrew Permezel Martin Ross Aldo Sita Clive Swan

Adam Barker Paul Bird Berbie Cinch Peter Jenkins Wayne Long John Murray Victor Plant Garry Russell Jason Smith Russell Wilson

131

Peter Barnett Troy Birtles Andrew Fletcher Russell Langdon Harry McMorrow John O’Hea David Price Brett Schafter Bram Steele Dino Zamparo

Name Index ABC See Australian Broadcasting Commission Aden 72, 73 AE Atherton & Sons See Atherton, AE & Sons AE Axon & Associates See Axon, AE & Associates AG Coombs See Coombs, AG Ahern, Tracy Bird 108 Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors’ Association 68, 80, 91, 96, 97,107, 120 Alcoa 66 Alfred Hospital 8 Alliance House 39 Allie, Peter 130 Allstaff 89, 91 AMCA See Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors’ Association America See United States of America American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers 65 AMP 62, 63, 72 ANA Hotel 81, 82 Andell, William and Associates 41 Anderson, Don 130 Andrew Letten Gold Medal 107 Angus, Greg 131 Angus, Rod 63 Annand, Douglas 57 Annear, Harold Desbrowe 37 Ansett, Reginald 49 ANSTO See Australian Nuclear Science Organisation ANZ 72 APA Building See Australia Building Apprenticeship Commission See Victoria. Apprenticeship Commission Arabian (Ship) 6 132

Argus (Newspaper) 8 Arts Centre, Melbourne 86 Ash, Brian 131 ASHRAE See American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and AirConditioning Engineers Aspendale 14 Assemblies of God 63 Assembly Hall 6 Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes 117 Athelstan Road, Camberwell 13 Atherton, AE 20, 96 Atherton, AE & Sons 41, 95, 98 Atherton, Steve 41, 95, 96, 99 Atkinson, David 129 Auman, Peter 131 Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre 115 Austin Health 115-116 Austin Hospital 115-116 Austin, Bert 129 Austral Otis Lifts 6, 114 Australia Building 6, 7, 114 Australia. Defence Housing Authority 41 Australia. Department of Works 26, 65 Australia. Manpower Civil Construction Authority 31 Australian Broadcasting Commission 40 Australian Mutual Provident Society See AMP Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation 117 Australian Wool Board 73 AV Jennings See Jennings, AV Axon, AE & Associates 64 BAAN system 78 Baghdad 73 Baker, Frederick 53, 129

Baldwin, John 130 Balins, Ray 129 Ballarat Gun Factory33 Banff 14 Bank of Melbourne 108 Banks, Geoff 129 Barclay Brothers 65 Barclay Engineering 77-78 Barker, Adam 131 Barnett, Peter 131 Barnum, PT 5 Barr, Kenneth 65 Barry, Phil 131 Bass, Tom 57 Bassett, WE 35, 63-65 Batavia 26 Beattie, Margaret 129 Bedourie 76 Bell, Alec 12, 27, 30-32, 37, 41, 44, 5455, 66-68, 108, 118-119, 129 Bells Hotel 56 Bendigo 7-9, 72 Bennett, Phil 130 Best Graduate Award (Plant Service Detail Drafting) 108 Biddle, Bruce 129 Bird, Paul 131 Bird, Tracy See Ahern, Tracy Bird Birdsville 76 Birtchnell, Bob 129 Birtles,Troy 131 BISCOA See Building Industry SubContractors’ Organisation of Australia Blair, Ian 130 Blake, Rod 130 Bloye, Paul 130 BLSA Pty Ltd 74 Bohmer, John 53, 129 Bookluck, Darren 115, 131 Boonah Hospital 65 Border, Allan 107 Boyd, Robin 39, 57 Bracken, Trevor 131

Brady, Cate See Long, Cate Braithwaite, Ellis 76 Brice, Darren 129 Brighton 17 Brisbane Morgue 84 Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre 85 Britannia Metal Industries See Britannia Sheet Metal Britannia Sheet Metal 32, 60, 87 British Institution of Heating and Ventilation Engineers 23 Britt, Wayne 129 Brown, Bill 118 Brown, Roy 118 Brunswick Technical School 99, 100 Bryant & May match factory 19 Buchan Laird & Bawden 74 Builders’ Labourers’ Federation 63 72, 99 Building Industry Agreement, 1972 95 Building Industry Congress 22 Building Industry Sub-Contractors’ Organisation of Australia 42 Burnley 13, 14, 15, 19 Burroughs calculating machine 67 Burrows, Merv 129 Cahill, Peter 131 Camberwell 13, 17, 24, 30, 38, 49 Camberwell Magpies (Cricket team) 107 Campbell, Tom 94, 129 Cannon, Chris 131 Canon Australia 108 Carbery, Graeme 134 Carlton Brewery 10 Caruana, Joe 130 Cassidy, Fay Smith 52 Caulfield Hospital 34 Caulfield Town Hall 35 Cevaal, Aldo 59-60 Chadstone Shopping Centre 39, 54 Challenge Bank 108

133

Chasteauneuf, Brian 22, 51, 68, 97, 102, 130 Chasteauneuf, Paul 130 Chermside Shopping Centre 63 Chester (Gardener) 36 Christian College, Mackay 107 Chugg, Harry 131 Chugg, Nicholas 131 City Baths, Melbourne See Melbourne City Baths Clark, John James 84 Clarkson, Max 53, 129 Clayton 54, 60, 87 Cleary, Noel 130 Clements Langford 42 Clifford, Ken 129 Clinch, Bernie 131 Coates Building 39 Coleman, Alan 65 Coliban River 9 Collingwood 5, 9, 110 Collins Place 72, 74 Collins Street 6, 39, 40, 72, 76 Collins, Andy 129 Commonwealth Centre 50 Commonwealth Games 111 Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation See CSIRO Communications, Electrical & Plumbing Union 99 Concrete Constructions Group 85 Conrad Jupiters Casino See Jupiters Casino Contractor’s Lament 43 Cook, Ian 131 Coombs, AG 72-75, 80, 88-89, 91 Coombs, Allan George 31 Coombs, Philip 80 Coop’s Shot Tower 88 Court, Tony 129 Cox, Ray 130 Cranlana 36-37 Crawford, George 72, 98

Creber, Ray 131 Crofts, Dwayne 131 Crown Casino 86, 88-89, 91 CSIRO 116-117 Cullis, Steve 131 Cummings, Greg 129 Cunningham, Mick 130 Curtis (employee in 1942) 26 Customs House, Melbourne 61 D’Unienville, Ghylene 130 Daicos, Phil 131 Daikin 110 Daimaru 89 Daley, Helen See Smith, Helen Dalton, Philip 131 Daly, Eddy 130 Daly, Michael 129 Dandenong 29 Dann, Sunny 130 Darling Park 83 Davey, Brian 129 Davey, Jack 40 Davies, Norman 65 Dean, Max 130 Deer Park 27, 33-34 Defence Housing Authority See Australia. Defence Housing Authority Denman, George 24-27, 31, 53-55, 61, 64, 100-104, 118, 129 Denman, Herbert 24, 29, 37, 129 Denman, Roy 19-20, 27, 32-34, 37, 3941, 43-44, 47, 51, 53-54, 101, 104, 118, 129 Denman, Thomas Reuben 34 Derwent Park 33 Dickson, Trevor 130 Docklands 86, 114 Dougall, Garry 106-108, 130 Downing, Jean 37-38 Downing, Richard Ivan 38 Dreyfus & Co Ltd 66 Dromana Bush Nursing Hospital 19 Dubois, Claude 131 134

Dulux Paint 105, 107 Dunlop, Nigel 130 Dunn Air Conditioning 65 Dunn, Robert 65 Dunstan, Bob 51, 129 Dunstan, Keith 112 Dyer, Bob 40 Ede, John 130 Edwards, Ron 129 Electrical, Electronic, Plumbing & Allied Workers’ Union 99 Elizabeth Street, Brisbane 84 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne 6, 37-39, 50 Elizabeth Street, Hobart 61 Ellis, Sharlene 130 Email Limited 41, 58 Euphrates River 71 Eureka Tower 91, 114-115 Evans, Brian 129 Evans, Mark 131 Everitt, Graham 29, 37, 43, 51, 55, 6667, 77, 81, 97, 129 Ewenson, Rita Evelyn Smith 12 Family First Party 63 Featherstone, Grant 57 Federation Square, Melbourne 86 Fender Katsalidis Architects 114 Ferguson, Frederick 59 Ffrost, Peter 131 Fischer, Peter 130 Fitzgerald Royal Commission See Queensland. Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct Fitzroy Victoria Bowls and Sports Club 26 Fitzroy Temperance Society 10 Fletcher, Andrew 131 Fletcher Projects 86 Ford, Bob 130 Ford, Milton 131 Fordham, Richard 130

Forensic Science Pathology Centre, Brisbane 84 Forrester, George 129 Forrester, Harry 45 Forsyth, Ron 27-28, 35-36, 51, 53, 57, 94-95, 99-101, 105, 129 Foy and Gibson 39 Fraser, Warren 130 Freemasons 14-15, 25, 119 Fuller, Ray 129 Fullet, John 130 Gaffney, Merv 53, 130 Gallagher, Norm 72 Galtry, Peter 131 Gamack, Ross 130 General Motors Holden 29, 51 George, Bob 51, 130 Gilbert Court 39-40 Gillard, Ian 130 Gippsland Group Training Scheme 103 Glaciarium Ice Skating Rink 86 Godfrey, Noel 51, 129 Graham, Angela 130 Gray, Paul 130 Green Latrine See Commonwealth Centre Greenfleet Australia 113 Greenslopes Repatriation General Hospital 65 Greet, Tim 131 Griffin, Mal 130 Griffin, Vin 28, 118 Grimwade, Russell 8 Grocon 90-91, 114 Grollo Industries See Grocon Grounds, Roy 86 GTV 9 40 Hackett, Keiren 129 Hall Thermotank Australia 68 Hamer Hall 86 Hammond, Happy 40 Hampshire, John 129 Hampton, Shayne 130 135

Hanlon, Gary 130 Harcourt, Ian 130 Harrowfield, Barry 130 Hart, Eric Earl 18 Hart, Florence Edith May Smith 7, 8, 11, 18, 19 Hawkins, Tony 130 Hayden Engineering 88 Healesville 14 Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital 37, 115-116 Hendrick, Paul 129 Herbert, Ray 94 Higginbotham, Paul 131 Hipik, Silvester 129 Hobart 33, 60-62 Hobday, Mark 130 Hoens, John 85, 131 Hollway, Terry 29 Holmesglen TAFE 35, 103, 108 Hooper, John 130 Hoppenberg, Ernie 130 Hosies Hotel 39 HSV 7 40 Hudson Conway 89 Hudson, Kevin 130 ICI Building 7 Institution of Heating and Ventilation Engineers See British Institution of Heating and Ventilation Engineers Iran 71, 73 Iraq 71-73, 79 Jackson, Arnold 130 Jackson, Christine 130 Jackson, Peter 131 Jackson, Steve 131 Java 26 Jenkins, Peter 131 Jennings, AV 64, 74 Jewell, WC & Partners 65 Johns and Reid 42 John Tonge Centre 83-84 Johnson, Garry 130 136

Johnson, Michael 130 Jones, Barry 40 Jones, Roger 131 Jupiters Casino, Brisbane 84 Jupiters Casino, Gold Coast 74, 84 Kay, Norm 131 Keating, Paul 77 Kedron, Queensland 63 Kemp, Henry 6 Kennedy, Bob 53, 129 Kent, Kevin 131 Keogh, Arthur 130 Kerin, Shane 130 Kerrigan, Dannielle 111 Kimlin, Bob 130 Kingsley Industries 60 Kinson, Robert 129 Kirkwood, Wendy 130 Kister, Daryl 131 Knee, Kenny 130 Knox City Shopping Centre 97-98 Kookaburra Concert Group 37 Kotnik, Janja 131 Kruger, Gary 129 Kyriacou, Sam 129 La Gerche, JA 35 Lamb, Richard 86 Lands Administration Building 84 Langdon, Russell 131 Lanyon, Ray 130 Larsen, Rick 131 Larundel 115 Launching Place 14 Laurence, Frank 130 Lauretta, Frank 131 Laverton 41 Legend, The 39 Lehmann, Claus 129 Lesnik, Joe 129 Letten Gold Medal See Andrew Letten Gold Medal Lewis Construction 88 Lewis, John Snr 67, 129

Lewis, John, Jnr 67 LINC system 78-79, 83 Lion’s Club 44 Livy, Peter 130 Lloyd, Rod 131 Lobley Treidel & Partners 65 London 14, 36, 103 Long, Cate 78, 108-109 Long, Rod 130 Long, Wayne 131 Lonsdale Building 89 Lovelady, Mark 131 Loweth, Stuart 130 Lucas, Paul 130 Lucas, Peter 131 Lucente, Peter 131 Lufra Hotel 49 Lutheran Church of St John 32 Lynch, Richard 130 Lynott, Jeanie 6 Lyons, Peter 131 Lysaght, John 32 Maclachlan, Bruce 130 Mainline Constructions 65 Malaysia 80 Manpower Civil Construction Authority See Australia. Manpower Civil Construction Authority Manser, Mike 129 Marquet, Vern 131 Master Plumbers’ Association 21-23, 26, 28, 42, 45-46, 54, 76, 96, 98-99, 103, 105, 107 Master Plumbers’ Gold Medal 18, 27, 105, 107 Mater Hospital, Mackay 110 Matthews, Ivan 130 McAllan, Trevor 131 McCauley House, Mackay 110 McCormack, Rex 129 McCutcheon, Osborn 57 McDonald Engineering 12 McDonald, John 130

McDonnell, Kevin 131 McDougall, Warren 129 MCG See Melbourne Cricket Ground McGrath, Darren 131 MacGregor, Olive 38 MacGregor, Stuart 38 McGrory, Peter 131 McIlwain, David 131 McMahon, Leon 130 McMorrow, Harry 131 McNelis, Lorraine 130 Melbourne Central 88-90 Melbourne City Baths 84 Melbourne Cricket Ground 91, 111-113 Melbourne Fire Brigade 11,19 Melbourne General Cemetery 6 Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works 8-9, 22 Melbourne Technical College See RMIT University Melbourne University See University of Melbourne Menzies Hotel at Rialto 76-77, 99 Menzies Government 41 Mercy Hospital for Women 115-116 Miegunyah 12-13, 35-36 Miller, Ray 129 Milliner, John 131 Mills, Jack 51, 53, 55, 61, 65-66 Minetti, Colin 129 Mission for Seamen 37 Mitchell, Hetta Tomkin 17 Mitchell, James 17 Mitchell, John 131 Mitchell, Marjorie Belle See Smith, Marjorie Belle Mitchell Mitchell, Ron 129 MMBW See Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works Molinaro, Chris 131 Monash University 56, 59, 11 Mont St Quentin 18 Mooroopna Hospital 25 137

Morgan, Ray 130 Morrell-Porter, Ray 129 Mt Isa 75-76 Mulherin, Anthony 131 Mulherin, John 131 Mulherin, Mike 131 Murray, John 131 Myer, Merlyn 36-37 Myer Stores 39 Nankervis, Paul 130 Naples 14 National Gallery of Victoria 38, 86, 111 National Mutual Life Association 10 New Holland (Ship) 26 Newton, Jason 107 Norman, Howard 37 Norman Bros Stationers 37-38 Norman Disney & Young 114 O’Connor, T 64, 71 O’Hea, John 131 Oakden, Addison & Kemp 6-7 Oakley, Ron 130 Ocean Engineering, Hastings 110-111 Old Treasury Building, Melbourne 84 Olsson, Andrew 29 Olympic Games, Melbourne, 1956 38-40 Operative Plumbers’ Union See Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees’ Union Orcades (Ship) 52 Orren, Ken 37, 51, 129 Osborne, Derick 130 Owens, Jim 129 Pacrim Engineering Services Pte Ltd 80 Page, John 130 Pak, Frank 131 Park, Eddie 129 Parker, Ian 130 Pascuzzi, Angelo 131 Paterson, George 129 Pearce, Gary 130 Pendlebury, Alan 129 Pennycook, Neil 131 138

Pentridge Gaol 110 Permezel, Andrew 78-79, 108, 120-121 Permezel, Barbara 53 Peterson, Arthur 130 Petherick, Ian 65 Piccadilly, Sydney 81-82 Pike, David 77, 108 Pinder, Craig 131 Plant, Victor 131 Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees’ Union 6, 20-21, 28, 72, 91, 95-99 Plumbers’ Trade Welding Centre 98-99 Plumbers’ Union See Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees’ Union Pooles, Peter 130 Port Phillip Prison 110-111 Prestipino, Joe 130 Price, David 131 Pritchard, Tommy 129 Punz, Louis 129 Pye, Thomas 84 Q-Build 76 Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne 84 Queensland Government Offices, Brisbane 84 Queensland. Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct 74 Quirk’s 69 Rabusin, Frank 129 Rach, Michael 130 Radic, Steve 130 Ramah, Lance 131 Ramsay Health Care 65 Rayner (Builder) 13 Reach Foundation 110 Red Cross 31 Redman, Bob 41, 53, 58-59, 62-65, 95, 118-119, 129 Rees, Geoff 131 Reid, Michael 130 Revesby 81 Rialto 76-77, 99

Richardson, Frederick 129 Richardson, Neil 130 Richmond 1, 10-13, 17, 19, 24, 28, 36,40, 52, 55-56, 60, 66, 69 Rising Sun Hotel 55 Riverside Quay 14 RMIT University 6, 53, 59, 98- 101 Robertson, Ken 131 Robins, David 131 Rogers, Frank 130 Rogers, Kelly 129 Rogers, Mark 130 Rogers, Stan 129 Ross, Martin 131 Royal Brisbane Hospital 64 Royal Children’s Hospital 39, 44 Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition of Melbourne See Victoria.

Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition of Melbourne Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology See RMIT University Royal Mint, Melbourne 84 Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre 115 Russell, Garry 131 Ryan, Shane 131 Saddam Hussein 73 Safeway 88 Sainato, Jo 129 Sale Shopping Centre 88 Sanderson, Geoff 130 Santoro, Dominic 129 Saunders, Muriel Dorothy Smith 9,11,12 SBS Headquarters, Sydney 83 Scarpella, Jim 129 Schafter, Brett 131 Scotland, Les 130 Seedsman, David 57, 80 Seers, Mick 131 Shangri-La Hotel See ANA Hotel Sheraton Towers Hotel 86-88 Siganto & Stacey 65 Siganto, William 65

Simpson, Graham 130 Simpson, William 130 Singapore 30, 80 Sita, Aldo 131 Skinner, Phoebe Hickman 7 Skinner, Thomas 7 Skuse, Phoebe Ethel Smith 7,8, 11 Smith, Albert Edward (1871-1923) 5-15 Smith, Albert Edward (1900-1964) 11, 12, 15, 17-47, 49, 52, 54, 56, 59, 96, 105, 118-119 Smith, Alfred Ernest 6 Smith, Alice Victoria 6 Smith, Elsie See Stockdale, Elsie Smith Smith, Fay See Cassidy, Fay Smith Smith, Florence Edith May See Hart, Florence Edith May Smith, Francis Lionel 6 Smith, George Clarence 12 Smith, Helen 53 Smith, Jason 131 Smith, Kezia Rundle Trebilcock 5-6, 9 Smith, Marjorie Belle Mitchell 10, 17, 36-38 Smith, Muriel Dorothy See Saunders, Muriel Dorothy Smith Smith, Phoebe Elizabeth Skinner 7, 1012 Smith, Phoebe Ethel See Skuse, Phoebe Ethel Smith Smith, Rita Evelyn See Ewenson, Rita Evelyn Smith, Thomas (1844-1930) 5-6 Smith, Thomas (1904-1964) 12, 24, 2728, 100, 118 Southbank 32, 87, 89 Southern Facilities Management 83 Southgate 32, 86-88, 111 Spankle, Lynd & Sprague 74 Spence, Les 130 Spokes, Dennis 129 Sprie, Siggy 130

139

St John of God Hospital, Ballarat 110, 118 St Kilda Road 71, 86 St Paul’s Cathedral School 30 St Vincent de Paul Society 110 Stackpole, Keith 107 Staedler, Peter 88-92, 103-104, 110, 119121, 131 State Library of Victoria 88 State School 2853 12 Stawell Street, Richmond 11-12 Steele, Bram 131 Stevens, Kevin 130 Stewart & Lloyd 32 Stewart, Graeme 130 Stockdale, Elsie Smith 7-8, 11-12 Stockdale, Lance Benjamin 12 Stockdale Sprinkler System 12, 28, 35-36 Struwe, Willie 130 Stuart Creek Correctional Centre 85 Sumatra 30 Sundblom, Chris 130 Swan, Clive 131 Swan Street, Richmond 9-11, 24, 27, 35, 52, 55-56, 59-60, 66, 69 Swannell, Terry 129 Swinburne Technical College 18, 20-21, 26, 41, 53 Sydney 8, 26, 36, 77-78, 81-83, 108 Synchrotron 116-118 Szatmary, George 130 TAB 41 Talbot, Ronald 129 Tarquinio, Vince 131 Taylor, John 131 Taylor, Charlie 130 Temple, Ian 130 Thwaites, William 8-9 Tigris River 71 Tonge Centre See John Tonge Centre Totalisator Agency Board See TAB Townsville Correctional Centre 85 Treasury Building, Brisbane 84

Tretheway, Elizabeth 6 Tretheway, Samuel 6 Trevener, Bruce 118 Trinity Grammar School 30, 55 Trocadero Dance Hall 86 Trollope, Anthony 5 Tweedale, Russell 131 Uncle Toby’s 106 Underwood, Ray 72-75, 80-83 United States of America 65, 79 University of Melbourne 12, 39, 56-58, 78, 115-117 Upton, Wayne 130 Vandersluys, Alf 19 Van-Engen, Tim 131 Verdi, Giuseppe 5 Vickery, Albert Edward 52, 54 Victoria Bowling Club 26 Victoria. Apprenticeship Commission 20-22 Victoria. Department of Works 26, 65 Victoria. Health Act Amending Bill 23 Victoria. Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition of Melbourne 8 Victoria. Wages Board 22 Victorian Archives Centre 111-112 Victorian College of the Arts 86 Victorian Overseas Foundation 72 Vielle, Joe 130 Vietnam 80 Volkswagen 54 Wahgunyah 106 Walker, Max 107 Wallace, Ian 131 Wallace, Malcolm 116 Walsh, Tom 129 Walston Correctional Centre for Men 85 Wardrop, John 130 Warland, Graeme 131 Waterworth, John 131 Watson, Geoff 129 Wattle Street, Bendigo 7-8 Watts, ‘Digger’ 118 140

WC Jewell & Partners See Jewell, WC & Partners Wechsler, Frank 131 Weltyway automatic duct-maker 60 Wesley College 15, 52, 55 Westernport Bay 106-107 Westmead Children’s Hospital 83 Westpac 108 Whiffen & Andrews 77-78 Whitehead, Dale 76 Wild Heerbrugg 88 Wilke, Alan 131 Wilkie, Norm 130 Williamstown Dockyard 33-34 Willis, John 131 Wilson Hall 39, 56-57 Wilson, Russell 131 Withers, Harold 130 Witteveen, Rick 130 Woodford Correctional Centre 85 Woods, Neil 129 Woolwich Polytechnic 102 Woolworth 88 WorkChoices 99 Working Men’s College See RMIT University Wright, Charles 22-23 Wyllie, JR 71 Yallourn Power Station 19 Yarra River 6, 86-88 Zamparo, Dino 131

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Spanning the centuries:

Spanning the Centuries: a history of AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd

Spanning the Centuries is the story of a family-owned firm and its part in the construction of Australia over more than a hundred years.

grown to become one of the largest privately-owned building and mechanical services contractors in Australia, with construction, maintenance and engineering facilities across Australia and New Zealand.

Spanning the Centuries is the story of the AE Smith family, including, as well as the three men who owned the company from the end of the last century, some of the many men and women who worked with them for up to thirty years.Through the history of one firm, we glimpse the changing built environment of Australia as AE Smith & Son put their mark on stately homes and gardens, modest suburban houses, towering City apartment blocks, prisons, shopping centres, hospitals, hotels and many other buildings across the country.

Juliet Flesch & Rosemary Francis

Beginning as a one-man plumbing business in 1898, AE Smith & Son Pty Ltd has

Juliet Flesch & Rosemary Francis