Timber

Timber was essential from the first days of the colony. 14 carpenters sailed in the First Fleet, to build houses and barracks, and to repair the wooden ships. As soon as they landed, they looked for timber.

Macarthur quickly denuded his estate of trees, so timber-getters ranged farther afield. Much of the timber they found was heavier than they expected, and harder to work. However, when timber was found along the coast, yards opened on Pyrmont’s shores, processing the logs. Prominent among these yards were Goodlet & Smith (from the 1860s) and Saxton & Binns from the 1880s.

Timber mills were very substantial. Goodlet & Smith opened a saw mill, wharf and moulding works at Murray Street in about 1872. In 1885 the mill moved to water frontage on Elizabeth Macarthur Bay. The main building had five storeys, housing an immense engine (double-cylinder horizontal) driving processes throughout the building. There were three other pairs of engines and a 5-ton traveller ran into the building. This complex operated until 1927. 17 other timber yards or sawmills are recorded in the peninsula between the 1850s and the 1940s, most on waterfront sites. When CSR occupied the northern shore from the 1870s, timber yards and sawmills mainly moved to Blackwattle Bay. In the 1880s the Blackwattle Bay waterfront hosted Robert Mays’s timber wharf and storage ground, next to another owned by P. Davies (with an engine and circular saws which cut paving blocks), then a shipbuilding works and (the oldest on this frontage) the timber yard belonging to Francis Guy.

The ambitions, risks and achievements of timber companies are illustrated by Hepburn McKenzie. He came to Australia in 1888 and worked as a cedar trader until 1894 when he created a small steam saw mill at 50 Pyrmont Street. His timber and joinery business expanded into branch yards and a wharf at Blackwattle Bay. In 1900 he relocated to Abattoir Road (Bank Street) and installed Australia’s first American log band-saw. McKenzie shipped timber from Queensland and NSW, New Zealand, New Hebrides, New Guinea, Java, Thailand, India, Scandinavia and the USA. The firm also imported galvanised iron and other material to supply builders throughout Australia. And they won contracts, including the construction of the second Glebe Island Bridge in 1903.

When the log band saw mill was destroyed by fire in 1906, the company moved to a larger site on Glebe Island, financed by turning the firm into a public company. Further success allowed the company to expand to Fraser Island while turning out boxes on the Bank Street site. Work at Pyrmont continued until 1926 when, like other timber firms, it also moved (to Glebe Island) and had a head office at Rhodes. The H. McKenzie Home Improvement Centre still operates – at Rhodes.