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In the early part of the 20th century, there were typically about half a dozen wood mills at the Rushworth station, with others at stations along the Murchison to Colbinabbin railway line. These mills “were driven by steam portable engines of around seven to eight horsepower capacity. In two of
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William Skate’s wood mill The Skate family had a long connection with Rushworth, dating back to the gold rush years. Perhaps the best-known members of the family were John Skate and his wife Anne (nОe Clayton) who set up and ran the Excelsior Coffee Palace. The building, now a
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Henry Campbell was one of the first sawmillers to set up a firewood mill at the Rushworth station. He paid rates on the site from 1892 to 1902,1 when he sold the mill and moved to Wangaratta with his wife. Apparently unrelated to other Campbells who came to the
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There was plenty of demand for firewood from Melbourne, with the bulk of the transport needs being met by the railways up until World War 2. Looking back to the pre-war years, The Argus newspaper estimated that Melbourne needed 500-600,000 tons of firewood each year, as well as 100,
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It is hard to understate the amount of timber that was used for firewood in the early days, before people had access to electricity and gas. Almost every house had a wood stove in the kitchen, as well as fireplaces in other parts of the house. Many workplaces required timber
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Tony Ford
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Early days of sleeper cutting The last few stories have focussed on the sleeper cutters of the Rushworth Forest. They had a tough life working out in the forest, getting minimal return for their highly skilled work, while at the same time enduring plenty of changes in government policy and
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There was a chief forester appointed for the Rushworth district for the first time in 1890. Mr W F McNamara was the father of Frank McNamara, who later won the Victoria Cross in World War 1. In 1900, McNamara reported that the average production of railway sleepers out of the
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Although sleeper hewers mostly worked independently in the forest, they acted co-operatively to achieve some of their aims. Their work was under threat with the appointment of Victoria’s first Conservator of Forests, George Perrin in 1888. Perrin was convinced that sleeper hewing was a wasteful method of getting sleepers
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The overwhelming majority, if not all of the railway sleepers that came out of the Rushworth forest were hand hewn, which begs the question, why were they not just cut to specifications in the local sawmills? In states other than Victoria, many sleepers were cut by sawmills. In Victoria the
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From the gold rush until late in the 20th century, the output of timber products from the Rushworth forest has been enormous. Sawmills were established as early as the 1870s as the employment offered by the gold mines continued to subside. The timber industry grew rapidly and provided employment for
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The Rushworth forest has been harvested for timber since colonial days. Initially, during the gold rush, the tree felling was uncontrolled by the fledgling Victorian government. As time went by it was realised that unless there were some controls the forests would be completely denuded. The government has progressively introduced