Documenting Australia's Iron & Steel Industry: The Lithgow Project

Abstract

Lithgow, (about 100 kilometres west of Sydney, with a population of approximately 30,000) has been known as 'the cradle of the Australian steel industry'. While the heavy industry is no longer part of the town, the local government wishes to create an outdoor cultural heritage attraction based on Lithgow's industrial history. In support of this endeavour, I agreed in February 1999 to coordinate a project to document the history of Lithgow's iron and steel industry. A number of publications cover this subject in part, but much of the previous work relied heavily on hearsay and conjecture. My brief was to prepare well-researched and attractive book presenting the industrial heritage of the area. The project brought together a project team of 20 volunteers from Lithgow, Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra, Melbourne and Wagga Wagga, who contributed to the general research and provided more specialist expertise. Other key contributions came from researchers in the United Kingdom. Aided by the benefits of email technology, the research team communicated with each other on a daily basis over four years. The co-operative effort generated by the dedication, skills and thousands of work hours of volunteers has resulted in a high quality book. We were able to access to the combined resources of the Lithgow District Historical Society (LDHS) and the Local History collection of the Lithgow Regional Library. Both these sources have built up an impressive archive of documents, photographs, artefacts and oral history transcripts relating to the city's iron and steel industry, and these provided an important starting point. In-depth newspaper and document research identified new elements to the story such as the previously 'unknown' partners, the details of the inglorious start of the Eskbank Ironworks in 1874 and the key role played by the master builder, railway contractor and industrial entrepreneur, Daniel Williams, in the establishment of Lithgow's iron industry all which had hitherto been overlooked by historians. Through colleagues in the United Kingdom, I was able to make contact with and meet with an English descendent of the Williams family, Hedley Williams, who was undertaking family history research for a book on their story. Hedley opened the doors to the wonderful insights provided by Daniel's letters home to his family between 1853 and about 1878. Ian Holt of the LDHS was also able to obtain records of the early financial dealings of the enterprise from bank archives. Another important primary source, particularly of workers at the plant in the twentieth century, was found in the files of Jack Southern, which documented his research into the Lithgow works from the 1950s. Through another member of the research team, Bruce Macdonald, Jack made his extensive records available to the research team and these provided additional insight into the working lives of iron and steel workers, railwaymen, miners, managers and administrative