The Robust Navvy: The Railway Construction Worker in Northern New South Wales, 1854-1894

Abstract

The literature on the railway navvy is not extensive. Overseas works include Thomas Brassey's On Work and Wages, 1873; Edmund W. Bradwin's The Bunkhouse Man, 1928, about navvies in Canada; and Terry Coleman's popular British work, The Railway Navvies, 1965. Four Australian books focus on the lives of Australian railway builders: Donald MacLean's fictionalised biography John Scarlett, Ganger, 1912; Lillian M. Pyke's children's book Camp Kiddies, c. 1920?; Jack Booth's fictionalised biography Vnly the Tracks Remain, 1972; and Patsy Adam Smith's documentary The Desert Railway, 1974. In addition, N. G. Butlin has contributed to the literature: chapter 5 of his Investment in Australian Economic Development, 1964, assesses the impact of late nineteenth century Australian railway construction on capital and labour markets. Thus, secondary sources tell us little about the men who built Australia's railways. Nevertheless, we can piece together something of their lives from old country newspapers, parish registers, government archives on unemployment, migration statistics, bits of sentimental poetry and rebellious folklore, the memories of old timers, and from the derelict remains of the navvies' camps. This article, based on such sources, is about the life and work of the navvies who built the Great Northern Railway and the Tweed-Lismore Railway in northern New South Wales.