Windmill Influence

The Standard (Warrnambool), Page: 5
Saturday, 4 March 2006

There wouldn't be many gambling addicts and partygoers at Melbourne's casino who would think for a minute about what was under their feet before the site was all lights, music, bars, pokie machines and dancefloors. [f they did, the last thing they would think of would be a factory which engineered and made pieces for one of Australia's most photographed manmade objects-the windmill. But in the 1890s, that is what the southwest's James Alston and his band of labourers were doing. In 2006 energy companies continue to earmark south-west Victoria as an ideal setting to plant their giant wind turbines -Macarthur, Codrington, Yambuk, Cape Bridgewater, Cape Nelson, Cape Sir William Grant.

This fact, combined with a backward glance to about 100 years ago, makes you wonder if Warrnambool earnt it's 'windy' cliche for reasons apart from the city's climate. James Alston was not the only big name in windmills which blew in from the south-west-there was Bruce McClure, John Esam, John Morieson and later the Webb Brothers. But Alston is known as the most influential windmill manufacturer in Australia, sometimes referred to as the 'Giant of the Australian Windmill Industry'. The Melbourne Museum recognised this and has one of his windmills on display, although a bit of sniffing around discovered they'd made one tiny mistake - the legendary James Alston has been cited as 'John Alston of Warrnambool'.

The man who would become one of the country's most productive windmill manufacturers and whose employees would go on to become some of Australia's most successful in the same field began his career on Conn's Corner in south-west Victoria. His time spent in the district would be one of innovative design and fierce, sometimes tense competition with rivals. One of his opposition would even spend hours writing letters of complaint to the local newspaper whenever Alston won yet another prize at an agricultural show. He was 13-years-old when he moved from Southworkto Australia in 1850 and was 17-years-old when he took up a fouryear apprenticeship in the iron trade.

In May, 1874, he was reported as buying a business at Dennington, but which was actually at Conn's Corner in Farnham and was on William Rutledge's land. The first Alston Windmill was erected at Dennington in the 1870s and as demand for his windmills grew, the need for a larger premises did too. In 1884 he moved to Warrnambool at theVictoria Forge and Implement Works site on the corner of Raglan Parade and Darling Street and in the same year he secured the first patent for a windmill design in his name. Alston's rival windmill maker John Morieson was playing second fiddle to Alston at all the agricultural shows and his anger was building.

There is some talk around History House even now, that Morieson may in fact have been a better windmill maker and that his claims were not unfounded. But Morieson was especially disappointed when he was refused permission to offer a tender for a windmill which was needed for the Mortlake Common. He badgered the council to admit they were wrong and acknowledge the superiority of his windmills. At one point Morieson tried to sue Villiers and Heytesbury Agricultural Society for 115 pounds, a figure which he believed was the amount of money he would have earnt had he been awarded the prizes he claimed he deserved.

The case was thrown out of court. In 1889 Alston was granted another windmill design patent and trumpeted himself as the largest manufacturer of windmills and pumps in Australia. By 1890 the Alston name had spreadthroughout the country and his windmill design was awarded first prize at the Grand National Show. He did extremely well during the seven-year drought from 1896 when windmills were in high demand and in 1897 he applied for another patent.

It was at this point he made his big move - he moved his business into a large factory at Queensbridge Works in Moray Street, South Melbourne. By 1924 there were more than 50, 000 Alston windmills in use and in the last known issued James Alston and Sons catalogue c!930, Alston claimed he was the originator of the all metal curved windmill blade - it would appear there is some justification for this view. Until the outbreak of World War Two, Alston had a stronghold on the Australian windmill market and also exported to countries such as China, India and parts of Africa. After he died in 1943 the company declined until 1960 when it went into bankruptcy.

The shortage of manufacturing materials after the war and less competitive designs led to diminished sales and allowed other companies such as Metters and Southern Cross to take over the market. Later the company D. E. C.

Webber of Beaconsfield manufactured modified Alston design windmills.