Agriculture
10 January, 2024
Summer reading: Silver threads along roads and paddocks
BY KEN ARNOLD AS ONE drives through the country we really do not take much notice of the silvery fences but have you ever wondered how Cyclone wire is manufactured ? The Cyclone Fence Company was founded by John and Cornelius Lane at Holly...
BY KEN ARNOLD
AS ONE drives through the country we really do not take much notice of the silvery fences but have you ever wondered how Cyclone wire is manufactured ?
The Cyclone Fence Company was founded by John and Cornelius Lane at Holly, Michigan, America around 1891, they at first mostly concentrating on gates and fence posts. William Thompson and Leonard T. Chambers established a bee keeping supplies business in Melbourne around 1890.
They secured the Australian rights to manufactured the Cyclone wire fence in 1898, thus they established The Cyclone Woven Wire Fence Company at 128 Franklin Street, Melbourne, their trademark being Red Tag.
The Australasian Ironmonger described how the 40lbs. machine could manufacture a fence of 10 cables 52 inches high on December 1, 1898. The lower lines were three inches apart gradually widening towards the top.
The “Cyclone” Woven Wire Fence Company have an entire novelty to show which is of interest to all stock holders. The “Cyclone” weaving machine is a light and handy tool which constructs wire fence upon improved principles. Instead of single horizontal lines of black wire, as ordinarily used, double lines of No. 12 half-galvanised steel wire are run out and tightened up by a stretching-post, and these lines are passed through the weaving machine. The machine, therefore, relies upon the wires to do its work. By simply turning a crank the operator “cables” or twists the lines together. At desired distances crimped steel pickets of No. 9 galvanised wire are introduced between the strands and bound securely.
After the introduction of each picket the twist or cable is reversed, thus locking the lines tightly into the crimps of the pickets.
A fence thus constructed is a complete web, being bound securely together so that a strain at any given point is mutually shared by the area of a panel. It effectually keeps out dogs, and with a barb on top will exclude not only quadrupeds but bipeds. As a pig fence it is a complete stopper—no pig may get under or through it. The patentees claim a very considerable saving of posts, and state that for general purposes 240 posts to the mile are ample, while for sheep the posts need not be closer than half a chain apart
The Sharples’ Cream Separator & Dairy Supply Co., 143 Susses Street, Sydney were representing the business in August 1899. however a branch was soon opened at 77 York Street, Sydney. Further branches were opened on Pirie Street, Adelaide and 114 Murray Street, Perth, the latter being under the control of Charles Sommers in October 1904.
Around August 1905 a factory was opened at 74-76 Turbot street, Brisbane.
Meanwhile the rights to manufacture the Wellman automatic elevating gate were purchased. Harvey P. Wellman, of the Federal Palace Hotel, 547 Collins Street, Melbourne was granted patent No. 20132 for an improved elevating gate for framers and others on January 14, 1903.
As the Cyclone Spring Coil fence was introduced in 1906 the business was renamed Cyclone Woven Wire Fence & Gate Co. Pty. Ltd, however it was also referred to as Cyclone Fence Company.
During 1928 a branch was opened in Liverpool street, Port Lincoln.
Around that time the business was trading as Cyclone Fence & Gate Co. Pty Ltd at 189 William Street, Melbourne, 24 Jamieson Street, Sydney and Pirie Street, Adelaide, the Perth branch being known as The Cyclone Company Ltd.
The Cyclone Ring Lock fence had been introduced by July 1929, it being manufactured up to 66 inches high. This is the fencing we know today
By 1937 this business only operated from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth, it manufacturing King - Loc and “Cyclone’ crimped droppers, all types of gates, chain mesh fencing, tree guards, garden arches, playground equipment, wire cloth, turnstiles, “Wilson” stock feeders, steps, beds, dairy stalls and stretchers.
By March 1939 the Perth branch had been relocated to the corner of Brown and Lime streets, East Perth, whilst the Adelaide branch operated from 38 Waymouth Street.
Around the end of World War Two the business was converted in a public company it trading as Cyclone Co., of Australia with £900,000 of shares.
Cyclone Company of Australia Pty. Ltd. purchased the Foster Bros business, established 1914, in Morey Street, South Townsville during October 1953.
Percy Miller had established a knife making business which later began to manufacture hammers and other tools, was trading as the Miller Forging Co., when he entered into an agreement with The Cyclone Fence & Gate Co. Pty Ltd, in July 1941, they trading as Miller-Cyclone Forging Pty Ltd to manufacture drop forgings at his Abbotsford factory, the directors being P. C. Miller, H.S., A.J., L.S. Chambers and J. Ramsden, the capital being £100,000
This business seems to have been renamed Cyclone Forgings Pty. Ltd around the mid 1950s but today it trades as Cyclone Tools manufacturing around 350,000 tools a year.
Cyclone Tools became part of AMES Australia in 2014.
John L. Rosenbaum, of Ash Street, Sydney exhibited a range of Hume Bros, products at the Royal East Show in Sydney in April 1910. Also on show was the Duplex automatic ball bearing woven wire fence machine made by Kitselman Bros, of Muncie, Ind., USA. This machine was capable of making over 100 different designs for any type of ground. This machine operated on similar lines to the Cyclone machine, the handle simply being turned.
James Hill Hume, born November 22, 1828, Scotland married Caroline Gill, born January 24, 1845 at Clifton, Bristol, England, in Geelong on October 29, 1867 and to them was born Ernest James at Ballarat in 1869 and Walter Reginald in the Fitzroy-Collingwood area in 1873.
James Hume died on October 12, 1887 whilst his widow died in April 1930.
Both Ernest and Walter Hume worked on construction projects and their farm until the brothers began making fence droppers from hoop iron at their factory in Malmsbury.
As Walter had moved to Adelaide to establish Hume Fence Co., in 1904 they closed the Malmsbury factory in 1906.
Ernest James Hume and Walter Reginald Hume, both of Junction Buildings, Mollison Street, Malmsbury were granted patents for an improved fastening and spreader for wire fences. improvements in harrows, cultivators and for improvements in stump jumping harrows,
Hume Bros., 121-127 Flinders Street, Adelaide manufactured their patent rolled steel carriage and hand gates and railings for entrances to mansions, churches, parks, show grounds, cemeteries, sheep yards and around farms along with grave railing, their range being in varying heights, weights and designs.
It was also during 1910 that the Hume brothers established Humes Patent Cement Iron Syndicate Limited in Adelaide, they having a capital of ten bob (10/-) and a fortnight’s tucker. This business was the forerunner to the highly successful Hume Pipe Company which later had these two offshoots -Singapore Hume Pipe Co. and Hume Steel Ltd.
Ernest J. Hume, educated at the Presbyterian Grammar School and the St. James’ Cathedral School, Melbourne, was at some time a director in Hume Estates Proprietary, Adelaide Cement Co, and the Noarlunga Sand Co., Ltd. established radio station 5DN in 1924.