Charles Hoskins
Charles Henry Hoskins was an Australian industrialist, who was significant in the development of the iron and steel industry in Australia.
Early life
Charles Hoskins was born on 26 March 1851 in the City of London, to John Hoskins, gunsmith, and his wife Wilmot Eliza, née Thompson. He emigrated with his family to Melbourne as a small child in 1853, and all his education occurred in Melbourne.After his father's death, the family moved to Smythesdale, near Ballarat. Hoskins began work as a mail boy, tried his luck on the goldfields, and worked as an assistant an ironmongery store in Bendigo.
Sydney
Charles Hoskins joined his elder brother George in Sydney in 1876, operating a small engineering workshop at Hay Street, Ultimo. Around 1889, they moved to larger premises in Wattle Street, Ultimo and established a foundry, pipe-works and boiler shop. This plant was expanded in 1902. It was pipe manufacturing that would lead to their success.Innovation and success
Soon after moving to their larger premises, G & C Hoskins began to win major contracts for pipes.A breakthrough came when they began to win contracts for the Sydney water supply mains. This was to provide a steady flow of work through their factory for a number of years. In 1911, G & C Hoskins opened a second facility at Rhodes, to manufacture cast-iron pipes.
The Hoskins Brothers were not only efficient; they were also innovative, patenting a number of their ideas for improving pipes and their manufacturing processes.
Free trade and industry protection
The issue of protection against imports was the principal political division of late 19th-century Australia. In New South Wales, almost alone of the Australian colonies, there was widespread support for free trade. A growing force was the Labor Party; it somewhat favoured protection, as a means to maintain relatively high wages, but also advocated nationalisation of major industries, complicating its position.Politically, Hoskins was for Federation, free trade between the Australian colonies, and uniform tariff protection against imports from other countries. The Chamber of Manufacturers of New South Wales had been established in 1885—Hoskins was an early and prominent member—with its primary supporters focusing on lobbying for protection, in direct opposition to the "Free Traders" led by Sir Henry Parkes and later George Reid. This oppositional approach made little progress, with Free Trade governments holding power in New South Wales, except between 1891 and 1895. In 1895, Charles Hoskins was the first President of a reconstituted Chamber of Manufacturers that aimed to advance industry without partisan political lobbying, an approach that it has followed since that time.
Free Traders were not opposed to a local iron and steel industry; their view was that it could come about, without a protective tariff. The N.S.W. Government had offered a large contract for locally made steel rails. A leading Free Trade businessman and politician, Joseph Mitchell won the contract, in 1897, but died before he could build his planned large iron and steel works near Wallerawang. G & C Hoskins also tendered, unsuccessfully. It was an early sign of an interest in entering the iron and steel industry. However, in 1899, when William Sandford attempted to interest Charles Hoskins in buying the Eskbank works at Lithgow, the offer was declined.
Charles Hoskins was a Protectionist but also—through lack of other options—a major user of imported iron and steel. After his friend and fellow protectionist, William Sandford, commenced production of pig iron at Lithgow, in May 1907, G & C Hoskins became one of Sandford's major customers.
Interstate expansion
In the 1890s, G & C Hoskins opened a branch in Melbourne to make steel pipes.In 1898, after negotiations, G & C Hoskins and the Melbourne firm Mephan Ferguson shared the contract to manufacture and lay 60,000 lengths of pipe over the 350 miles from Perth to Coolgardie, for the water-supply scheme designed by C. Y. O'Connor. This allowed the Hoskins' firm to further increase its technical capabilities in pipe manufacturing, as a result of the collaboration with the leading Melbourne firm and the purchase of their patent rights for New South Wales. Hoskins' share of the contract was worth around £500,000.
The contract for the pipeline in Western Australia stipulated that the pipes were to be manufactured in that state, and that all would be to Mephan Ferguson's design using an ingenious 'rivetless' locking bar. The steel for the pipes for the Coolgardie Water Scheme was imported but the Hoskins' share of the pipes were fabricated at a factory that the Hoskins established at Midland Junction, which was reported to employ 200 workers. Ferguson made his share of the pipes at another factory in Perth, reported at the time as 'Falkirk', now Maylands.
This major contract allowed the Hoskins' firm to further increase its technical capabilities in pipe manufacturing, as a result of the collaboration with the leading Melbourne firm and the purchase of the rights to use Mephan Ferguson's patents in New South Wales. Hoskins' share of the contract was worth around £500,000.
After completion of the pipeline to the Goldfields, the Hoskins established a works, on a block lying between Wellington and Murray Streets in Perth, and won other work associated with the reticulation of water in Western Australia.
In November 1923, the company opened a steel pipe plant at South Brisbane.
Lithgow
Taking over from William Sandford
In December 1907, there was a crisis when the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney took over the assets of William Sandford Limited, owners of the Eskbank Ironworks at Lithgow, including its nearly new modern blast furnace. It was Charles Hoskins, one of William Sandford's closest friends, one of his largest customers, one of the few outside shareholders of William Sandford Limited, and a fellow protectionist, who stepped in to acquire the assets and keep the works operating.Charles Hoskins relocated to Lithgow, to manage the works, leaving his brother George to manage the growing pipe manufacturing operations.
G & C Hoskins became the owners of the blast furnace, a colliery, coke ovens, steelmaking furnaces, rolling mills, an iron ore mine at Coombing Park near Carcoar, an iron ore lease near Cadia, and 400 acres of freehold land at Lithgow, as well as Sandford's house on his 2000-acre estate, 'Eskroy Park', near Bowenfels.
As for the management team, Sandford, his two sons, and their reliable and competent General Manager, William Thornley, were lost to the Hoskins, but most of the line management came over, which was crucial to the Hoskins' subsequent success.
William Sandford Limited had been a large enterprise employing over 700 workers. Although notionally a public company, it had been run more like the private company of the Sandford family, who held nearly all the company's shares. Sandford had managed the company in an idiosyncratic manner. Sandford has employed his workers under contracts, with different wage rates in different parts of the works.
Upon taking over, the businesslike Hoskins found the account books in a mess. The costs of production were difficult to identify and understand but turned out to be higher than expected. The Lithgow works had been making a loss, which became clear within a year after the take over.
Industrial strife and disputes
Charles Hoskins' views on industrial relations were very different to those of William Sandford. Hoskins had a more belligerent personality, not given to compromise. He was also under pressure to turn around a failing enterprise.As Hoskins prepared to take over the works from Sandford, he made a generous gift to workers facing a bleak Christmas of 1907, following the shutdown of the works. Any initial goodwill did not last, when Hoskins attempted to move from contract arrangements to day labour wages, in 1908, and to lower the overall wage paid to his workers. He closed the works for five weeks in July 1908, ostensibly to carry out repairs, but later was found guilty of deliberately engineering a lock out and fined.
Matters came to a climax at the end of August 1911, when during a bitter and sometimes violent company-wide strike—following Hoskins use of strikebreaking 'scab' labour in his coal mine to keep the works operating—Hoskins and his sons, Henry and Cecil, were besieged by rock-throwing workers and his motor car was destroyed by the rioters. The blast furnace was shutdown briefly.
Perhaps as a result of the strain he was under, earlier in August 1911, Charles Hoskins had made some ungracious public remarks—about the previous owner, William Sandford, and his management of the Lithgow plant—resulting in a bitter public dispute between the two old friends. By then, both men felt that they had been deceived by the other; Sandford believed that Hoskins had connived in his downfall and besmirched his reputation and Hoskins believed that Sandford had not disclosed that the Lithgow works has been losing money. The two men also had very different views of their workforce; Hoskins had little of Sandford's paternalistic concern for his workers and was more concerned about profits.
The strike continued for another nine months—an uneasy industrial peace resulted from a compromise outcome in April 1912—but Hoskins did achieve a wage cut.
Lithgow and its coal and ore mines were never to be harmonious workplaces, once Hoskins took over; there were numerous disputes and strikes, right to the end. The same was true of the G & C Hoskins plants in Sydney.
Hoskins also took a hard line in commercial relationships. When ore mining ceased in May 1923 at Coombing Park, near Carcoar, the cause was not that the ore was exhausted but because Hoskins would not agree to renew the lease on similar terms to the original agreement.
Initial expansion and protection
As part of the rescue deal, C & C Hoskins took over Sandford's contract to supply the iron and steel needs of the New South Wales Government, extending its term to nine years from 1 January 1908. Unfortunately for the new owners, apart from the new blast furnace, much of the rest of the plant was antiquated and not ready to supply the Government with its needs, particularly steel rails.The Lithgow plant was in urgent need of expansion; the Hoskins brothers had the financial means to do so and experience of operating a heavy industrial enterprise. The new management immediately closed down marginal operations such as the sheet mill and galvanising plant—although these were to be reopened later—and began to renovate and rearrange the existing operations.
Hoskins imported a new rolling mill for rolling heavy sections such as rails. New reheating furnaces were built to suit rail rolling. It would take until 1911 for Lithgow to deliver the first steel rails made in Australia. The works later won a contract to supply rails for the new Trans-Australian Railway.
Sandford's plans for Lithgow had provision for up to four blast furnaces. G & C Hoskins quickly built a second blast furnace—with its parts made at its plants at Lithgow and Ultimo—which was almost identical to Sandford's, but slightly larger. This new furnace opened in 1913. The company opened a second iron ore mine at Tallawang in 1911. By 1914, the Lithgow plant had been transformed into a viable iron and steel making operation.
First World War
Australia entered the First World War with a small but economically viable iron and steel industry at Lithgow, a fortuitous circumstance because the country could no longer rely upon imports from Europe or America, for the duration of the war. Much of the credit for this belonged to Charles Hoskins.During the war, the Lithgow plant was put to use making special grades of steel unobtainable from Europe. In 1916, it made ferromanganese need for armaments, using manganese ore from a mine near Grenfell. It supplied the nearby Lithgow Small Arms Factory with steel for weapon manufacture.
Difficulties, competition and sole ownership
The original decision to site an ironworks at Lithgow in 1875, was based upon the existence of coal and a relatively small iron ore deposit there. After blast furnace operation recommenced at Lithgow in 1907, ore had to be brought from further away, from Coombing Park—near Carcoar—, Tallawang and Cadia. The Tallawang ore was largely magnetite. The ore from Cadia was hematite but with only around 51% iron and a high silica content; the silica content resulted in relatively large amounts of slag, when the ore was smelted, and increased the consumption of limestone flux.New South Wales, although it possessed some widely dispersed smaller deposits of iron ore, was not well-endowed with large deposits. With two blast furnaces in operation at Lithgow, after 1913, not only did Hoskins need to rail his complex iron ores a considerable distance but his ore deposits had a limited life.
Lithgow was totally dependent upon rail transport. Until 1921, the railway west of Lithgow toward the ore mines was single track. Limestone, for use as smelting flux, needed to be carried from Ben Bullen and Havilah, and later from Excelsior near Cullen Bullen. The relatively high cost of rail freight was an unavoidable complication of an inland site and the distance of Lithgow from the ore and limestone quarries.
Until 1910, rail traffic from Lithgow to the coast and Sydney was constrained by the Lithgow Zig Zag. Even after the Zig Zag was replaced by the Ten Tunnels Deviation and the line duplicated—including the Glenbrook Deviation —the distance from the coast and the gradients of the Western railway remained an issue. It would never be feasible to bring iron ore from a coastal port to Lithgow; in the longer term, the blast furnaces could not remain in operation at Lithgow.
With BHP's rival steelmaking operation imminent, the N.S.W. Government ended Hoskins' exclusive contract for supply of iron and steel in 1913, and he claimed £150,000 in compensation. For a time, there was active consideration of the government purchasing the works. However, initially, Lithgow was not badly affected by competition, due to buoyant demand for steel during the First World War. That began to change once the war ended. The newer and larger BHP works at Newcastle could produce rolled steel products of a higher quality at a lower cost of production; its seaport location brought access to virtually inexhaustible amounts of very high-grade iron ore from Iron Knob.
Lithgow always had relatively higher labour costs—a legacy of the industrial relations arrangements of William Sandford—and a relatively strong culture of unionism. Under competitive conditions, labour costs, poor labour relations, and strikes affected the long-term viability of the Lithgow plant. Wage rates at coastal locations were lower and unions perceived as less troublesome there.
Charles Hoskins began to see that his works at Lithgow had inherent problems that could not be resolved—even more so, after BHP's Newcastle works became a formidable competitor, from 1915 onward. He began to form a vision for a larger, more modern steelworks on the coast.
In 1919, Charles Hoskins bought out his older brother George's share of the company G & C Hoskins, renaming the company Hoskins Iron and Steel Limited in July 1920. George retired, leaving Charles—by then in his late sixties—in sole charge of the destiny of the company.
Plans for Port Kembla
was selected, by the New South Wales Government at the end of 1898 as main port for area and in 1901 construction commenced on two breakwaters to protect two existing coal jetties at the site and to enclose and area of seabed that became the Outer Harbour. In 1908, it first became the site of heavy industry when the Electrolytic Refining and Smelting Company's plant was opened.The first association of Charles Hoskins with Port Kembla was in 1911, when there was talk of an ironworks at Port Kembla to process Tasmanian iron ore. In 1912, BHP planned to set up a large steelworks at Newcastle to exploit its vast South Australian iron ore deposits. Port Kembla was a site that BHP had considered before deciding upon Newcastle. That left the stage clear for Hoskins to take advantage of Port Kembla's seaport location, amidst the Southern Coalfields renown for their excellent hard coking coal.
Charles Hoskins' first step was when G & C Hoskins purchased the Wongawilli colliery at Dapto, in 1916, and established a cokeworks there. Hoskins had secured a source of coal and coke, close to a seaport at which iron ore could be unloaded. At first, the high-quality coke would be railed to Lithgow. However, he soon had more coke making capacity than he needed. Hoskins' approach to industrial relations was no different at Wongawilli and there were numerous strikes there.
In late 1920, the company acquired 380 acres of the Wentworth Estate, at Port Kembla, as the site for a steelworks. Also in 1920, Hoskins secured leases over an ore deposit near Mt Heemskirk in Tasmania, and apparently planned to ship the ore via rail to the port of Strahan.
In July 1923, he announced that a new integrated steelworks would be built at Port Kembla, without at this stage mentioning closing Lithgow; it was stated that Port Kembla was intended for the ‘interstate trade'. The government announced the building of a rail line to Moss Vale, which would allow limestone flux to be carried from Marulan.
Charles Hoskins retired as managing director in 1924, leaving the question of the future of the Lithgow works open. The construction of the new plant at Port Kembla would be for his successor as Chairman, his son Cecil Hoskins. His other son A. Sidney Hoskins would take charge of the Lithgow Steelworks. Together the two sons were co-Managing Directors of the company, which after their father's death would gradually transfer operations from the old works to the new.
Family, homes, and personal life
Although his father had died when he was young, Charles Hoskins was never an orphan, as his obituary would incorrectly state; his mother, Wilmot Eliza Hoskins, lived until 1896. He also had an uncle, William Hoskins, in Australia, as well as two brothers, George John Hoskins —his business partner—and Thomas, and at least one sister.Charles married Emily Wallis on 22 December 1881. They raised eight children; sons Henry Guildford, Cecil Harold, Arthur Sidney, known as Sid,, and daughters, Florence Maud, later Mrs. F.A. Crago, Wilmot Elsie, later Mrs F.A. Weisener, Hilda Beatrice, Nellie Constance, and Kathleen Gertrude, later Mrs E.C. Mackey. Another daughter, Emily, died soon after birth.
The family moved often; their choices of housing in Sydney reflected the family's rapidly increasing prosperity. During the 1880s, they lived first at 'Exeter Terrace' on Crystal Street, Petersham, then on Macauley Street, Leichhardt., then at 'Auburn Vale', Granville, and later at 'Waverley' on Croyden Street, Petersham. In the 1890s, they lived first at 'Koorinda' on Albert Street, Strathfield and later at 'Illyria', on The Boulevard, Strathfield.
Hoskins built 'Illyria' in the early 1890s. With his typical thrift and practicality, the stone facade of this grand building was obtained from the City Bank building in Pitt Street—built in 1873—which had been gutted by a fire in October 1890. The stonework was dismantled and transported in sections to its new site and re-erected in the same orientation as the original bank building, becoming the facade of a more conventional Italianate mansion.
It was at 'Illyria' that Charles was able to indulge his passion for motor cars, buying the second Ford car imported to Australia, in 1904, and a succession of other cars, including a 1908 Clement-Talbot. The garage suite, at the rear of the house, was probably built during Hoskins' time to house his vehicles, making it one of the earliest private garages in Sydney.
In 1907, his eldest daughter, Florence, and her new husband were living at 'Mevaina', on Appian Way, Burwood, in an exclusive 'garden city' influenced residential precinct—known as the 'Hoskins Estate'—founded in 1903 by Charles Hoskins' brother, George, who lived at nearby 'St Cloud'.
After the takeover of the Lithgow works, in early 1908, Charles and his family moved from Strathfield to Marrangaroo, west of Bowenfels and Lithgow, living in William Sandford's former home, 'Eskroy Park', which was situated on 2000 acres of land. They also spent time at Lawson in the Blue Mountains, having an association with the area that went back well before their move to Lithgow. Later, they were to make their home in the area and contribute to the beautification of its parks and gardens.
Charles and Emily lost three of their children, within the space of four years. In 1912, his daughter Hilda drove her car onto the level crossing at 'Eskroy Park' where it was struck by a locomotive. Although she was taken to the house, she died without regaining consciousness. In 1914, his daughter Nellie, who was stricken with tuberculosis, died at Lawson, before the family's new home nearby—built with her recovery in mind—could be completed. Their eldest son, Henry Guildford Hoskins was fatally injured in an acetylene gas explosion, in 1916, while repairing a gas generator, at 'Eskroy Park'. Although moved to a hospital in Sydney, he died. He was 28 when he died and already a significant figure in the company.
The family's home 'Cadia Park', on five acres of land, at Bullaburra, lay close to the boundary of that mountain settlement with Lawson and was completed in 1914. It had eight bedrooms, billiard-room, drawing and dining rooms, three bathrooms, entrance hall, maids' dining room and larder, and kitchen. Separate out-buildings include stables, a garage accommodating six cars, and laundry. The house was sighted so as to have magnificent views over the adjacent valley. Outdoors, 'Cadia Park' had grassed tennis courts, shrubberies, two large swimming baths, one for adults and one for children, and extensive gardens. Hoskins also leased some crown land nearby for use as a private zoo to which he allowed public admission. The Hoskins made 'Cadia Park' their home, until 1922. Charles sold the property in 1923, with the land-holding totalling 42 acres.
Charles Hoskins moved, in 1922, to what would be his last home, Ashton in Elizabeth Bay.
Later life and death
After he stepped down as Managing Director of Hoskins Iron and Steel, in 1924. Charles Hoskins had only a short retirement; he was in poor health during that time. He died at his home on 14 February 1926, not living to see the fulfillment of his plans for Port Kembla.He was survived by his wife, Emily, two sons, three daughters and twenty-two grandchildren. His fortune of well in excess of £1,000,000 had been distributed among this large family before he died, and he left a relatively small personal legacy of £12,018. Charles Hoskins' immense fortune had been made in his own lifetime, starting from nothing, aged thirteen. He had been very much a self-made man.
His widow Emily died in November 1928, having lived just long enough to light the new blast furnace at Port Kembla in August of the same year.
Charles Hoskins' grave lies in the Congregational section of the Rookwood Cemetery; nearby are the graves of his wife and his children, Florence, Hilda, Nellie and Henry.
Legacy
The most lasting legacy of Charles Hoskins is the large steelworks at Port Kembla. Although he did not live to see it, his vision and foresight had led to its creation. For many decades, this plant was known as 'Hoskins Kembla Works'; now, no longer known by that name, it is still the site of most of Australia's steel production.Between 1928 and early 1932, some parts of the old Lithgow works were re-erected at Port Kembla but other parts, including the two Lithgow blast furnaces, made the journey to Port Kembla only as scrap iron to be fed into the furnaces of the younger plant. In December 1931, the last steel was rolled at Lithgow. Only very little remains of the Lithgow works today, in what is now the Blast Furnace Park.
Hoskins Iron and Steel Limited become a part of Australian Iron and Steel Limited, a new company—also part owned by Dorman Long, Howard Smith Limited, Baldwins and preference shareholders—that was set up in March 1928 to build and operate the new plant at Port Kembla and its associated iron ore, limestone and coal mines. In 1935, a victim of the Great Depression, this company became, via an exchange of ordinary shares, a subsidiary of BHP. Charles Hoskins' sons Cecil and Sidney Hoskins remained managers at Port Kembla and were major shareholders of BHP. Under BHP ownership, the plant was greatly expanded, and outlived the Newcastle works. Following the demerger of BHP's steel interests from the rest of the company, it is now owned by Bluescope Steel.
The mansion that Hoskins built in the early 1890s, 'Illyria' at Strathfield, was renamed 'Holyrood' by its next owner—William James Adams, a nephew and an heir of George Adams—and survives to this day. It is heritage listed and better known now as part of Santa Sabina College. Charles's home near Lithgow, 'Eskroy Park'—earlier the home of William Sandford— is now part of the clubhouse of the Lithgow Golf Club.
The Hoskins Memorial Presbyterian Church in Lithgow was intended as a memorial to his son Henry Guidford Hoskins and also to commemorate his daughters Hilda and Nellie but it also commemorates Charles and two of his grandsons, who died before its completion. Standing on an opposite corner of the intersection of Mort and Bridge Streets from the church, the Charles Hoskins Memorial Institute building—opened in 1927—is now a campus of the Western Sydney University.
Charles Hoskins had initiated the Hoskins Trust, in 1919, for charitable purposes, endowing a fund to support the Hoskins Memorial Church. Since 2006, this trust has awarded an annual scholarship, the Hoskins Lithgow Scholarship, for a Lithgow resident to study at a university or other tertiary education institution.
Although Hoskins and his family endowed Lithgow with fine buildings, their longer-term legacy there is mixed; the stark and desolate ruin of the blast furnace's blower house stands as a reminder that the closure of the town's main industry—at the height of the Great Depression—and the exodus of skilled managers and workers to Port Kembla—with their families, about 5000 people—was a blow from which the future prospects of the town never recovered fully.
A former garden at Lawson, 'Hilda Gardens', was funded by Hoskins and dedicated to the memory of his daughter, Hilda. Sadly, this garden has been subsumed by the growth of the Lawson Bowling Club and no trace of it remains.
Hoskins' house, 'Cadia Park', on the Great Western Highway, Bullaburra, was too large to be a practical family residence. 'Cadia Park' was sold several times in the 1920s, before becoming a convent in 1930. It was still a convent when the old building was destroyed by the massive bushfire of December 1977; it was never rebuilt, leaving only an ornamental rotunda made of iron ore, a brick boundary fence, and the overgrown garden beds, pathways and terraces of Hoskins' extensive gardens.