CD 121:  Australia

This account of the history is provided by Chris Royayne:

The origin of this insulator starts with Edward Roberts.  Edward arrived in Australia in 1889, at the age of twenty-five. He then opened a business on Flinders Street, Melbourne, and was employed by a number of firms interested in the manufacture of glass. While living in Melbourne, Edward was employed by Brooks Robinson, well known makers of stained glass.

Edwards and his family eventually moved to Lake Tyers where Edward managed the Lake Tyers "Guest House". In 1902, Edwards wife Jessie passed away, leaving Robert with three sons and a daughter. Edward took the children and moved back to England. After two years there, they returned to Lake Tyers, a place they had come to love.

Around 1908, Edward received a large sum of money from his father and established a glassworks on the shores of Lake Tyers. This project was described by his son Gilbert:

"My father built the glass factory at Lake Tyers during 1908 and 1909. (Father had previously owned a glass factory in England.) The P.M.G. (Post Master General) had advertised for glass insulators and father applied for the contract. The glass factory itself was 150' wide by 300' long and had a 25' lean-to on the eastern side. The First section was the engineering shop for fitting and turning (where I mainly worked), the second section was the blacksmith shop and the third section was the batch room. It had an open hearth furnace and father said there were only three in the world (the others being in Belgium and England). The other two used gas, but we used wood. We had to achieve 12,000 to 14,000 degrees Celsius white heat. The usual South Yarra bricks could not withstand this heat, so we used bricks from Bacchus Marsh. We did not use beach sand, but the inside wash sand, a quartz sand collected from our property. The P.M.G. gave us only a blueprint, so we made our own moulds (made in four pieces), the presses and stands and the wooden patterns for the castings. We made everything needed for the manufacture of glass right on the property, and also did all our own machine work there on the premises.

We made a few other things such as glass money boxes and preserving jars in 1-1/4, 1-1/2 and 1 lb. sizes. We also made silicate of soda for preserving eggs."

Roberts, being the clever inventor he was, solved a difficult technical problem by figuring out how to make an internal screw in the insulators. The PMG contracted him to supply 100,000 CD 121 toll insulators for them, half for New South Wales and half for Victoria. He employed thirteen men, including a few Aborigines from across the lake.

The production of insulators at Edward's Lake Tyers factory ceased soon after the outbreak of WWI. The factory operated for a short time after, producing walking sticks, bottles and jars. The factory closed in 1915. One informant believes that the PMG contract was not renewed because it became difficult to import soda ash from Germany, and competitors used up local supplies. There were also reports that a P.M.G. inspector was unsatisfied with the quality of Edward's insulators. Nowadays, only about six PMG embossed tolls are known of, most owned by relatives of Robert Edwards.

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