THE RAYNER QUARRIES
Continued from issue 8:
Just prior to the onset of the Depression, my father Arthur Rayner bought out my grandfather, who, by reason of having financed homes purchased for some fifteen workmen, was obliged to forego all house payments because good men could not work and these families were ‘carried‘ without penalties for the full duration of the Depression.
As a primary school boy, I attended North Footscray State School with several children by the name of Sargent. Their father, Jock Sargent was Powder Monkey at the family quarry. One day, Jock went to the quarry, opened the powder magazine and took gelignite and detonators, setting charges over a large spall dump. He laid on the spalls and committed suicide. My family helped Jock’s wife in supporting five children.
The general withdrawal of quarrying operations and the disconnection of telephones meant that many public bodies started to provide work and Rayner’s quarries were still ‘on the phone’ and were consequently asked to quote, i.e., to supply and deliver. I well remember joining my father on school holidays and most Saturdays. My father had won a large contract to supply pitchers to the City of Oakleigh.
My father was loading up by 4.30am, and came home for a full breakfast by 6am, then, off, to Oakleigh by 6.30. Heavy horse teams traveled at 5-6 miles per hour. The horses were stabled, heavily fed and tough, as were their handlers. After traveling from Footscray to Oakleigh with one man to unload and horses to feed and rest, my father and I would pass Footscray Picture Theatre usually around 10.30pm. By the time the horses were unharnessed, stabled and fed it was invariably mid-night. My father, born in 1891, would have been about 40 and he did the Oakleigh run every second day for many months. Little sleep and a few pots and he was recharged and lived past 80.
The re-opening of the quarries meant, of course, that many families were restored to dignified existence. This, in turn, meant that some of those ‘lucky‘ people were able to resume their house repayments to my grandfather.
As a boy, I often reflected as to the reason for my father and grandfather passing over more intensive quarrying, including crushing to produce general road making aggregates. The answer is probably that they belonged to an era of hard work. They loved their way of life and their horses and worked, mostly to live full lives, with rare opportunities to socialise.
My father’s three brothers each died under ghastly circumstances. Henry at 48 – from TB, caught from a beautiful young woman, after divorcing his wife. George, a Light-Horseman, after Egypt, killed in France four days before the Armistice. William at 25, from a rare disease from keeping pigeons. Thus, my father was the only son left to carry on the quarrying. One of my brothers gave North Altona quarry to a consortium who formed a public company. My brother was a shareholder ad a non-executive Director. The Managing Director was ‘out of his depth’ and the quarry and all other assets were taken over. With the death of bothers Norman and Jack in 1979, Rayner Quarries became almost a myth.
The main quarry was closed down by 1935, when it, together with a large (unworked) Eleanor Street frontage, was sold to become the Western District Hospital. My father received £500.00 and a Life Governorship of the Hospital and my mother never forgave him.
Over the period 1886 to 1935, my family not only made pitchers and sold spalls, the quarries produced roughly squared stone, known as Ashlars. These stones went to monumental masons and they were used in all the magnificent old buildings in Melbourne, once too numerous to mention.
By the year 1900, these quarries operated – Standard Quarries, suppliers of aggregate, while their masons squared and bordered Ashlars. These were strictly sized and except for the dressing, (which included the face side), the main face body of each stone was usually untouched.
Bunting’s, Lords, Wales, Albion, Steedman’s Star Quarries, Govan’s also had part of the market.
I doubt if any men today would be able to ‘read the stone‘ – to blast and fashion it like the old-timers, and, above all, where are the men with the guts to work with arms, legs and back for 72 hours per week?
This article and associated photos provided by Reg Rayner, JP, of Kilmore. Reg was a Broadmeadows Shire and City Councilor between 1949 and 1970. He never joined the family business, but, his background was effectively used in Council deliberations.
R. A. Rayner
Many thanks must go to Reg Rayner and his family for the provision of this fascinating story.
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