Online Catalogue last updated 4th of June 2010
Lunnicks was a English civil engineering firm established in the UK in 1946 and the name comes from the combination of the original two partner's surnames - Lunn and Laverick. The two Englishmen linked up with A.V. Jennings, the Australian home builder, in 1951 to form a new company called Lunnicks Australia Pty Ltd. The complete English firm immigrated to Tasmania lock, stock and barrel, including 80 people (workers and families) along with seven large steam ploughing engines in 1951/52, noting that they were also sponsored by the Australian Government. Jennings co located his new subsidiary company with his housing company in Burnie, as he was looking to expand into civil engineering construction.
One of the projects the company undertook was the dredging of the Trevallyn tailrace using three ploughing engines and a cable hauled dredge in 1952/53, as part of a contract with the HEC. They also had a second gang working in the Burnie region covering south to Rosebery and west to Smithton. Overall the Lunnicks venture was not a success from an engineering viewpoint but in fairness that was often outside their control as mistakes were being made in the Jennings headquarters in Melbourne. Essentially, Jennings stayed with housing and opted out of engineering in the mid 1950s.
Of the 80 arrivals, 74 made Australia their home as have their children. Many still live in Tasmania, particularly in the Burnie region. Twelve of the original arrivals were interviewed and their stories have been incorporated into the book along with Prof Vic Jennings - A.V. Jennings eldest and only surviving son.
The time period covered is from 1851 (tracing the steam forebears of Harold Lunn in the UK) until the early 1970s and includes many descriptions of life in Tasmania in the 1950s. Two of the steam engines are on display in Pearn's Steam World in Westbury and the other five also passed into preservation.
G.F. Barker served many years in the Australian Army as a professional engineer and entered academia in the mid 1990s with UNSW. He has a strong interest in engineering heritage and for his service to the Evandale History Society, near Launceston, was made an honorary life member a decade or so ago. He writes the "steam" column in The Old Machinery Magazine. He has served on the ACT Heritage Council as an appointed member, and was the chair of the Canberra Panel for Engineering Heritage Australia, which is part of The Institution of Engineers Australia. He has written a number of text books for the Australian Defence Force but Lunnicks is his first venture into the commercial world. The book is not a repeat of the TOMM articles from 2007 but is a standalone fully referenced text - the majority of the photographs have never been published before.
Code No. 014097, 160 pages, $45.00