Thesis

This study is primarily concerned with the working career of Charles Ernest Ruwolt (1873-1946) and with his contributions to windmill and bucket dredge manufacture in Victoria. It continues a programme begun by staff at the University of Melbourne Archives in recording the impressions and recollections of former employees. The aim has been to establish a framework within which these contributions may be placed and from which a company history, freed from error and fiction, may be written.

Charles Ruwolt established a foundry and general engineering works at Wangaratta in 1902. What preparation he had for this by way of practical training has been reviewed and shown to be comprehensive both with respect to the products and the processes of manufacture. The various reasons which have been given for his first choice of site are examined and the most probable of these selected. The claims for his windmill, which was the mainstay of his business at first, have also been examined against the background of Victorian and American windmill development up until that time. Although he seems to have sold many of them, there was nothing particularly novel in their construction; his success depending more upon the local nature of his business and the quality of his workmanship.

He began manufacturing dredges in 1907 largely as the result of his associations with both Tewkesbury and Stevenson. The partnership arrangements with Stevenson have been described and an examination made of the extent to which Ruwolt's dredges depended upon New Zealand technology. The number of complete dredges built and the sequence of construction have also been determined. The last complete dredge was ordered in 1921.

Ruwolt transferred the business to Richmond in 1913 in order to facilitate the export of tin dredges to Malaya and the diversification of his company's activities from that date has been briefly described.