Cornish & Bruce was a railway contracting company in

Victoria, Australia Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in Au ...

in the mid nineteenth century. The partnership comprised William Crocker Cornish, a building contractor born in

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,John Maxwell
'Cornish, William Crocker (1815–1859)'

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

, Volume 3, Melbourne University Press, 1969, p. 464. Retrieved on 11 July 2009. and John Vans Agnew Bruce, a road and railway construction contractor from Edinburgh.John Maxwell
'Bruce, John Vans Agnew (1822–1863)'

, Volume 3, Melbourne University Press, 1969, pp 277–278. Retrieved on 11 July 2009.

William Crocker Cornish

Cornish arrived in Melbourne in September 1852 and soon obtained his first contract, for the Melbourne General Post Office in 1853. this was followed by other public buildings including the

Geelong Post Office The current Geelong Post Office opened in 1994 and is located on the corner of Gheringhap and Little Myers Streets. The original post office was located on the corner of Ryrie and Gheringhap Streets. The Geelong Telegraph Station was located ne ...

and

Geelong Customs House The Geelong Customs House is a bluestone and freestone classical style public building in Geelong, Victoria Geelong ( ) ( Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the south eastern Australian state of Victoria, located at ...

in April 1855, and then in 1856 the Melbourne

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, for a contract worth more than £50,000. Cornish clashed with trade unions over his demand that his workers work a ten-hour day despite all other contractors having accepted the union claim for an

eight-hour day The eight-hour day movement (also known as the 40-hour week movement or the short-time movement) was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses. An eight-hour work day has its origins in the 16 ...

. Cornish then had contracts for the Castlemaine and

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

gaols (1857) and

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building in Melbourne (1858).

John Vans Agnew Bruce

Bruce gained his railway engineering experience in Scotland, arriving in Victoria on 4 April 1854. He partnered Peter Le Page at Gisborne in contracts for road construction contracts including the main Melbourne to Mount Alexander road. From 13 September 1856 Bruce continued as a road contractor on his own becoming one of the largest employers in the colony by 1857. He died in Melbourne on 5 April 1863.

Bendigo Railway

Cornish and Bruce combined their talents and resources in June 1858 to tender for constructing the Melbourne, Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway and the Geelong to Ballarat Railway, winning the contract for the first thirteen sections of the Murray River Railway, for £3,357,000, but not the Geelong line. They employed more than six thousand men on the works, but the partners, and Bruce in particular, were known for their attempts to reduce wages, slow payment and attempts to engage non-union labour. The company also instigated a system of payment by truck which led to protests and strikes in July 1858, and forced the Stonemasons' Society to agree to terms by importing four hundred German masons in November 1860. The government had to step in to restore fortnightly payments in July 1860, when Bruce tried to compel the workmen to accept monthly payments, and in 1861 riots ensued, resulting in smashed machinery, assaulted overseers and attempts to derail trains, when he reduced all wages by 2s. per day. They opened the line to Sunbury on 13 January 1859, despite having to build a temporary timber bridge due to the mason's strike. Cornish, however died on 31 March 1859, leaving Bruce to complete the contract. Bruce moved his main works to Castlemaine by 3 March 1859 and in 1860 established a large foundry to manufacture railway rolling stock.

Government inquiry

There were accusations against Cornish and Bruce, that they used inferior materials and submitting false measurements, which led to a select committee investigation in 1859 under John Woods. However, Woods was forced to resign after an alleged bribery attempt by Bruce. The use of inferior material was proven, but apart from closer scrutiny of the contract, he escaped censure.Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 1860, report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Committee on Bridge Contracts Cornish's widow Jane, née Rowell, was a principal litigant in a five-year court case (R. v. Cornish and Bruce) over additional financial claims on the government.

References

{{reflist Defunct railway companies of Australia Civil engineering contractors Engineering companies of Australia Construction industry of Australia