Stuart Bros records and photographs

MLMSS 11560

fonds

approximately 1920-1986

Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Photographs

9606924

1.12 metres of textual and graphic material (7 boxes)

Stuart Bros Pty Ltd is a leading building company which has been operating in New South Wales for over 130 years. The firm of Stuart Bros, Builders and Civil Engineers, was established in Sydney in 1886 by William Stuart in partnership with his brother James who had arrived in Sydney from Scotland in 1882 and 1883. Branch offices were established in Newcastle, Melbourne and Brisbane in the 1920s, and in 1930 the business was incorporated as Stuart Bros Pty Ltd.
The company’s first job was altering the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts. It went on to build numerous wool stores, offices for the Sydney Morning Herald, Evening News, Colonial Sugar Refining Co. and Commercial Banking Co. of Sydney, stores, theatres, bridges and two pavilions at the showground. Significant projects completed in Sydney by the company between 1886 and 1988 include: the Mechanics’ School of Arts; CSR Head office; Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children; Luna Park; Goldsborough Mort wool store, Pyrmont; Bank of NSW, O’Connell Street; Bank of NSW, O’Connell Street; Faculty of Arts Building, Sydney University; Herald Building, Broadway; Gladesville Bridge; Pitt Street Mall; Queen Victoria Building ballroom; ANZ Bank, Martin Place.
Among the innovations introduced by Stuart Bros were modern stone facings for buildings, the early use of welding in structural steel and the use of reinforced concrete. The offices of Union Steamship Co. of New Zealand in George Street were claimed to be the first large concrete structure in Sydney.
It has been said of the company’s founder that ‘… a list of the buildings he has erected is almost a complete history of the progress of Sydney.’
References:
The Next Century. Stuart Bros, 1991
Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 12, 1990

By descent. The donor is the great grandson of the company’s founder.

Stuart Bros Pty Ltd minute books, financial records, photograph albums and loose photographs, ca. 1920-1986. The collection includes four photograph albums, ca. 1920s-1930s, which document many notable Sydney buildings, a number of which have since been demolished.

BOX 1
Minutes of Directors’ Meetings, 1948-1957.
Staff Provident Fund Minute Book, 1955-1981.

BOX 2
Folio Index of Work Completed.
Register of Members and Transfer Journal, 1930-1935.

BOX 3
Record of Project Costs and Estimates, ca. 1924-ca. 1936.
Client Invoices, 1927-1930.
Ledger, ca. 1920-ca. 1930.
Correspondence, 1986.
24 loose photographs of Wool Stores built in Gardners’ Road, Mascot, 1939-1941, photographed by Milton Kent, Industrial and Aerial Photographer.

BOXES 4-7
Photographic Record of Work Done, vols 1-4, 1920s-1930s? Albums contain approx. 205 photographs of commercial buildings, private homes, churches etc. mainly in Sydney. Each volume contains an index.

Copyright restrictions may apply:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy copyright holder

Contents list is adapted from inventory supplied by donor.