Thirty-six years ago two English toolmakers came out to Australia from Wolverhampton to join a newly formed English firm of rabbit-trap makers in Newcastle. They were Doug Hughes and Charlie Jackson. Their job was to help train local labor at a time when the Australian hardware industry was in its infancy and skilled labour was a premium. Both have watched the firm grow from a small concern into one of Australia’s largest manufacturers of builders’ hardware.

Today, apart from rabbit traps and many items of builders’ hardware, the firm turns out pressed metal products. Hughes and Jackson have played no small parting the firm’s expansion. Doug Hughes, 59, today the firm’s foreman toolmaker, came out to Australia intending to stay only five years. He has been ever since – with the same firm. When union officials asked him on his arrival what his trade was, he replied: “Toolmaker.” The union officials had never heard of the term, they finally decided he must be either a fitter or a turner-he couldn’t possible be a toolmaker because there was no such thing.

Charlie Jackson, 72 a 6d-a day footslogging veteran of the Gallipoli campaign left the British Army to come out here at 6 pounds a week. He worked as an assembler and trap tester in the Newcastle firm until three years ago (1953). He remembers the early days when the rabbit trap springs were made of wire.” I’ve been caught accidentally many a time in those traps, said Charlie ruefully, “But I’ve still got all my fingers.”

Editors note: Again the trap maker was LANES, these two fellows must have contributed a lot to Lanes trap making skills. There was a picture of Doug and Charlie but the quality was too poor to reproduce in the newsletter.