Thread: Who is the real L.S.Barker ?

Firstly congratulations to all on what has been a ripping yarn with more to come....As often Matty as a catalyst & plenty running with the ball.

I don't have much to offer other than a couple of images of the badges on my (much loved) Lot S Barker bandsaw. A fairly late model I am guessing by the design.

Also to add to the recent post speculating on who were the buyers/users of this equipment I got this bandsaw from CSIRO Forestry & Forest Products workshop in Clayton, so I imagine that a few government agencies with a buy Australian where possible policy account for the address of a few machines.

Its a pleasure to have in my shed for a while & will be carefully bequeathed when the time comes.

Looking forward to the next instalment.

Regards All

Originally Posted by L.S.Barker1970

One of the things I have been trying to get my head around was some sort of time line as to when L.S.Barker moved from their North Melbourne address to Heidelberg.

I decided before we start getting knee deep in corporation documents and P&L's, it might be handy to do a bit of a timeline of L.S. Barkers and where they operated out of, after all, if you have an L.S. Barker machine and a badge stating the address on it, it would be good to know when the company was at that address so you can narrow down the manufacture date.

There were two ways I could think of to do this, look at the Postal listing (what the postal service used at the time), or Sands & Mcdougall Victorian Directory (the phone book), after checking both, I decided the phone directory would be the most accurate.

Based on the details available below is a timeline of L.S. Barker, L.S. Barker P/L, Barker Manufacturing & Service P/L:

1925 Barker L.S. Engineer, 23 Cumberland Pl Melbourne, Phone: Central 1513

also listed is his home address:

Barker L.S. Wallace St, Preston, Phone: Northcote 1436

he lists his home phone number as an after hours Number

image.jpg

1928 Barker L.S. Engineer, 11 Collie St, North Melbourne, Phone: F1513

and home number JW3836

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1931 his residential address is no longer listed, so he perhaps he moved house?

1940 Barker L.S. Engineer, 20 Willis street North Melbourne, Phone F1513

image.jpg

1946 phone number changes to FJ1513

1948 They change their details to L.S. Barker P/L

1958 Phone Number changes to FY2513

1959 or 1960 (the sheet for 1959 was missing) L.S. Barker P/L, 660 Waterdale rd West Heidleberg, Phone: 456347

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1965 Two Phone Numbers are listed: 456347 & 454903

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1968 added a 3rd phone number: 4592771

1969 back to just 2 phone numbers

1972 L.S. Barker P/L, 660 & 637 Waterdale rd West Heidleberg, Phone: 4594255 & 4594515

1974 L.S. Barker P/L, 660 Waterdale rd West Heidleberg & 50 Kolora rd West Heidleberg, Phone: 4594255 & 4595861

1975 Barker Manufacturing & Services P/L, 50 Kolora rd West Heidleberg, Phone: 4594255

1978 Barker Manufacturing & Services P/L, 4 Cooper Epp, Phone: 4013008

1979 Barker Manufacturing & Services P/L, 24 Kyita rd West Heidleberg, Phone: 4594255

1980 Barker Manufacturing & Services P/L, 20 Kolora rd, West Heidleberg, Phone: 4594255

1986 Barker Manufacturing & Services P/L, 59 Kyita rd, West Heidleberg, Phone: 4594255

1989 Barker Manufacturing & Services P/L, 59 Kyita rd, West Heidleberg, Phone: 4594255

also lists as a contact Bill Fulton Mobile: 018323771

1990 mobile phone no longer listed and fax number listed Fx: 4593556

1995 Last time the company is listed in the phone book (the number 9 is added to the front of the phone and fax numbers)

Hopefully that is of some help and fills in some more pieces of the puzzle.

Cheers,

Camo

Matty,
I just went back and read an earlier post,
Was this the badge on the machines in the workshop near the pub where we had lunch last week??
I put it next to the badge on my machine....!
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f163/l...stings-143382/

Regards,
Peter

Camo, that is some research there, and a great help to me, probably the best time line for L.S.barker I have ever seen !
I can't thank everyone enough for their input, especially to Camo and Hiroller, you guys are just unbelievable, if I ever put together a book, you guys are in the front page for sure !!

Pete, that is uncanny, either L.S.Barker had something to do with This machinery merchant or they both went to the same badge maker for their badges.

Melbourne Matty.

Hi Matty,

Thanks for the kind words. I can't speak for Camo but I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey so far. Your contributions to this part of the forum are massive, anything I can do to add is only standing on the shoulders of giants!
Camo has gone the extra distance this week and found some real nuggets.
If you don't write a book, you could at least start a Wikipedia page on LS Barker.
We could post all the info so far and add to it as we go.
Your knowledge of all the products and shapes by date still should be recorded somewhere.
One thing that crosses my mind with the machine badges, is as well as recording addresses, they also mention in places, the sales agent. Telling are a couple of badges shown on Page 1 of this thread, that mention McPhersons as the "Australasian Sales Agent". This implies a pretty exclusive arrangement which would explain the lack of advertising elsewhere. We know this was in place by 1944 when McPhersons were running ads mentioning Barker and Macson.
What is still not clear is what the arrangement was prior to this.
Still working on this.

H

Wow some impressive investigation going on.

I find it fascinating how often they moved premisses. Especially considering what manufacturing equipment they would have to transport and set up. I can understand the need for bigger space due to expansion but they almost mde an annual event of it.

Screen shot 2013-07-23 at 5.24.10 AM.jpgScreen shot 2013-07-23 at 5.32.25 AM.jpgScreen shot 2013-07-23 at 5.32.39 AM.png

Firstly for sake of accuracy it is Heidelberg


23 Cumberland Pl Melbourne, Only Cumberland Pl I can find is in Altona Medows Vic 3028

11 Collie St, North Melbourne, I can only find a 11 Collier St, North Melbourne. I wonder if that was an error in the phone book????

This doesn't mean planning has changed over the years and some locations have been rezoned etc, I'm only going by current google maps just to plot how far they moved about.

Originally Posted by DSEL74

Screen shot 2013-07-23 at 5.24.10 AM.jpgScreen shot 2013-07-23 at 5.32.25 AM.jpgScreen shot 2013-07-23 at 5.32.39 AM.png

Firstly for sake of accuracy it is Heidelberg


23 Cumberland Pl Melbourne, Only Cumberland Pl I can find is in Altona Medows Vic 3028

11 Collie St, North Melbourne, I can only find a 11 Collier St, North Melbourne. I wonder if that was an error in the phone book????

This doesn't mean planning has changed over the years and some locations have been rezoned etc, I'm only going by current google maps just to plot how far they moved about.

Thanks for picking up on the spelling of Heidelberg (can't seem to edit the post anymore....bugger.

to save repeating, if you go back to post 57 you can see what happened to Collie St and Willis St which were next to each other. Cumberland Pl also once existed:

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This was also from the 1958 street directory (I do have the map photo, I think on my wife's phone, but it was a small little Place not marked on the map (one of 2 unlabeled in the map grid) and we ran out of time to find it exactly and see what was currently in that location.

Regarding the number of moves, we nearly missed a lot of the detail, like multiple numbers and locations some years, as initially we were skipping years for speed (once we realized we went back and checked year by year, documenting any differences we could find). unfortunately I fear some of the later moves were probably due to downsizing, and of cause there is the possibility that some moves could just have been offices with the factory hidden (so this data can not be completely relied on unfortunately).

Cheers,

Camo

P.S. To Matty, as Hiroller said I am just happy to try and play a part, plus (selfishly) now having the Bandsaw means Iwould like to know a lot more about L.S. Barker. To me that is part of the fun of owning an old machine (even if that does make me a little crazy).

Hopefully soon I will get a chance to list the initial registration papers, so we can start looking into who the new directors were, after Lot's death (enter suspense building music)

Anyone know how to do a patents search related to L Barker???

Nice thinking on the patents.
Patents and other intellectual property in Australia are controlled by the govt body IP Australia. I had a quick look and found the following patent for a "Vertical Contnuous Feed Timber Kiln" from 1979. The applicant is the CSIRO and the inventors are listed as Lee Sydney Barker and Richard Leslie Northway!
IP Australia: AusPat Disclaimer

It seems the wood machinery gene runs deep in the family.

Patents back to 1904 are stored but requires learning the search syntax to go back further than 30 years. I need a more practice to dig deeper!

Originally Posted by hiroller

Nice thinking on the patents.
Patents and other intellectual property in Australia are controlled by the govt body IP Australia. I had a quick look and found the following patent for a "Vertical Contnuous Feed Timber Kiln" from 1979. The applicant is the CSIRO and the inventors are listed as Lee Sydney Barker and Richard Leslie Northway!
IP Australia: AusPat Disclaimer

It seems the wood machinery gene runs deep in the family.

Patents back to 1904 are stored but requires learning the search syntax to go back further than 30 years. I need a more practice to dig deeper!

The patent searches I have done only went back to 1980, I don't know how you do the early searches. Patents would pretty much give exact date of manufacturer for each machine within a year I would think.

I'm about 5 years too late but I'm LS Barker's granddaughter. I may be able to help you if you're still interested.

Originally Posted by Elizabeth B

I'm about 5 years too late but I'm LS Barker's granddaughter. I may be able to help you if you're still interested.

Better late than never
Elizabeth, l would love the opportunity to meet you !
Kind regards Matty.

Welcome Elizabeth!
a few of us here have spent many an hour or two researching your grandfather’s business and the wonderful machines he built.