1. our working lives
INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE
“There is no piano factory in the and fitting, tuning and intoning; drying kilns, dustproof
world so completely self-contained polishing rooms, and experimental laboratories.
as the Beale Factory at Annandale,
Ray Green, an apprentice piano tuner at Beale’s in the
N.S.W. Certainly there is none in the
1950s remembers clearly ‘the iron foundry; dirt floors and
British Empire that produces nearly
a tin roof - very, very harsh conditions. I remember I went
so many of the parts used in piano
down there once and could sense just how hard the men
making. It has never been possible
there worked, in these days men wouldn’t work under
for Beale & Company to buy ready-
those sort of conditions, ever’
made parts, and consequently
they are manufactured on the By the late 1940s the workforce was down to 150 workers
spot. The desirability of this latter and production had dwindled to 50 pianos a week. With
course is self-evident. From raw material to finished product, the arrival of black and white television Beale’s heyday was
every stage of manufacture can be checked” – BEALE’s clearly over.
CATALOGUE, circa. 1920 As our patterns of home life and domestic entertainment
Octavius Beale’s imposing four-storey Trafalgar Street changed, Beale’s was bought out by W.H. Paling in 1960,
building was opened in 1901 by Australia’s first Prime who moved the operation to smaller premises in Waterloo,
Minister, Edmund Barton. The Annandale complex where the last piano was produced in the 1970s, though
employed over 500 workers during Beale’s peak pianos bearing the name Beale have been produced in
manufacturing period between 1910 and 1920. This China and Korea since.
period arose as the piano became the centrepiece of The bloom and decline of the Beale Piano Company,
social entertainment in Australian homes and the factories eventual conversion in the 1990s to a
While it is not known who designed Beale’s main Trafalgar ‘resort style;’ apartment complex, reflects not just the
Street building, the sheer size of the operation cannot transformations that have taken place in Annandale the
be overestimated – on site were power houses; timber suburb, but in Australia’s manufacturing industries also.
Sources:
yards, stores and mills, joinery works, cabinet departments Beale Piano Co. catalogue, circa 1915
and veneer works; paint and pattern shops, machine and Robert Irving et al, 1997. The Piano factory Annandale, Heritage Report, part 1: conservation plan.
Interview with Ray Green, February 2005. Leichhardt Library Oral History collection.
electroplating departments; keyboard action-making Interview with Frank Manning, February 2005. Leichhardt Library Oral History collection.
National Trust Heritage Festival 2006
001Beales.indd 1 3/4/06 10:21:59 PM