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Lives of the Enginners McCall, Black, Anderson, Campbell, Sloss & McCann
19 min read

The south bank of the Yarra in 1883-84. The barge in the foreground is being used as a working platform to remove the rock of the Falls in the Yarra (see Leader, Saturday 29 December 1883, pages 27 and 28). Behind the barge, the route of the Sandridge (Port Melbourne) railway can be traced by the telegraph poles, signal box and signal masts. Behind these (from left to right) are the paint works of Alexander Borthwick & Sons, the engineering and boiler works of Robison Brothers and, behind the smoking chimney on the barge, the Albion Iron Works of Anderson, Campbell & Sloss. Today, not one trace of anything in this image survives, save the Yarra River. Photograph by John William Lindt, State Library of Victoria image H82.166/88.

The Melbourne engineering business which became briefly famous as Campbell Sloss & McCann went through a number of changes but, over its short life, it had an important impact on the infrastructure of Victoria.

The firm had its roots in the engineering works of William McCall and David Black in 1854. It began at 138 Flinders Lane West in a small way, employing 15 to 20 men and, by October 1867, had taken over Thomas Fulton’s former Flinders Lane premises and was also in Little Bourke Street West under the name of the Atlas Iron Works. One of its products was the engine for the PS Defiance, based at Echuca and owned by James McIntosh, and built in 1870. This was a twin-cylinder horizontal engine with a bore of 10¼ inches and a stroke of 24 inches, and rated at 40nhp. The firm also built the boilers for the Tarrawingee flour mills and the Victorian Beetroot Sugar Works at Staughton Vale.1

Around 1870, Black seems to have left the partnership to be replaced by Jam

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