Simplex on an engine nameplate in Australia, usually means it was badge engineered from an engine made by Kelly & Lewis or Ronaldson Bros & Tippett, or one of a few other local makers. However, this Super Simplex was none of these.

A friend and fellow Sydney Antique Machinery Club member, Alan Mitchell, set up next to me at the Hawkesbury Show last April, with an engine that had originally been bought new by his wife’s aunt and uncle to pump water from Webbs Creek, near Wisemans Ferry in the Hawkesbury region, NSW, for their stock and market garden. Alan is 91 and he says his wife told him it had been bought in 1911. It went on to end up in the hands of John Clay, another member of the club, before coming back to Alan.

The brass badge and the crankcase door both say “Super Simplex, 3½BHP Dairy