[Construction of the Water Tower at Fletcher Jones Factory, Warrnambool, 1967]

The Fletcher Jones factory and Gardens at 61–81 Flaxman Street, Warrnambool (established 1948) are famous local landmarks and symbolic of the radical approach to industrial relations and the provision of workplace amenities taken by the famous Australian company. The complex, including the Water Tower, was listed on the Victorian Heritage Register in 2006 in recognition of its historic and social significance which notes “…the unusual and successful integration of surplus military structures, buildings and modernist facade in a factory setting. They reflect the resourcefulness and dynamism of Fletcher Jones in the use of war surplus structures and objects during a time of building material shortages.”

The forty-metre-high water tower – built for fire protection and as a booster system – was designed and supervised by Ralph Jones Construction Engineering Services between 1965–1967. [Source: University of Melbourne Archives: Ralph Jones Water Tower Submission and Business Papers].

This silent, black-and-white footage of the tower’s construction was photographed by Australian photographer Robert Lennox Suggett. It is a unique historic documentary record of the construction of an iconic feature of Warrnambool’s – and Victoria’s – industrial heritage.