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Rokeby Pumping Station

Location Tarago River, Old Telegraph Road,, DROUIN WEST VIC 3818 - Property No B6329 File Number B6329 Level State

[1/1] B6329 Rokeby Pumping Station

Statement of Significance

The Rokeby Pumping Station has historical and engineering significance at the state level. The pump house is an ordinary functional timber and corrugated iron building with no obvious architectural merit but of considerable historical/social significance. It is the first pump house constructed by the Warragul Waterworks Trust at this site, and its initial size as well as the various changes evident in the installation from time to time, indicate both its importance within the Trust's scheme of water supply for the area, and the pressures to maintain the security of this supply under all circumstances. It would appear that this installation is one of the few surviving of the larger municipal pumping stations in the State and although only a few pieces of its equipment are of any great technical interest, the existence of machinery from each of the various stages of development does make it possible both to display a range of pumping equipment in context and changes in the technology both of prime movers and medium head pumps, and to interpret some aspects of the Waterworks Trust's role in the area.
The most interesting piece of machinery in the pump house is the large Ronaldson and Tippett oil/semi-diesel engine, which appears to have been installed in 1929. Ronaldson and Tippett claimed to be the largest internal combustion engine manufacturer in the Southern Hemisphere. By the mid 1920's they had made over 4,000 engines for installations all over Australia and had supplied more than 500 of them for farms in the Western District of Victoria. Although the survey of extant internal combustion engines in Victoria has not yet advanced to the stage reached by that for extant steam technology, it does not appear that any other large Roanldson and Tippett semi-diesel engines has survived. For this reason, and for what this engine can tell us about the development of engine types by this local manufacturer relative to that development elsewhere, it is historically significant and should be preserved.
Classified: 13/05/1992