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Trial by Fire

http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/macleay/dtbf.htm

By Julian Holland

There are two sorts of tests, those conducted to find out information and those conducted to convey information already known. The work of metrologists is generally of the first sort. It occurs in laboratories the public never visit and often don’t even know about. The other sort of test is familiar from TV advertisements (‘This washing powder …’), though these are often undermined by the subtitle ‘SIMULATED TEST’. The purpose of such demonstration tests is not to find out, but to persuade.

The distinction between such investigations and demonstrations has not always been so clear. Perhaps the most remarkable public test of a product in Australian history occurred in Sydney in 1859.

With the accumulation of wealth during the gold rush of the 1850s, the market for safes no doubt expanded significantly. The Sydney firm of jewellers and opticians, Brush & MacDonnell, were agents for the London safe maker, John Tann. Fireproof safes were only introduced in the 1830s. The loss of the parliament buildings at Westminster in a massive conflagration in 1834 was no doubt a wonderful stimulus to the ingenuity of safe makers. Among a series of patents for improvements to safes was that of Messrs Tann in 1843 for a method of producing vapour in the lining of the safe.

Brush & MacDonnell believed Tann’s Patent Reliance Safes were the best on the market. ‘Having ourselves had many opportunities of comparing the internal structure and arrangements, not only of Tann’s, but of safes by other makers, we have never felt hesitation in commending the superiority of Reliance Safes. They are faithfully and honestly made in every respect, and the inner parts not easily accessible, and hidden from the eye, are as carefully fitted as those which are visible.’

Besides being opticians, gold and silversmiths, watchmakers and jewellers, Brush & MacDonnell was one of the principal retailers of scientific apparatus in Sydney. As a prominent retailer with strong scientific interests and as a member of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales, William MacDonnell would have been well acquainted with a wide range of public figures.

For a trial of the fire-resisting powers of Tann’s Reliance Safes, MacDonnell secured the permission of the Government to use newly reclaimed land in the Botanic Gardens. The preparations must have generated a good deal of public curiosity. An advertisement on Saturday, 16th July announced: ‘To suit the convenience of many gentlemen the test will be proceeded with at 1 o’clock TO-DAY, precisely by gun fire.’ The whole event was to be presented in a precise and scientific way.

A ‘funeral pyre’ of monstrous proportions was prepared. A ton of coal, several loads of firewood, tar barrels, packing cases and plenty of loose timber created a structure some three metres square and more than two high.

Into the safe were placed account books, printed papers, copies of Sands and Kenny’s Sydney Directories and of Waugh’s Almanac. So were a Bank of New South Wales note for five pounds, inserted in one of the account books, and a watch. All this preparation was observed by a dignified assortment of gentlemen, headed by the Registrar-General, Christopher Rolleston. Joseph Trickett, Superintendent of the Coining Department at the Sydney Royal Mint, Robert Hunt and Elliot Knipe, also from the Mint, John Smith, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Sydney, W.R. Piddington, a Member of the Legislative Assembly, various engineers, builders and merchants also lent their standing to the event. Among the items they saw placed in the safe was a blank piece of paper.

‘Precisely at gun-fire’, the Herald journalist reported, ‘all was announced as ready, and the various articles having been duly examined, the safe was locked by Mr. MacDonnell, and the keys handed to Mr. Trickett.’ A brick plinth had been prepared in the middle of the pyre. The safe was placed on this and a chain secured around it and leading out in front.

The pyre took light quickly. The flames were soon raging, ‘the heat compelling the spectators - even those to windward - to retreat from its scorching influence’. The chain about the safe became red hot and still the flames, ‘swayed to and fro by the wind’, continued to intensify. Could any safe endure such conditions? Its walls were now glowing red. Only time would tell.

After an hour and twenty minutes, the safe was pulled from the fire by the chain. It was still ‘giving out a fervid glow of heat’. Continued applications of water, rapidly transformed to steam, eventually cooled the safe to the point when it could be opened. The key operated without difficulty. Would anything remain of the contents?

The walls of the safe contained chemicals that produced vapour in heat. This vapour had penetrated the contents and dissolved the glue binding the volumes. Their pages were damp but otherwise unharmed. The bank note was fine. The watch, steamed-up but ticking, indicated twenty to three.

The blank piece of paper was now put to use. The various gentlemen from the Registrar-General down, 18 in all, signed a statement written on the paper to confirm that they had observed the whole procedure and expressing their ‘satisfaction with the trial, and our confidence in the perfect security attainable in case of ordinary fire by means of this invention’. Indeed the certificate was not signed there and then, at least not by all. Perhaps the wind made it inconvenient.

It had been a fine winter bonfire but there is always someone who wants to take advantage of other people’s efforts. A notice for a different make of safe was prominently posted inside the entrance to the Botanic Gardens on the day of the trial. We ‘have no hesitation in rebuking such a mode of taking advantage of other persons’ anxiety, labour, and expense in conducting this experiment,’ Brush and MacDonnell indignantly informed the public.

‘We do not know who caused the placard to be put up, but whoever they may be, we beg to tell them, if they wish the benefit of an experiment, let them make one on their own account if they have courage to do so. Let them have a real test, identical in all respects to ours, which was no measure of an ordinary house burning, but a fierce furnace heat for more than an hour, of so destructive a character that few expected to see any thing preserved. Let them do this if they have faith in their representations, and thus by honourable means secure public approval.’

This was perhaps an overreaction. Nevertheless MacDonnell was entitled to the benefit of his risk and expense. The safe itself, bearing as evidence of its trial warped sides and door and scaling of the iron plates, together with its contents, were long exhibited in Brush & MacDonnell’s shop in George Street. Tann’s safes were supplied to numerous branches of the Bank of New South Wales as well as to other banks, insurance companies and merchants in New South Wales and adjacent colonies.

Where a public trial of the safe’s ability to withstand thieves was more difficult to arrange, a testimonial would do instead. The citizens of Newtown had reason to be thankful that their funds were secured when thieves broke into the Council Chambers in September 1863. In the early hours of Monday the 28th burglars entered the Chambers and attempted to brake into the safe, ‘one of Tann’s patent, lately purchased from you by the Council’. Despite determined efforts, including the removal of a handle, the safe ‘completely baffled the ingenuity of the burglars’.

In selecting a sound product and dramatically demonstrating its capacities before the public, Brush & MacDonnell did both good business and good service to the market. That there was a continuing and growing demand for safes of many descriptions is indicated by the 32-page illustrated booklet William MacDonnell published in 1863, and the prominence with which Tann’s safes were announced on the firm’s building on the corner of George and Bond streets later in the century.

Perhaps there is more scope today for some of the work of metrologists to be brought before the public in dramatic and interesting ways.

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