The beginning of Shell in Australia

From those beginnings, Shell has become a familiar part of Australian life. Not only has the company been part of Australia's swift industrial and commercial development, it plays an important role in Australia's continuing growth as an export nation. Read on to gain some insight into Shell's history and to the commitment of the company to Australia as we move into our next century.  

Documentary works, shall we say, by picturing something of the many sides of life in this rapidly developing country. A film may suggest that it is worth knowing that Kalgoorlie would never have existed but for the petroleum-lubricated machinery which pumps its water from near Perth; that it is good for city folks to appreciate that transport by roadtrains in the Northern Territory depends upon the diesel engine; that the continent has been refashioned in time and space, through the agency of petroleum-fed aviation. ' Geoffrey Bell, Shell Australia Film Unit 1948-50. 

In the spotlight - Spirit of initiative, adventure and comradeship

In an era when DVDs, videotapes, television and instant communication are ubiquitous, it is hard to imagine what it was like 70 or 80 years ago in a country as large and sparsely populated as Australia.

A question that teases many of today's employees is why did Shell ever sponsor or produce documentary films, especially about subjects that appear to be unrelated to commercial considerations?

One answer was given by JRC Taylor, the head of Shell in Australia from 1955 to 1961, when looking back on such internationally acclaimed classics as Alice through the Centre (1950), In the Steps of the Explorer series, Rankin Springs is West (1952) and The Back of Beyond (1954).

We make them because we believe in Australia and in Australia's destiny - because we think it is a good thing for the spotlight to be put on the spirit of initiative, adventure and comradeship displayed by these people in the outback in the face of great hardship and great odds. Above all, we make them because we recognize that Australia's future is Shell's future.'

From 1927 and the first (silent) release, The Petroleum Industry, Shell's films helped to open up Australia to the outside world. There was no major aspect of the growing infrastructure which was not recorded on film: water supply, electrical power, roads, transport (especially aviation), mail delivery, the growing of food, industrial development (particularly oil refining, coal and metals) and of course oil exploration.

Shell's first sound film - on the subject of Large-scale Poultry Farming - came in 1932 and was followed by such titles as The Dairying Industry, Cars, Motor Cycles, Big Game Fishing at Bermagui, Holiday, Timber and Modern Land Development. Two early classics, Wandering Westwards and Through the Centre, were shot during the 1939 Shell Mapping Survey.

Leading the way is a strong theme throughout Shell's first one hundred years in Australia: it is a story of firsts and there's no better person to begin with than Ernest E Wagstaff, the first general manager who enjoyed the rather Edwardian name of 'Waggy'.

Wagstaff was himself an important pioneer motorist and made it his hobby to promote long-distance driving. On his first visit in 1901, he drove from Melbourne to Sydney, an exceptionally dangerous activity then as the cars were not trustworthy and the roads barely existed.

Another exploit was driving across the Coorong in South Australia in 1908. This is a belt of loose sand that crosses the route of both the Princes and Western Highways between Melbourne and Adelaide. Part of it has been reclaimed for agriculture over the years but it is still formidably difficult. The story goes that he ran out of water half-way across but ran into another pioneer motorist, Bertie Barr-Smith, who had run out of whisky.  Mutually beneficial barter followed.

In the late 1940s, picture shows were still a luxury only available in larger towns and most people living in remote areas had never been inside a cinema. The Shell Mobile Film Unit altered their lives by bringing them not only pictures but lighting, power, portable screens and projectors. One of the most popular films was 'The Back of Beyond'.

On the face of it, the film is about one man's resolution and tenacity in carrying mail and supplies along the track from one remote outpost in the heart of Austrralia to another - from Marree in south Australia to Birdsville in Queensland - through some of the most daunting conditions a regular traveler in the age of wheeled transport could have encountered.

But in fact the film captures an entire national ethos and its enduring values - fortitude, resilience, resourcefulness and friendliness. Today, third generation Australians are being enthralled by the broad picture it paints of a way of life now vanished, the contrast it sets between geographical desolation and the power of human optimism, the uncompromising earthiness of Jack the Dogger, the magical incantations of Old Joe the Rainmaker, the legends of two lost children and an abandoned Lutheran mission, and, above all, the unassuming determination of delivery man and 'everyman', Tom Kruse himself.

The year Australia became a nation is the year Shell arrived in Australia. As the nation has grown, Shell has been there, enabling people and provisions to travel the length and breadth of the land, crops to be grown and moved to market, resources to be uncovered and value added, people to be connected and educated.

Right from the start, Shell took a broad national view and did not confine its activities to the congested metropolitan areas where business was more profitable and distribution easier. It organised a system of fuel and lubricant distribution over the whole country - in the great unpopulated and often unexplored areas of central and northern Australia, in the isolated pastoral and agricultural districts, as well as the cities and country centres. It helped enrich trade and economic development.

Nevertheless, by 1928 Shell had organised its system of oil distribution over the whole Commonwealth. There were seven coastal installations to store motor spirit, kerosene, lubricating oil and fuel oil at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Fremantle, Hobart and Newcastle.

A chain of depots made it possible for regular motor and air transport to be maintained through the length and breadth of the continent.

Petrol dumps were established at telegraph, cattle and sheep stations and other points on the principal overland tracks. Shell's own motor lorries pioneered many routes and six-wheeled motor trucks, camels and other animals transported fuel to isolated centres.