Thomas Sutcliffe Mort: A Pioneer of Australian Industry

Social entrepreneur

Thomas Mort was born in Bolton, Lancashire on 23 December 1816 and grew up in a middle-class family. As a young adult, he was employed by A & S Henry & Co Ltd, a cotton business with a warehouse in Manchester. Through this employment, he secured a position with Aspinall, Browne and Co, an import-export business based in Sydney. Mort worked for the company (later known as Gosling, Brown & Co) as a clerk and salesperson from 1838 until 1843, when it failed against the backdrop of the economic depression.

Mort subsequently established himself as an auctioneer and founded his first company Mort & Co. Within a few years, he became the premier auctioneer in the colony and pioneered wool-only sales, whereby he organised for farmers to consign wool through him for sale in England.

Throughout his career, Mort was the founder, co-founder or director of numerous companies, including the Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMP). Further, his business interests and investments were diverse and varied. They included wool, railway construction, produce, tin-smelting and steamship-led trade as well as mining (gold, coal, copper) and the cultivation of sugar, cotton and silk. Further, he has the distinction of having formed Australia’s first goldmining company as well as being the first person to import alpacas into the colony from Peru.

Although a very wealthy man, not all of Mort’s business ventures produced a profit, as he viewed investment as a community service and was focused on creating jobs and providing good working conditions. The historian Alan Atkinson commented that “Mort believed he should play a major role in rescuing the poor and converting the rich so they had a conscience”.

Mort also gave back to the community by opening parts of Greenoaks, his gothic mansion in Darling Point, to the public – specifically, his private gardens and art gallery. Further, being one of Sydney’s most prominent Anglicans, he donated funds for the construction St Mark’s Church (Darling Point), St Andrew’s Cathedral (Sydney CBD) and St Paul’s College (University of Sydney).

Mort’s Dock

One of Mort’s most notable achievements was the establishment of Sydney’s first Dry dock. In 1853, Mort – in partnership with other entrepreneurs – began working towards the construction of a dry dock at Waterview Bay in Balmain. He laid the foundation stone for one the piers, himself, the following year. The dock officially opened on 1 January 1855 and was fully operational two months later. Although construction on Cockatoo Island’s Fitzroy Dock began in 1848, making it the earliest dry dock commenced in Australia, Mort’s Dock holds the title of being the first dry dock completed in Australia.

Mort’s Dock was built to accommodate the largest vessels to arrive in Sydney Harbour; however, Mort over-capitalised and profits were disappointing. In the early 1860s, he became the sole owner of the dock.

In 1866, Mort’s Dock was expanded to include iron and brass foundries and a patent slip as well as facilities for boiler-making, blacksmithing and engineering. Bridges, crushing machinery and retorts were built at the dock and imported locomotives were assembled at the site.

In 1870, Mort’s Dock was responsible for the first locomotive entirely manufactured and built locally. In a move that was considered radical for the time, Mort offered his employees the opportunity to buy shares in the company to improve labour relations. The arrangement was formalised in 1872, with the creation of Mort’s Dock and Engineering Co.

Produce pioneer

Mort’s interest in agriculture was considerable. In 1860, Mort acquired more than 13,000 acres on the south coast of New South Wales and established Bodalla Estate, with the aim of transforming it into a model rural settlement. He cleared land, drained swamps, laid out farms, imported grasses suitable for dairy farming and established a township. He also sourced the latest butter and cheese making equipment, hired specialised labour, utilised stock-breeding programmes and dairy blending techniques resulting in quality dairy products for the Sydney market.

Mort investigated the possibility of using refrigeration when transporting his produce and, from the mid-1860s, financed experiments to design and produce refrigeration machinery suitable for use in ships, trains and cold storage facilities. Mort trialled a shipment of frozen meat to London in 1868. As a result of these experiments, he established a slaughtering and chilling work in the Blue Mountains, a cold store at Darling Harbour, and refrigerated railway vans to transport milk and meat.

Mort’s legacy

Mort died on 9 May 1878, aged 61, at his Bodalla property. He was held in such high esteem that less than a week later, a statue was commissioned in his honour. The statue was erected in 1883 by the Mort Memorial Committee with funds supplied by Mort’s Dock Company, other businesses and members of the public.

Mort’s Dock and Engineering Company survived Mort’s death and thrived. In 1899, the company purchased a site at Woolwich and constructed, what was at the time, Australia’s largest dry dock, which was officially opened in 1901. By 1959, the company had ceased operating due to the rapid decline in ship workshops on the harbour.

Meanwhile, Mort & Co – the auctioneering and brokering business Mort established in 1843 – eventually merged with a Melbourne firm to become Goldsborough Mort & Co, whose wool stores were prominent until the mid-20th Century. Today, after several mergers, the company is known as Elders.

References:

• Australian Town and Country Journal, Saturday 28 January 1888, page 34
• Barnard, Alan, Mort, Thomas Sutcliffe (1816 -1878). Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, 1974
• City of Sydney Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, Thomas Sutcliff Mort | City Art Sydney
• The Empire, Tuesday 2 January 1855, page 4
• The Empire, Tuesday 28 February 1854, page 2
• Henly, Susan Gough, The Farmer, 2 July 2021 Thomas Sutcliffe Mort: unsung hero of Australia’s working class. Thomas Sutcliffe Mort: a man of the working class - The Farmer Magazine
• The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser Saturday 17 March 1855 page 2

Article was originally published on 13 July 2023.