This reflects the structure of the Australian economy, in which the drivers of
economic growth have always been a combination of primary industries
oriented to export markets and capital formation in the large cities on the
eastern seaboard. Manufacturing has been a relative sideline, nurtured by
the state to provide employment and supply the domestic market. Without
support from tariffs or subsidies, large-scale manufacturing in Australia has
always struggled with the problems of a small domestic market, high costs of
production, and distance from export markets. Examples of family fortunes
derived from manufacturing in Australia are scarce, particularly in the metals
and machinery category, in which H. V. McKay and Henry Holden were
unusual as successful entrepreneurs in afield dominated by large companies,
many of them foreign—significantly, both McKay’s and Holden’s businesses
were bought by North American companies. In other areas of manufacturing,
success stories such as those of the Nicholas (‘Aspro’), and Ramsay (‘Kiwi’)
families have been rare. A revealing case study is that of Helena Rubinstein,
whose globally successful cosmetics manufacturing business had its origins in
Coleraine in the Western District of Victoria in 1902, but who moved her
entire operations overseas in 1908.
Following McKay’s death, the Sunshine Harvester business was run by his
brother and then his son, neither of whom came close to matching H. V.’s
entrepreneurialflair and business acumen. At the height of the depression in
1930, the business merged with one of its main competitors, the Canadian
company Massey Harris, which eventually purchased the McKay family’s
remaining interests in 1955. The McKay family remained wealthy, but no
longer had any ties with the business H. V. had founded, and it has since
faded from public life. Agricultural machinery continued to be made at Sun-
shine until the reduction of tariffs and the rise of foreign competition in the
1970s led to the factory being gradually closed down. Manufacturing ended in
the late 1980s and the last section of the factory was sold off in 1992. Much of
the factory has been demolished, but the former bulk store, factory gates, clock
tower, pedestrian footbridge, factory gardens, and head office complex have
been preserved and are listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.
George Shaw continued to act as solicitor for the Sunshine Harvester Works
until about 1939, and he was an executor of H. V. McKay’s will. Shaw’s son,
Alan, recalls that his father did not learn to drive until late in life and he would
take the train to Sunshine every Friday to deal with the Harvester Works’legal
affairs. He was the archetypal city solicitor in the days before specialization
and he had a prosperous and highly regarded general legal practice. Alan Shaw
was originally destined to study law and join his father’s practice, but at
university he found he far preferred history to law and, after some family
tensions, his father agreed he could concentrate on history. After studying
at Oxford in the late 1930s, Alan Shaw had a successful academic career at
Peter Yule