Summary

Alternative Name(s): McKay Smithy

A slab construction blacksmith workshop built in preparation for construction of H.V. McKay's original stripper harvester. The smithy was built by Hugh V. McKay and his brother John McKay, in about 1884, on the McKay family farm at Drummartin, near Elmore, in northern Victoria.

In September 1928 the smithy was relocated to Sunshine, where it was installed as an historical exhibit outside the original administration buildings of the Sunshine Harvester Works, adjacent to the railway line. After the remaining McKay family interests in the firm H.V. McKay Massey Harris Pty Ltd, of Sunshine, were acquired by Massey-Harris-Ferguson Ltd, of Toronto, Canada, in February 1955, Mr Cecil N. McKay, a son of H.V. McKay, and retiring Managing Director of the firm arranged for the original McKay Smithy and its contents to be donated to the Museum of Applied Science of Victoria, in Melbourne.

After an initial inspection by Museum staff, detailed plans were made, and a fully-equipped work unit was then sent out to dismantle and remove the structure, together with its precious contents, to the Museum's collection store. Exercising care to avoid damage, each part of the building was numbered, then carefully dismantled and packed. A plan was kept of the assembly and location of parts, to assist with its subsequent re-assembly.

The McKay Smithy first went on display as part of a redevelopment of the Agriculture exhibition in Swinburne Hall, at the then renamed Science Museum of Victoria, on 21 November 1979.

In 1985, the McKay Smithy was awarded an Historic Engineering Marker by the Institution of Engineers, Australia, in recognition of the significant role that the workshop played in the development of Australian agriculture.

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