Summary

Two inch diameter inlet single-stage centrifugal pump manufactured by Kelly & Lewis Ltd., Springvale, Melbourne, Victoria, circa 1948. Mounted on a cast-iron bedplate which also supports a driveshaft with an 8-inch diameter by 4-inch wide flat-belt pulley designed to drive the pump from an external power source such as a portable internal combustion engine or electric motor.

The pump was acquired specifically for use as an operating exhibit to be used in the working machinery program at Scienceworks, driven by the Ronaldson & Tippett "Austral" kerosene engine (ST 037768) or the Lutz & Wilson "Reliance" petrol engine (ST 037912). It was restored by staff and volunteers in the Scienceworks Engineering Workshop.

Physical Description

Two inch diameter inlet single-stage centrifugal pump mounted on a cast-iron bedplate which also supports a driveshaft with an 8-inch diameter by 4-inch wide flat-belt pulley. A 200 litre drum was added during the restoration so that water can be circulated for demonstration.

Significance

Kelly & Lewis was one of Australia's largest and most diverse engineering firms throughout much of the 20th century. Founded in September 1899, by George William Kelly, a blacksmith, and Edward Lewis Powell, a mechanical engineer, the firm was based intially in Little Bourke Street, central Melbourne. During its first decade the firm's main products were custom-designed machinery installations such as large steam engines, boilers, condensers, air compressors and centrifugal pumps for the manufacturing and mining industries. After 1910, the firm diversified into the manufacture of small petrol and diesel engines to standardised designs and the fabrication of structural steelwork for power stations, factories, railway workshops, bridges and many of Melbourne's early skyscrapers.

In 1921, Kelly & Lewis purchased a 124 acre greenfields site at Springvale, to enable further expansion of its manufacturing activities and by the end of the Second World War was employing over 1,000 workers. Kelly & Lewis were a major supplier of equipment to the Spotswood Pumping Station, providing two large horizontal air compressors during the 1920s and four centrifugal pumps in 1938, which were the last generation of pumps installed before the Pumping Station closed in 1965.

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