This is one of several pages relating to the history of the automatic totalisator, its invention in 1913, the inventor George Julius and the Australian company he founded in 1917 which became a monopoly ( later an oligopoly ) in this field. This page primarily provides a display of images related to early totalisator photographs. If you wish to start from the beginning then go to the index

Since the first release of these pages a year ago I have been attempting to meet with Frank Matthews, the last senior partner of Julius Poole and Gibson who has kindly given permission to use material from the book published by Julius Poole and Gibson titled From Tote To CAD. He has collected George Julius memorabelia which I am interested in. This meeting eventually took place on 23rd March 1998 when I was visiting New South Wales and Frank invited my wife Narelle and I to his house. He donated several Julius papers and has lent me many photographs some of which I have put on display here.

I have had some curious personal coincidences with this history. I am very interested in synchronicity events. For instance, I used to partake in "bob a job week" with the Boy Scouts when I was in boarding school. One of the streets we frequented was Ocean street Wollahra which is where George Julius lived at one stage.

Additionally for many years I thought my knowledge of Julius Poole and Gibson was purely related to Automatic Totalisators. When I first saw the book From Tote To CAD it was handed to me at an open page. The page contained a photograph of one of the audio consoles in the Sydney Opera House, one that I had installed along with others. I then recalled that I had known Julius Poole and Gibson a lot longer than I thought at the time, as they were a prime contractor at the Opera House. The photo was from the early 1970s when I was working for AWA (Amalgamated Wireless Australasia) in the Field Engineering Department based at North Ryde when that factory alone had approximately 1500 employees. From memory AWA was sub contracted to JP&G on the Opera House project.

Probably my first glimpse of totalisator history came in the early years of working for AWA mentioned above. One of my early duties was to assist with the operation and maintenance of the television system at Randwick Racecourse. My mentor was an excellent technician called Bill Wilson. I recall being impressed by the architecture of some of the old buildings. I did not know it at the time however one of these buildings was the old main tote which was purpose built in 1917 to accommodate a Julius totalisator. Nowadays (2008) it is hidden behind the Randwick Pavillion. The following photo is of this building in its heyday.

The Old Main Tote at Randwick 1917

I started relating these and other coincidences to Frank Matthews and arrived at the part regarding one of the original partners Gibson of Julius Poole and Gibson, getting married at the church in St Johns Avenue Gordon. I lived nearby for over a decade. When I mentioned Gordon, Frank responded "that is interesting, I am Gordon born and bred"! I indicated that I used to live in Waugoola Street and he informed me that he lived in Lennox Street. After this conversation ended, Lennox Street started to haunt me, as I knew the name well but could not place it. When I looked it up I was surprised to find that Waugoola Street runs into Lennox Street and that I had travelled down Frank's street almost every day for over a decade.

On the way to see Frank Matthews, Narelle and I visited her uncle Bruce and his wife Cynthia. During the conversation the subject of the internet was raised and subsequently led to totalisator history. Cynthia said "My father used to work for the TAB in 1921. I think I still have his letter of commendation". I thought to myself that so far as I knew there was no TAB that early. Cynthia found the letter. Sure enough, the letterhead read Automatic Totalisators Limited! It was dated 9th May 1921. The head office address was 10 Castlereagh Street Sydney and the factory address was Alice Street Newtown the telephone number was L1943. It related the length of service and the final paragraph read " We have pleasure in stating that he performed his duties in a satisfactory manner, and it is only on account of slackness of work that he leaves us." It was signed by the Works Manager.

To diverge a little, one last coincidence which has little to do with totalisator history except that it occurred on a business trip for ATL and is in the past. One Friday afternoon I was asked if I could attend a course in San Diego starting Tuesday. I was to attend a course conducted by Simpact, on an ICP (Intelligent Communications Processor) and then write the software to implement this device in our front end processors to achieve synchronous operation. After having traversed the Pacific Ocean and caught a domestic flight from Los Angeles to San Diego, I found myself on the phone to the hotel where I had a booking. It was after 11PM and I was hoping that I would be picked up at the airport. I was informed that I had already checked in: I assured them that I had not checked in and that I really was at the airport. This dialogue continued for several minutes. I did not relish the prospect of having to search for alternative accommodation in the middle of the night in a city I did not know . I eventually convinced them to pick me up from the airport and find me another room somewhere. It turned out that a doctor from Ireland with the same surname and initial had arrived without a booking on the day I was to arrive and wanted to stay the exact dates of my booking. The hotel staff understandably assumed he was me!

A postscript to the above coincidences. In August 2004, I visited Sydney on holidays, with the main objective to see a restored Julius tote working at the Powerhouse Museum. One day my wife Narelle and I went to the Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium to visit her mother's memorial plaque. On the way we passed the old Channel 10 premises between the Epping highway and Delhi road. I worked there for several years in the mid 1970s. Immediately after completing my nostalgic look at my old workplace, I noticed the street sign on the next street running down the eastern side of the building. It was Julius Avenue. Earlier this year, I received an email from Kevin Shaw, from the Ryde District Historical Society, informing me that there was a Julius Avenue named after George Julius in the Riverside Corporate Park. I had no idea that the Corporate Park was next to my old workplace where I had worked for years next to George Julius' memorial avenue. Additionally, whilst Narelle was looking at her mother's plaque, she noticed that one of the neighbouring plaques was a Julius.

Another postscript, March 2008. I have been reading the ABC "Australian Story" transcript on Wendy Whiteley from Monday 6 September 2004. Wendy was George Julius' granddaughter. There is a link to this titled Wendy Whiteley in the George Julius Genealogy page. It states that in 1965 Wendy and her husband Brett lived at Whale Beach on which her daughter learnt to walk. I arrived in Australia in 1964 to attend boarding school. I stayed with friends of my parents for a week prior to being delivered to boarding school. I was picked up from the airport and taken to their home, the first place I stayed in Australia, you quessed it, Whale Beach.

It does not stop! Still March 2008. Brett Whiteley mentioned above was born in Longueville Sydney. His first studio was in the house he grew up in at Lucretia Avenue in Longueville. When my parents moved to Australia from Hong Kong I was taken out of boarding school to live in their new home at Northwood. I continued as a student at the same school as a day boy. Northwood is a neighbouring suburb to Longueville. Again I was surprised when I looked at a map to see where Lucretia Avenue was. It was a place I had visited more often than anywhere else in the suburb. You have to go down this street to get to Dunois street. My parents and I often visited this street to go for a walk as it had terrific views of Woodford Bay. I used to ride my bicycle to this location. I bought my first motorcycle whilst living at Northwood and frequented this area even more. I had a friend from school Rod who lived nearby and I used to traverse Lucretia Ave to visit him. He too was in the process of purchasing his first motorcycle. When we moved to Gordon and after my grandparents moved to Australia we used to take them there for walks. In addition later when I bought a VJ sailing boat Narelle and I used to launch it in Woodford Bay from Dunois street requiring passage down Lucretia Ave. I do recall a house in Lucretia Ave with a business sign outside, it could well have been Brett's Studio. He attended Scots College in Bellevue Hill starting in 1954. I attended Cranbrook in Bellevue Hill just down the road starting in 1964. His birthday is 7th April, mine 1st April.

Of course the greatest link to this history is that I worked for Automatic Totalisators, George's company from 1977 till its demise. I continued to work at the Brisbane racetracks for most of my working life alongside the remnants of totalisator equipment from George's era.

June 2008. I have just read an old boys magazine from my old school in Sydney. The archivist is looking for informal photographs of boarding school life in Street House when it was located in a mansion called Leura. When I rummaged through my collection of photographs from this early era of my life, dragging out an old archive tin which would hardly see daylight in a given decade, I discovered an enigma. I found a slide of the St. Ledger Stand at Eagle Farm. The photo predates my knowledge of this stand as there is no evidence of a large fig tree which now reaches the top of the flag poles which are the highest points on this large stand. From the location where this photograph was taken this fig tree now obscures a major section of the Western end of the stand. Neither my wife nor I have any knowledge of this photograph or how it came to be in this archive. I did not create this photograph. I recognise every other photo in this archive. My interest in totalisator history only began about 20 years after the rest of the photos in this tin became archived. Additioinally, I can identify the source of every photo in my totalisator history collection. I would not have been particularly interested in this photograph anyway as it has nothing to do with totalisators. If I had been presented with it prior to starting work at Automatic Totalisators I would not have attributed any significance to it. If I had received it after acquiring an interest in totalisator history I would have found it irrelavant. Even now I find it unremarkable except for one thing. Somehow I came to possess a photograph which showed me where I would spend 30 years of working life to date. I have installed and dismantled temporary totes for carnival meetings underneath this stand and done the same in tents outside the front of this stand for 3 decades. Our office, maintenance facility and computer room has existed in the adjacent building for most of this time and a Julius tote has remained in this adjacent building all of this time. This Julius tote has recently been incorporated in the new Eagle Farm racing museum. At one stage I used to have a warm lunch under this stand when a servery provided this facility during racedays. At the Tattersalls meeting at Eagle Farm held on 21/6/2008, I confirmed without a doubt that the photograph was of the St. Ledger Stand. That night my wife had rented a DVD of The Celestine Prophecy. I was taken by the passage that appears right at the beginning. "Look not from the mind, but from the soul. For the life that is coming is already before us, waiting to open up the world. Just look more closely. Find the eyes to see. From the First Insight". It appears that I have not been looking closely enough!

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Click on the images below to load the full sized photographs.

	The type of crowds the electro mechanical systems had to contend with. October 1936, Wellington Racing Club
	The world's first automatic totalisator Auckland
	The adders in Longchamps France : This system was described in a Paris newspaper as "The Insatiable Moloch"
	A raceday control console at Harold Park 1958. This controlled variables such as field size, race number and scratchings.
	An early purely mechanical totalisator
	A three shaft adder viewed from the escapement end. This adder had a capacity of up to 240 ticket issuing machines.
	An early factory staff photograph
	An early workshop photograph
	An early ATL Computer Tote System

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to Bob Plemel for hosting these images
• Thanks to Frank Matthews for the loan of the above photographs
• Thanks to Ian my 11 year old son (1997) who was a great help with the typing, the html and the images.

Comments and suggestions welcome to totehis@hotmail.com