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 that became a monopoly (later an oligopoly) in this field. This page provides information on Sir George Julius and may be of interest to those chasing Julius genealogy. This is a history only non-commercial page. If you wish to start from the beginning then go to the index .

George Julius was the founder of Julius Poole & Gibson Pty Ltd and Automatic Totalisators Ltd, and during his life he gained a wide reputation as a Consulting Engineer. He invented the world's first automatic totalisator. He was the first Chairman of Australia's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, now the world-famous Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (C.S.I.R.O.). In 1929 he was knighted for his contribution to technology.

From an early age, George's mechanical inclination was obvious to his parents. He had an inquiring mind and skillful fingers and loved helping his father fix clocks in the small workshop at the back of the manse.

George Julius attributed his mechanical inclination to two generations of ancestors. As reported in the Melbourne Herald (22 August 1931):

"Any inventive capacity I may have may be attributed to inheritance through two generations. My father, who was one of the Court physicians in London, but had such a mechanical bent that he spent what money he had in backing any invention that had wheels on it."

George Julius entered Melbourne Church of England Grammar School in 1885. After matriculating, he followed his family to New Zealand where his father had been appointed Bishop of Christchurch. Here the Bishop demonstrated his continued interest in mechanisms by going up in a bosun's chair accompanied by the local Rabbi, to lay the finial on the rebuilt cathedral spire which had been shaken down by the earthquake of 1890.

In 1890, George Julius enrolled in a BSc( Mechanical Engineering) degree course at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand. Because of the contemporary boom in railway construction, he specialised in railway engineering and was the first such engineering student to graduate from this university.

In 1898, he married Eva O'Connor, daughter of C.Y. O'Connor, a celebrated engineer from Western Australia. They had three sons; the eldest Awdry Francis ( born 1900 ) was later to become a partner in his father's firm.

While working for the Government Railways, George Julius conducted a series of tests on timber and wrote a handbook entitled Physical Characteristics of the Hardwoods of Western Australia published in 1906. He followed this with the publication of Physical Characteristics of the Hardwoods of Australia, published in 1907.

His research on hardwoods attracted a good deal of attention and led to a job offer from Allen Taylor & Co Ltd, a timber company in Sydney, as part-time engineer at an annual salary of 550 with the right to private practice. Accepting this offer in 1907 George Julius moved to Sydney, settling his family into a new home in Ocean Street Woollahra.

The following year he set up a consulting office in the Equitable Building in George Street. His practice, the first of its type in the country was immediately successful.

Automatic Totalisators

In whatever spare time he had, George Julius continued to work on the design for his automatic totalisator. Helped by two of his sons, he built a prototype in the workshop attached to his house.

However, the automatic totalisator was not originally conceived as a betting machine, but as a mechanical vote-counting machine. Julius reported:

"A friend in the west conceived the idea of getting me to make a machine to register votes, and so to expedite elections by giving the result without any human intervention. I invented one that aroused some interest, and it was submitted to the Commonwealth Government."

When the Government rejected the voting machine George Julius adapted it as a racecourse totalisator.

"Up to that time I had never seen a racecourse. A friend who knew of a "jam tin tote" - a machine which kept a sort of record of tickets sold at each window - explained to me what was required in an efficient totalisator. I found the problem of great interest as the perfect tote must have a mechanism capable of adding the records from a number of operators all of whom might issue a ticket on the same horse at the same instant."

"I set to work on a machine that would permit the simultaneous addition, give instantaneous records, and would satisfy the requirements of any racecourse."

"The model was built in my spare time, and when perfected a company was formed and secured its first order for a machine at the Auckland( Ellerslie ) Racecourse in 1913."

For more information on Automatic Totalisators go to Automatic Totalisators Limited - later ATL

During the Great Depression continuing design work on the tote kept Julius Pool & Gibson in the black when many professional firms were going under. Awdry Julius has commented:

"In 1929-33 I spent a lot of time doing design work and drawings on totes for Ascot, Canada, Chicago, Moonee Valley, Williamstown and Doomben, as well as alterations to the Randwick Tote, and additions to the Flemington and Caulfield Totes."

"I was also kept busy working on modifications to a new ticket issuer and the design of a portable machine for the United States."

The original mechanical totes were large, each one filling a machine room 10 X 10 metres. Awdry gradually took over all design work from his father and was responsible for research and development. He was elected chairman of the Automatic Totalisators Board in 1950 and was a member of the board until 1975 when the company was taken over by Smorgons Consolidated Industries, a Melbourne company.

"Julius" Automatic Totalisators were operated until recently with the last one going out of service on 25 September 1987, at Harringay Stadium, a dog-racing track in North London.

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

One of the great contributions made by George Julius to the well being of Australia resulted from his appointment in 1926 by Prime Minister S.M.Bruce( later Viscount Bruce ) as chairman to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research ( CSIR ) - forerunner of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ( CSIRO ). At the time of his appointment Julius said:

"Time was when commercial men thought of the scientist with the faint contempt natural in the practical man for the impractical visionary - and the scientist worked at his problem, caring nothing for the application of his discoveries to commerce."

"But this has all changed with the enlistment of science as an aid to the proper governance of a country."

In its early years before acquiring its own offices, the CSIR (CSIRO) met in a room at the back of Julius Poole & Gibson's office in Culwulla Chambers. (See image of Culwulla Chambers below)

As chairman of the Council related to primary production, it was therefore decided to concentrate on five main groups of problems. These were:

1. Animal pests and diseases
2. Plant pests and diseases
3. Fuel problems ( especially liquid fuels )
4. Preservation of foodstuffs ( especially cold storage )
5. Forest products

In the thirties Sir George Julius realised there was a need for more research work in secondary industry. Despite strong opposition from the Department of Defence to any extension of the activities of the CSIR, he presided over the establishment of a Division of Aeronautics and was appointed chairman of the important Commonwealth Committee on Secondary Industries Testing and Research in 1936. According to CSIR Chief David Rivett:

"The switch of the CSIR to secondary industry and into many aspects of defence planning probably stemmed from a visit by BHP chief Essington Lewis to Japan in 1936. He returned thoroughly alarmed at what he saw and urged the Lyons Ministry to act immediately to produce planes and fliers."

George Julius concurred. By 1938 he had convinced the Government that 143000 pounds would be needed for Aeronautical Research Laboratories to be built at Fishermans Bend near Melbourne. The Daily Telegraph, 7 April, 1945 recorded:

"Generally it is he ( Julius ) who has to battle for new funds, and getting money in lump sums is no sinecure."

"Sir George's value to the Council was in contact with politicians. He was flexible and extremely shrewd in his handling of the species Homo Politicus."

"Without his experience, ability to manoeuvre and thorough understanding of when to concede in appearance without surrendering the substance, the independent scientists might not have had so smooth a run through CSIR's first twenty years."

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An Anecdote from Jim Loveday

I have often wondered what working with George might have been like. The answer to this question is well beyond the scope of this text however I found the following extract from the book From Tote To Cad a somewhat comical glimpse. Geoffrey Charles (Jim) Loveday was a partner of Julius Poole & Gibson from 1951 to 1974. By 1913 Julius Poole & Gibson had to move, this time to Culwulla Chambers in Castlereagh Street, Sydney where the office remained until 1971. It was fortuitous that George Julius had been commissioned to supervise the design and installation of the high-speed lifts in this office building designed by architects Spain Cosh & Minnett, which was Sydney's first skyscraper.

Culwulla Chambers July 2008
Culwulla Chambers was the home of Julius Poole & Gibson from 1913 to 1971 and the birthplace of the CSIRO.

Jim Loveday had a cheery and affable personality. He loved to tell a story of the early days when he was working under the usually strict and demanding eye of George Julius. The following anecdote took place at Culwulla Chambers.

Sir George had a buzzer installed which he used to summon us to show the progress of our work. One day the drawing I had just finished blew out of the window and floated down Castlereagh Street where it was run over by a tram. I rushed down stairs, retrieved the remains of the drawing and got back just in time to hear the buzzer sound twice which was the signal for me to present my work.

Sir George slowly eyed the mutilated drawing in my hands and simply remarked dead pan "You've made quite a mess of this drawing, Loveday, I expect to see some improvement in future".

On the subject of Culwulla Chambers, it was built to a height of 53.5 metres and featuring an intricate sandstone facade, it was a controversial building from the first.

Protests to the Sydney Municipal Council about the shadow the building cast and the inability of the fire-fighters to reach a fire in the upper storeys caused the hasty introduction of a building height limit of 45.7 metres throughout NSW.

This height limit restricted development of taller buildings until the early 1960s and so Culwulla Chambers remained the tallest building in Sydney for 50 years.

Culwulla Chambers was the home of Julius Poole & Gibson from 1913 to 1971, when extensive renovations forced the firm to vacate and move to offices in St Leonards.

George Julius, William Poole and Alexander Gibson were counted amongst the number of a small but far-sighted band of engineers who in 1922 promoted the formation of the Australian Commnnwealth Engineering Standards Association (ACESA), the forerunner of the Standards Association of Australia (SAA).

When appointments to the main committees were gazetted, two representatives from Julius Poole & Gibson had been nominated. George Julius had been elected Vice Chairman and William Poole was appointed to serve on the Concrete Committee.

By 1926 when George Julius succeeded Sir George Knibbs in the Chair, there were over 250 sectional, sub and panel committees, and over 1,500 people voluntarily engaged on the preparation of specifications for standards.

One example of George Julius' imaginative leadership was his effort in 1927 to prompt the Board of Trade to convene an Empire Conference on Standardisation activities in close collaboration. From this initiative the national standards bodies of many countries of the world co-operated to form the International Standards Organisation.

On 1 July, 1929 George Julius presided over the amalgamation of the Australian Commonwealth Engineering Standards Association (ACESA) and the Australian Commonwealth Association of Simplified Practice, becoming Chairman of the new body, the Standards Association of Australia (SAA) now known as Standards Australia.

In 1972 a paper entitled "Fifty Years of Australian Standards", F.M.Matthews, Chairman of Council, Standards Association of Australia acknowledged the efforts of George Julius during the Association's early years:

No person has done more for standards in this country than Sir George Julius. He was appointed Vice Chairman (of ACESA) in 1922, became Chairman in 1926, and continued in that office until his retirement in 1939.

We are very fortunate that the ability and energy of this eminent engineer was available to the Association during the early, formative years. It was largely due to him that the wretched years of the depression were tided over.

By the end of World War 1 both Julius and Poole recognised the weakness of the many small and independent engineering societies each lacking interstate membership and representation, and so became closely involved with the formation of a united, Australia-wide engineering institute. In his Presidential Address in the Electrical Association of NSW in November 1918, Julius made a strong plea for support of the concept of one institution, representative of the engineering profession.

It is clear that to do any good, engineers must organise themselves. They must widen their outlook interest themselves in national and civic questions, study economics, and educate themselves and the public to better realisation of the beneficent effects of sound engineering practice.

Then, and only then, will they be able to speak with one voice and with authority, demanding and receiving that consideration for their opinion and advice that it undoubtedly deserves.

In time even we may be able to persuade the politicians that the advice of engineers may sometimes be useful, and that they ought to fill an important role in the development of such a country as Australia, if efficient results are to be obtained.

A conference of interstate delegates was held in Melbourne on 12-13 February, 1918 to select a provisional council to preside over the formation of The Institution of Engineers, Australia. This was followed by a meeting in Sydney in May, 1918, when Mr D.F.J. Harricks of the Engineering Association of NSW was elected chairman and the outline of a draft constitution tabled.

By 1 August, 1919 twelve independent societies throughout Australia had decided to amalgamate with the Institution. The problem of membership was resolved by agreeing that all persons on the membership rolls of associated societies were entitled to enrolment in the new institution.

George Julius was elected to this first Council and became President in 1925.

The Council of the Institution of Engineers Australia
The above photo is the Council of the Institution of Engineers Australia at its meeting in Hobart in 1926. G.A. Julius President - front row centre, W.Poole Councillor - second row centre, A.J. Gibson Councillor - back row fourth from right.

Central Inventions Board

During World War II, George Julius served on the Central Inventions Board, the Australian Council for Aeronautics ( as chairman ) and the Army inventions Directorate. Again quoting from the Daily Telegraph 7 April, 1945:

"People often make the most absurd suggestions ... Someone suggested we should freeze the clouds so that no bombs would drop through. He did not say how it was to be done."

Sir George Julius remained active as a committee representative until his death.

George Julius received many honours, including the highest award of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, the Peter Nichol Russell Medal in 1927. He was knighted in 1929, primarily for his work with the CSIR and received the W.C. Kernot Medal from the University of Melbourne in 1939. In 1940 he was awarded a DSc by the University of New Zealand.

Sir George Julius retired in 1945 and died on 28 June 1947.

On the 10th January 2004 I received an email from Kevin Shaw. Following is an extract -

I am active in the Ryde District Historical Society and, of course, we have the old ATL factory in our district. It is on the Ryde heritage list and when we do bus tours, we take people to see it. I was also an employee of CSIRO for 31 years without ever knowing that there was a connection between George Julius and Meadowbank. Do you know there is now a Julius Avenue at Riverside Corporate Park, the CSIRO development at North Ryde?

Kevin confirmed that Julius Avenue was named after George.

There is another Julius memorial street name. It is Julius Road in Canberra on Black Mountain.

Acknowledgements

• Information has been extracted from Automatic Totalisators company magazines and documents.
• Thanks to Max Anderson, Frank Matthews and Max Sherrard, for allowing me to quote from the book From Tote to Cad published by Julius Poole & Gibson.
• 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

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