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 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.

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Automatic Totalisators

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.

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

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."

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.

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.

totehis@hotmail.com