Hume Pipes - a world-first technology that began at Mile End South
The Hume pipe factory occupied a site on the north-eastern corner of South and Richmond roads, Mile End South, from 1912 to 1987. The factory was the birthplace of 'Humespun' concrete pipes, a pioneering technology that spread from Adelaide to many parts of the world.
Walter Hume, building on his knowledge that painted fence sections could be dried most efficiently by using centrifugal force (spinning them in a drum), adapted the principle to constructing pipes. Under Hume’s proposal, concrete would be fed into a rapidly spinning cylindrical mould; the centrifugal force generated would produce a pipe that was densely packed, waterproof, relatively lightweight, resistant to corrosion and stronger than conventional concrete.
Hume later found that adding reinforced wire mesh to the mould made the pipe even more durable.
The Humespun pipe has been referred to as one of the 50 most important Australian technical and/or scientific innovations.
By 1920 the company had produced more than 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometres) of pipe at Mile End South for use largely in South Australian drainage, sewerage and other projects for different levels of government. (Government-funded projects were by far Humes’s major source of business).
From the early 1920s the company also broadened its range of Australian outputs to include concrete products such as fence and street posts, footpath paving slabs, kerbing, septic tanks, stormwater drains, troughs and verandah columns. But nationally pipes still accounted for around 93% of Hume’s total output.
Hume Pipes' largest South Australian project of the 1920s was the manufacturing of pipes for the Loveday soldier settler irrigation project in the Riverland.
Hume set up a 40-acre (16.2 hectare) plant at Loveday – transporting pipes from Adelaide would have been too expensive – to create what the State Government and the company called ‘the largest pipe works in the world’.
The Mile End South plant remained central to Hume’s South Australian operations, producing hundreds of miles of concrete pipe during the 1920s. Employment at the plant varied over the decade, with around 35 men in constant employment, rising to 80 in times of higher demand.
In March 1921, Hume Pipes built a railway siding adjacent to the plant, linking it directly to the Mile End goods yard. Hume’s South Australian state managers in the 1920s were J.E. Ross (January 1921 to March 1925) and T.W. Carey (March 1925-August 1929). W.E. Fisher was works manager at Mile End South for the first half of the 1920s followed by J.R. Morris.
In the early 1920s Walter Hume discovered methods of both curving steel sheets to form pipes and of using new arc welding technology to fuse pipes longitudinally and then to join lengths of pipes together.
In November 1923 Hume set up a national company, Hume Steel Ltd, to exploit the new development (until 1932 steel plate was obtained from Britain and after that largely from the BHP Company in Australia).
Hume Steel’s largest South Australian contracts of the 1920s were won in March 1926 and March 1927 when the company was paid £310,000 to manufacture 104 miles (167.4 kms) of pipe for the Tod River waterworks scheme on the Eyre Peninsula.
Much of the piping was manufactured at a temporary plant at Cape Thevenard, though the Mile End South plant shared a part of the load.
In a £21,000 contract fulfilled at Mile End South from mid-1928, Hume Steel Ltd manufactured a portion of the 3,000 tons of concrete and steel pipes for use in the Glenelg Sewerage Works.
By the end of the 1930s, Hume had manufactured around 200 miles (321.9 kms) of steel piping in South Australia.
During the Second World War, most of Hume’s Australian plants were occupied mainly in producing military requirements, particularly munitions. During the War, Hume made approximately 1.5 million pounds (680,389 kgs) of munitions.
Munitions manufacture was dominant in South Australia but only after 1942.
Before that Hume was involved, with other companies, in what the State Government of the day called ‘the state’s greatest developmental undertaking’. A precondition for the BHP company establishing ship building facilities at Whyalla was that a pipeline must be built from Morgan to Whyalla, guaranteeing adequate water supplies to the town. Around two-thirds of the pipes required were manufactured at a temporary plant at Port Pirie, where about 200 men were employed, and the remainder at Mile End South, where 70 were employed. The contract was completed in December 1941.
By 1940 Hume’s Mile End South site covered 17.41 acres (circa 7.05 hectares) in total.
The highlight of the decade for Humes’s Mile End South factory came in early 1950 when it won one half of the £1.75 million contract to build steel pipes for the £4 million Mannum to Adelaide pipeline. (Mephan Ferguson won the other half).
In 1964, Hume opened state head office premises on the southern side of West Beach Road (now Richmond Road), on the eastern corner of Chatham Road, directly opposite the factory.
Although Humes’s profit results for the second half of the 1960s were somewhat mixed, generally the decade brought strong results for the company: it remained, in its own words of the time, ‘the biggest concrete and steel pipe maker in the southern hemisphere’.
In 1968 the company’s plant at Mile End South plant was extended to allow for the manufacture of the 75 miles (120.7 kilometres) of 22 inch (0.56 metres) diameter steel pipe required for a portion of the new Adelaide to Moomba natural gas pipeline.
Perhaps responding in part to inflationary pressures, in sales of November 1974 and December 1976 Humes sold a a little less than an acre of its Birmingham Street property to private interests for a total of $671,000. After earlier sales to the Crown for road purposes, Humes was left with approximately 10.82 acres (4.38 hectares) of its original site.
In November 1980 Humes sold just under 7 acres (2.8 hectares) of the site to a private company for $695,000, leaving Humes with 3.92 acres (1.59 hectares). The sale was at least in part a response to Humes’s tendency during the 1960s and 1970s to divert a higher proportion of its work to the eastern states.
Early in 1987, Australian-owned Smorgon Consolidated Industries (SCI) spent $346 million to assume 46% share ownership of the company and thereby effective control. In August 1988, SCI spent a further $375 million to take 91.81% ownership of Humes Ltd. SCI closed the Mile End South plant at the end of 1987 – one of several Australian plants it closed at the time – and in June 1988 sold the site to the State Government Insurance Commission (SGIC) for $2.65 million. Today the site, at 101 Richmond Road is occupied by the Royal Automobile Association (RAA) of South Australia (Inc.).
Humes’s former offices premises on the southern side of Richmond Road were sold in April 1988 for $510,000.
SCI broke up Humes Ltd from late 1987. SCI took over Humes’s former steel division while in 1989 the plastics division was sold to James Hardie Industries. After several changes of ownership, since September 2017, the steel division has been a part of the British-owned GFC Alliance Group, while the plastics division has been absorbed into the Australian-owned Iplex group. SCI sold Humes Ltd’s pipe making and concrete products component to the Australian company CSR Ltd in September 1988 for about $140 million.
In May 1989 CSR Ltd sold almost 90% of the former Humes’s Pooraka land to private interests for $1.315 million. CSR did, however, retain around 6 acres (2.43 hectares) of the property. After a series of ownership changes, today the former Hume pipe and concrete divisions are owned by Swiss building materials giant, the Holcim Group.
In Adelaide the former Humes property at Pooraka has been retained over the years by its various owners; today it’s known as Humes – Adelaide.
West Torrens Historical Society Inc. (G. Grainger, 2022)
Every effort has been made to provide complete and accurate information, please advise of any errors or omissions.