Bill Hamilton lived out the dreams of a boy

Press, 7 April 1978, Page 13

Bill Hamilton lived out the dreams of a boy

By

MIKE HANNAH

About the turn of the century a small boy played with a canoe in the creeks of the Mackenzie country, dreaming of a boat which could travel upstream. Almost half a century later he built such a boat — small and light, but powerful enough to tackle any river in the world.

Such was the legend which Surrounded Sir William Hamilton, the New Zealand inventor and developer of the jet-boat. Last week, New Zealand lost another of its pioneer breed when Sir William died at the age of 78. The boy who played with a canoe in creeks and swollen streams was born Charles William Feilden Hamilton at Ashwick Station, Fairlie. He was educated at Waihi School, Winchester, and Christ’s College, Christchurch, but it was to Ashwick that he owed the education that encouraged a naturally inventive mind. It was the land that gave Bill Hamilton the opportunity to exploit his mechanical genius. In 1921, he bought the Irishman Creek station and it was there that he established his first workshop — the forerunner of the Hamilton group of companies.

The opportunity arose when a 17.5 kw hydro-elec-tric plant, which he had bought to provide light and heat to the station, failed in the bitterly cold winter of 1927. He decided to build a dam to take water for the plant from below the ice.

Conventional earthmoving scoops proved inadequate, so he invented and built his own more efficient model. The Depression years saw him take

out contracting jobs for aerodromes and licensing the machine overseas in order to help make ends meet.

The appointment of a station manager left Bill Hamilton free to devote his time to his workshop, and the following years witnessed the production of many more inventions — including an air conditioning plant which was prompted by his daughter’s hay fever. Towards the end of the Second World War the demand for agricultural and earth-moving machinery increased: he moved his business to Bath Street, Christchurch. A few years later he moved again, this time to the 10-acre site in Middleton, now occupied by C.W.F. Hamilton and Company, Ltd. Bulldozers, scrapers, hydraulic machinery, and the intake gates for many of the country’s hydro-elec-tric power schemes have come from these premises. Sir William was essentially a self-taught engineer. He spent evenings and nights at his drawing board, doodling and designing, approaching problems in an unorthodox way, but producing machines consistent with the best engineering practices.

Perhaps his greatest

asset was his talent for invention, coupled with a drive and tenacity of purpose that thrived on challenge. His early interest in car racing possibly reflected a need for the stimulation of challenge and danger. Just as he took risks vying for

speed records, so he also took calculated risks in building machines that had to pay their own way, for lack of capital that might have allowed experimentation.

After a visit to. England in 1923 he brought back a Sunbeam racing car, which he entered in the New Zealand Motor Cup from 1925 to 1928.

He had instant success, winning the 50-mile cup race and becoming the first New Zealander officially to exceed 100 m.p.h. In 1928, he won ’ the Dominion Speed Cup, setting another record of 109.09 m.p.h. Back in England the next year, he entered a Bentley in the Brooklands Easter Meeting and became the first to win three races on the same day, lapping the course at 109 m.p.h. His reputation for speed on the track grew so much that back home, when a neighbour was stopped for speeding in a Bentley, the traffic officer approached with a look of triumph on his face, and said: “Mr Hamilton, I presume?”

He also brought back a bride to New Zealand in 1923: Peggy Wills, an English girl with a perceptive sense of humour. She had told him that she could not cook. “I don’t want

you to cook,” he had replied. “I want you to help with the sheep work.” He welcomed women in jobs that were usually considered a man’s prerogative, and expected of a woman a certain equality with men. He would set them to overhaul cars,

and in the pioneering days of the jet-boat encouraged them to take solo rides. Lady Hamilton remembers his generosity, his encouragement of people to get the best out of them, and a calmness bordering on reticence in the face of success and failure alike. He attracted able men to his workshop and built up a nucleus of excellent craftsmen. Eric Chapman, New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Australia since 1973, was offered the

position of general manager when he was released from the Navy in 1943. Sir William had met Mr Chapman while the latter was convalescing in Albury after he was invalided from the Achilles in the River Plate battle. He was knighted in 1974 for his valuable service to manufacturing, but he would attribute his success to a “grand team of chaps.” They would be the first, however, to give credit to the talent of Sir William Hamilton.