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Thank you from
Gravesites of Tasmania. |
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AKUBRA
 Benjamin Dunkerley was born
1840 in
Cheshire
England
. He became a hatter and developed
such skill with hat making machinery that he visited Germany from time to time
to help manufacturers there set up operations.
In 1874 Benjamin left
England
for
Tasmania
to check out the hatting prospects. Satisfied
that he could make a go of it independently, he asked his wife Harriet to join
him the following year with the children. The
family lived in
Hobart
where another three children (Ada Harriet 1877, Florence 1879 and Gertrude
Alice 1881) were born to them. It
was here that Benjamin later devised a piece of machinery that would cut the
hair tip from the rabbit fur used in hat making.
Before then the job had been done tediously by hand.
The family was living at this time at a property called
St. Helena
which is now part of the Wrest Point Hotel complex.
Benjamin went back to
England
to patent his invention. It should
have made him, if not a fortune, at least a reasonably sound amount of money.
But Benjamin Dunkerley came out of the venture badly, losing a
considerable amount of money. He was
a clever inventor, a good hat manufacturer but not a businessman.
In the late 1880’s Dunkerley
moved his fur cutting and machinery business from
Tasmania
to
Sydney
and set up a small hat factory in
Crown Street
, Surrey Hills. He continued to
supply rabbit fur and machinery to hatters throughout
Australia
.
Soon to join him in business
was a young Englishman, Stephen Keir. He
was born in Lancashire in 1879 and arrived in
Sydney
in 1902 to join the hat firm, Chas Anderson and Co.
He was there for two years, but not impressed by the way the firm was
run, he resigned and started work for Benjamin Dunkerley.
Things went well, he was a diligent worker who caught the boss’s eye
and also the eye of the boss’s daughter
Ada
. Stephen Keir married
Benjamin Dunkerley’s daughter
Ada
in 1905 at the
Paddington
Methodist
Church
. Benjamin was so impressed with his
son in law that soon after his marriage to
Ada
, he made him general manager of the Hatting Company.
The Australian slouch hat was
designed by Colonel Tom Price in 1885 and was originally worn turned up at the
right hand side to enable the troops to look their inspection officers in the
eye. It was first worn by the
Victorian Mounted Rifles but by 1890 the whole of the Australian Horse wore the
hat with the brim turned up on the left hand side to assist in arms drill.
With the introduction of the present service rifle there is no longer any
need to have the brim turned up at all, however tradition is still maintained
and it is turned up on the left.
 The factory received a
business boost in World War 1 when it was obliged to supply diggers’ hats.
Apart from sales to the Department of Defence the hats were sold through
a
York Street
warehouse run by Mr. A.P. Stewart. He
had put an amount of capital into the business and the name Akubra
was in vogue after that.
Benjamin Dunkerley died in
1918 knowing he was leaving the Company in the capable hands of his son in law.
In 1919 the Company moved to big new premises at
Bourke Street
,
Waterloo
where the company expanded rapidly. Stephen
Keir became a pillar of the
Burwood
Methodist
Church
and was in fact, one of their trustees.
The rest is history and Akubra hats are now seen in every country and every walk
of life
Original Akubra Hat Box
Silverton NSW
Photographed by Kathie Pert
Qld
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