Reviews
Hudson Brothers A History of Hudson Brothers Carpenters, Engineers & Manufacturers 1866-1898 by David Jehan. Published by SCR Publications, PO Box 345, Matraville 2036. Ph: 02 9311 2036. Website: www. australianmodelrailways.com.Price: $75.00.
Sydney author and engineer, David Jehan, has written a number of books with railway themes, including the 2015 publication addressing the history of Tulloch Engineering. Now he has turned his attention to the seminal Sydney manufacturing firm, Hudson Brothers, a hallowed name for those with an interest in the rolling stock of NSW railways. This firm had many more irons in the fire than railway manufacturing though and this volume lucidly chronicles the firm’s complete history, railways and all.
With a fluid writing style, a plethora of mouth-watering photographs, plus numerous drawings and diagrams, the author describes one of Australia’s most important industrial enterprises of the nineteenth century, the tentacles of which extended a long way into the twentieth.
One can only admire the pluck of 28 year old Plymouth cabinetmaker, William Henry Hudson who, in 1841, set off on a five month sailing ship voyage to the Antipodes, with wife and three toddlers in tow, to seek a new life. Initially, they tried New Zealand, but conditions weren’t entirely to their liking and they headed for Sydney
