CHAPTER
1
THE HISTORY OF MELOCCO BROS PTY LTD AND ITS FOUNDERS
by JOHN P.MELOCCO
Peter
Melocco, the oldest of three brothers, left his birthplace “Toppo” in the
province of Friuli, north east Italy, in 1893 at the age of ten years.
At a Lantern Slide Evening at his club, “The Independent Order of Oddfellows”,
an Australian guest showed glowing pictures of Sydney, featuring the new Anthony
Horderns building on Brickhill. Peter was impressed and after further enquiries,
decided
to
make Australia
his new home.
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After
visiting his parents in Italy for a short holiday, Peter arrived in Sydney
on 6th May 1908, with ten shillings in his pocket. Within three days he had
arranged accommodation at Mrs McCabe’ s Boarding House at 242 Glebe
Point Rd Forest
Lodge and a job as tile layer for G. E. Crane & Sons. By October of that
year, Peter commenced his own working operations at 16 Regent Street, Redfern
and Melocco Bros Pty Ltd was inaugurated.
Anthony the second brother, joined Peter in 1910, in time to help complete
the firm’ s first major work at the Irish Saints’ Altar in St Mary’ s Cathedral.
Anthony learned his trade in Paris and had spent some two years in New
York, before coming to
Sydney.
At
about this time the company moved to new premises in Parramatta Road near
Ross Street, opposite the University grounds, where a suitable showroom was
provided for clients to inspect and select from samples of the various products
the firm was producing. These rented premises were occupied until 1919, when
the firm purchased
the property of Moodie Bros, builders, at No.1 Booth Street, Annandale.
The third brother
Galliano arrived in Sydney with Anthony in 1910 as a 12 year old school boy.
The three brothers lived together for several years in a rented house as a
family, each with their own domestic duties. Galliano (Galli) was well educated
and chose to follow a different calling to his older brothers. Galli served
an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer and went to sea for several years
as a Ship’s Engineer. It was not until approximately 1926 that Galli joined
the firm.
In 1918 Anthony
Horderns ceased operations in the marble industry and Peter and Anthony negotiated
the purchase of all their equipment, machinery and surplus stock which was
transferred and set up at Booth Street, Annandale. This gave the company the
opportunity to take the lead in the marble industry in Sydney, which it still
holds today.
The labour force
throughout all the years of the company has been very mixed with many Australian
skilled tradesmen. Although Italians did predominate at times, only English
was permitted to be spoken in the factory and on site. It is and always has
been a strictly Australian Company.
The
thirties brought great hardship. To maintain employment for the tradesmen,
all types of construction work were taken on. Galli proposed concrete roadwork
and Road Constructors Pty Ltd was formed with Galli in charge. A great number
of DMR (Dept of Main Roads now RTA) and Council contracts were successfully
completed. These activities led by various steps to the company’ s involvement
in pre—mixed concrete.
Italians generally,
were not popular in Australia in the 1930, especially with the activities
of Benito Mussolini. The company now had high exposure and was the subject
of great racial prejudice by the press. Smith’s Weekly an outspoken publication
at the time, produced a savage attack on the company with a long series of
cartoons, depicting a monster grabbing all available Public Works Projects
having Mafia control.
It was also a time
of increased competition with below cost tendering, to pick up
With the advent
of World War II, concrete work became the major product. Some pre—cast terrazzo
for hospitals, domestic and industrial use, maintained work in the factory.
The demand for the finer trades disappeared altogether.
Certified Concrete
had its start in 1941 with a modern batching plant constructed at Wigram street,
Annandale on property next door to the Booth street factory. Road Constructors
worked on munition plants and vital roads all through New South Wales. In
spite of the company’s contribution to the war effort, a number of Italian
employee’s were interned for the duration of the war, in fact the Principal
of the company, Peter Melocco, was interned at Orange Showground for the initial
five weeks of Italy’s entry into the war.
Australia’ s industrial
growth at the end of the war, required many new factories with their concrete
floors. This became the company’ s main activity up to the end of the fifties.
Pre—cast and in-situ terrazzo for Hospitals and Retail Stores was in increasing
demand. The finer trades, marble, scagliola etc., did not pick up in demand
until the early fifties, with the start of the city office building boom.
Nevertheless, the post war years were years of tremendous growth.
In
May 1959 operations on the Nepean River of a new sand and gravel extraction
plant commenced. Yarramundi Properties Pty Ltd was the subsidiary company
formed to handle this new development in the company’s activities and is subject
to a separate report.
Certified Concrete
had by this time developed to a very large consumer of sand and aggregate
for its operations of over one thousand cubic yards of concrete per day. This
volume of material was purchased from Blue Metal Industries Pty Ltd, a virtual
monopoly in the Sydney area.
The successful
production by Yarramundi Properties was not only a threat to Blue Metal Industries
but also to all other concrete and aggregate producers. In essence at that
time, the company held the key to the whole industry, as the only company
in the Sydney area to produce both concrete, sand and aggregate.
A number of Public
Companies including Ready Mixed Concrete, Standard Cement, Hawksley Pacific,
Boral and Blue Metal Industries made a concerted approach to Melocco Bros
for an amalgamation or takeover.
Peter Melocco had
at this time become terminally ill, so negotiations were left to Galli and
the writer, the son of Peter. Negotiations were very difficult and carried
on for approximately eight months. Finally in March 1960 for a consideration
of 1,580,000 BMI shares, all companies including the parent company Melocco
Bros were sold outright. So ended the fifty two years of combined effort of
many good men and true.
Peter died in 1961 and Galli remained with the company and became a Director of BMI.
JOHN P. MELOCCO
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