George Bourne & Associates
Barcaldine was the headquarters for the engineering firm of George Bourne and Associates, consultants for eight shires. The business developed from the enterprise of C. H. Wilson, the firm established in 1945 by Mr Clem and Nick Wilson under the name of CH Wilson and Partners. Wilson came to Barcaldine in March 1938 as officer in charge of Barcaldine Division of the Main Roads, in 1945 setting himself up as an independent consulting engineer. His expertise became sought after by a wide area of western shires. He was an innovative practical man. An experimental strip of bitumen laid in 1939 under his direction directly onto black soil on the Barcaldine-Blackall road lasted 30 years.
George Bourne worked with Wilson from 1947 and became his partner in 1960. In 1968, the Wilson family left Barcaldine and sold their shares in the firm to George Bourne and he took over the business in 1969 when Wilson retired. George later changed the business name to George Bourne & Associates, and Kevin Kerr joined the firm. Kerr carried on when Bourne died suddenly in 1981 and was joined by Simon Bourne (George’s son) the following year. George Bourne was an untiring worker for the community, a Scouting leader, an Anglican church warden and was involved with the Golf Club, Barcaldine Club and P and H Society.
With Kevin Kerr’s retirement in 2006, the partners believed it timely to record the history of the Western Queensland Consulting Engineering practice, known as GBA and Associates. The result was the publishing of Engineering the Outback, a wonderful read for anyone interested in life in outback Queensland shires from both a social and engineering perspective.
The company’s information package (November 2016) states:
The firm provides engineering and allied services to shire and regional councils and other clients within the Local Government areas of the Barcaldine, Blackall/Tambo, Boulia, Diamantina, Longreach, Quilpie, Cloncurry, Burke, Winton, and Central Highlands Shires. Thirty four people are employed, while specialists are retained on a short-term basis according to need. It uses three aircraft to service a client base of local authorities as well as the Department of Transport and Main Roads and many private clients. The work undertaken by the firm has diversified to a great extent. Roads are still its core business, but the firm now regularly finds itself involved with many other tasks because the range of projects undertaken by its clients has broadened as councils, in particular, have accepted wider responsibilities and have gained access to additional funding to help meet those requirements. The total area regularly serviced by the firm becomes a region of 512,316 square kilometres (approximately twice the size of the state of Victoria), with an estimated total population of 20,000. Partners are Simon Bourne, Graeme Wills, Keith Luckhurst, Michael Donald, Stuart Bourne & Jason Ricks.
Barcaldine Steel Works/ Engineering Works
