Cornish & Bruce was a railway contracting company in Victoria, Australia in the mid nineteenth century.
The company also instigated a system of payment by truck which led to protests and strikes in July 1858, and forced the Stonemasons' Society to agree to terms by importing four hundred German masons in November 1860.
[2] They opened the line to Sunbury on 13 January 1859, despite having to build a temporary timber bridge due to the mason's strike.
[1] Bruce moved his main works to Castlemaine by 3 March 1859 and in 1860 established a large foundry to manufacture railway rolling stock.
There were accusations against Cornish and Bruce, that they used inferior materials and submitting false measurements, which led to a select committee investigation in 1859 under John Woods.