John Fell (industrialist)

He was the principal of John Fell & Company and was, for many years, the Managing Director of Commonwealth Oil Corporation, which he revived from receivership.

He was the son of Alexander Morrison Fell, Senior (1825–1890) and his wife Margaret (née Ferguson) (1828–1901)[2] He migrated to Australia, with his parents during the 1870s.

Alexander Morrison Fell, Senior, was an important figure in the Scottish shale oil industry, at the time the most advanced and largest in the world.

In 1860, contributing shale mining leasehold in lieu of capital, Alexander had become a partner in the West Calder Oil Company, and its manager.

[8][6][9][10][11][12] Aside from his role in the shale oil industry, James Fell was a founder of the North Shore Gas Company in Sydney.

Fell spent some time outside the oil industry, while involved in setting up two plants for the production of condensed milk, in the Shoalhaven region of New South Wales, at Bomaderry and Coolangatta Estate.

The company encountered technical difficulties with its process and, as well, was subject to numerous and protracted industrial disputes with its workforce, particularly its miners.

Fell was an acknowledged expert in the processing of oil, and it was during a visit made by him to England that the COC approached him to assist in rectifying the problems at Newnes.

The retorts that the COC used were designed to process Scottish shale, with a far lower oil content that the very rich shale—grading up to 150 imperial gallons per long ton—mined at Newnes.

Fell became interested in taking over the ailing business, but first constructed four retorts to his own design to prove that the oil-rich shale could be processed successfully.

[49]Under an agreement with the receiver of Commonwealth Oil Corporation, Fell took over the administration of the business in late 1914, with plans to produce ‘benzine’ (petrol) as fuel for motor cars, as well as kerosene, lubricants, and other petroleum products.

However, he did remove from Hartley Vale some storage tanks—relocated to his lubricating oil refinery at Gore Bay (Sydney)—and pipework that was destined for Newnes.

[69] By the first decade of the 20th century, Australia imported a large proportion of its petroleum as finished product, increasingly fuel for motor cars.

In 1897,[71] a small refinery company, Mathilda, began oil drilling at Balikpapan in the Dutch-ruled part of the island of Borneo.

In December 1910, Shell struck oil with their first drill hole, on a rich oilfield at Miri, in Sarawak, also on the island of Borneo.

British Imperial Oil Company Limited (part of Shell) had bought land—adjacent to what would later be the site of the John Fell & Co. refinery—at Gore Bay, Greenwich, as an import terminal.

[79] The Newnes plant was still not operating to its full capacity in March 1917, at least partially due to a lack of ‘efficient labour’, despite pay rises having been given.

[80] During the First World War, the Commonwealth Government paid a subsidy in the form of a bonus amount on each gallon of oil produced.

There seemed to be little concern from the union leadership about the precarious financial position of the Newnes operations; in fairness to the miners, mining the narrow seams of shale was difficult and hazardous.

[89] Fell had little choice but to shut the remaining oil refining operations at Newnes, on 22 February 1924, with the loss of 80 jobs.

[92] Later in 1925, Fell would build a new refinery at Clyde, in Sydney, and would reuse some material and equipment from COC assets, at Newnes and Torbane, in its construction.

He was quoted as saying, in 1922, during one of the later of the many industrial disputes, “I leave this valley with nothing, the miners have got the lot, including my investment in the enterprise out of my own pocket.”[52][82][97][98] In 1928, four years after the closure, Fell was reported as declaring, "I tried hard enough to succeed, and if anyone thinks they can do so they are welcome to try", and that, "Newnes is as dead as Julius Caesar".

In July 1930, he sold Commonwealth Oil Corporation's assets at Newnes, the refinery and the railway, to the companies in the consortium of the Broken Hill Associated Smelters.

Unemployed miners rushed to Newnes in search of work, in February 1931,[103] at the height of the Great Depression, but the 'reopening' was brief, with a relatively small amount of oil—around 200,000 gallons—made in 1931 and early 1932, by the government-backed Shale Oil Development Committee.

By the mid 1930s, the Wolgan Valley was almost depopulated and what remained of its huge industrial complex, and most of its mining township, was subsiding into ruins.

[86] John Fell and Company operated refineries on Gore Bay at Greenwich and at Clyde on the Parramatta River, both in Sydney.

The site had access to the rail network and a river frontage, to where crude oil unloaded from tankers in Sydney Harbour, at Gore Bay, could be brought by barge, and plenty of land for subsequent expansion.

From 1902, the offices of John Fell & Company were in a building at 117–119 George Street, Sydney, which is now heritage listed and occupied by the Julian Ashton Art School.

[131][132][133] Their eldest son was John Simpson Fell (1894–1927), an engineer, who served in the First World War, and who died as a result of an explosion at Clyde refinery.

[37] They gave a very similar name, 'Rostrevor', to another house, with a notable garden, where the family lived for many years, from around 1906, at 16 Point Road, in the harbour-side Sydney suburb of Northwood.