Robert Allan, Wheelwright

Image: Model of Robert Allan's Mining Safety Cage. Federation University Historical Collection (Cat. No. 12403)

Image: Detail of the Model of Robert Allan's Mining Safety Cage. Federation University Historical Collection (Cat. No. 12403)

Image: Top Detail of the Model of Robert Allan's Mining Safety Cage. Federation University Historical Collection (Cat. No. 12403)

Background

Robert Allan was a Ballarat Wheelwright and machine maker. A skilled craftsman in wood and iron and an engineer who built and repaired carriages and carts and mining equipment at his business on Creswick Road, he had invented a mining safety cage in 1875-78 which went into use in all the goldfields in Victoria saving many lives. A Model of the safety cage is held by the Federation University Historical Collection.

Innovations

A mining safety cage was used in a mine lift. It was fitted with mechanisms to prevent the cage from dropping if the lifting rope broke. In the 1870s in Victoria, deaths and injuries from falling cages in vertical shafts of gold mines were a major problem. Robert Allan, a machinery maker of Creswick Rd, Ballarat invented a Mining Safety cage featuring a ‘dissolving’ fulcrum. Others called it an eccentric (off centre) system. A pair of clutch levers weredesigned to grab the side guides if tension ceases in the suspending rope from the poppet head pulley. Also, the hinged ‘lids’ were designed to protect miners trapped in a braked cage from falling rope, and to enable rescue of the miners. A model of the Allan Safety Cage was presented to The Ballarat School of Mines Council in November 1876. This model was shown at the Smeaton Show in November 1874, Ballarat School of Mines Education from 1976, and examined by the 1879 Victorian Board of Inquiry (Pg 15 of FEdUni Catalogue 3437)

At Smeaton Show, Robert Allan of Ballarat won 1st prize for a Model of a Mining Cage, a Butter working machine, a Cheese press and a Curd Mill.

By 1878 an Allan Safety-Cage was in operation in the Number 6 shaft of the Band and Albion Consols mine in Ballarat. This cage was judged the best inspected by the Victorian Board of Inquiry by 1879, p. 39.

External Links

Model of the Allan Safety Cage - https://victoriancollections.net.au/manage/catalogue/items/56caa09c2162f12b9c28e1d6

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--Clare K.Gervasoni 17:22, 1 June 2020 (AEST)