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Ruskin
A
superb example of the 1935 Morris Ten-Four is that owned by Australian
enthusiasts Colin and Glenyn MacDonald who entered the car in the Morris
Register's 2000 Rally at Ballarat in April.
For readers in the United Kingdom it is interesting to compare the Australian
Ruskin body with its standard Cowley-made contemporary.
Most Morris cars of the period to be seen in Australia, would have bodywork from
one of the many coachbuilders who took advantage of the policy of allowing the
import of motor cars in chassis form while complete cars carried a penal import
duty. One such body builder was Ruskin Motor Bodies Ltd., of Dudley Street, West
Melbourne in Victoria.
Ruskins evolved out of the early Melbourne motor business of Tarrant Motors
which appeared during the first decade of the 20th century, spawning several
operating subsidiaries including Smith's coach building business in Queensbridge
Street, South Melbourne in 1903. Four years later the motor body department
moved to larger premises in Exhibition Street, Melbourne and adopted the title
the “Melbourne
Motor Body Works”.
PHOTO: 1938
Morris 12/4 Series III Coupe with Ruskin Body
In 1909 larger
premises in Lygon Street were acquired when contracts were obtained from Fords.
There followed further expansion with a new factory in Lonsdale Street
during the First World War. In 1925 the Ford contract came to an end when Ford
built their own plant at Geelong and the Melbourne Motor Body Works concentrated
an the manufacture of bodies for a range of British and American car chassis.
In 1929,the trade depression hit hard and a workforce of 400 fell to just 40. In February 1930 the
company changed its name to Ruskin Motor Bodies Pty Ltd. The new name was
derived from that of the famous English author, John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), and
the company exemplified its ideals from the quotation by that author .
"All works of taste must bear a price in proportion to the skill, time
expense and risk attending their invention and manufacture. These things called
dear are, when just estimated, the cheapest. They are attended with much less profit to the artist than those which
everybody calls cheap. A disposition of cheapness and not for excellence of workmanship is most frequent
and certain cause of the decay and destruction of arts and manufacture."
As “Ruskin Motor Bodies Pty Ltd,” bodies were made on numerous chassis
and it would have been during this period that Colin MacDonald’s Ten Four was
bodied.A contract was made with
Morris Motors Ltd. and another with Hudson for their Tarraplane chassis.
These two make accounted for much of the firm’s workload up to the
outbreak of the war when, in common with most of the Australian motor industry,
the company because involved in defence requirements, increasing its workforce
to 600 in the process.
PHOTO: Cowley
built Morris Ten-Four of 1935, wood frame body with pressed steel panels by
Fisher & Ludlow.
PHOTO:
Comparsion of styles. 1935 Morris Ten-Four with Ruskin body owned by Colin and
Glenyn MacDonald.
Some of the export models were supplied with disc wheels as shown here.
The immediate post-war years were given over to the continuance of the pre-war
Hudson contract and there was probably little bodybuilding for Morris in view of
a contract that was signed with the Austin Motor Company in 1945 to build Austin
8 h.p. tourer bodies.
Two years later Austin Motor Company bought the bulk of ordinary shares and
obtained a controlling interest in Ruskin, changing its name to Austin Motor Co.
(Australia) Ltd in 1948. The merger of Austin & Morris to form the British Motor
Corporation in 1952 would eventually, in 1958, see the greater part of the plant
and equipment be transferred to then B.M.C. plant on the site of the former
Victoria Park race course in Sydney, New South Wales.
Harry Edwards
Bibliography
and Photographic credits
The Journal of the Morris Register, Autumn 2000,
Vol.16 No.7