H H (Bert) Murray

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at Reunion 2000.
Bert Murray started his business, HH Murray Transport, in Balgownie, NSW in 1930.  His first truck, a 1927 T Model Ford, was used to haul timber and bricks which came by steamer to Port Kembla.
This was a period in Australia when motor transport was thought to be little more than a passing phase by those still using draught animals for freight movements.  Bert believed trucks did have a good future and expanded his business to include his sons, Colin and Arthur.  The company became Murray & Sons.At the peak of operations the fleet included a Morris ute, two International Coos, two Whites, an Indiana and a Chevrolet.  The Murrays built their own timber jinker and it was soon being used as a prototype by other carriers.  The jinker was crude by today's standards but certainly workable considering it had to be constructed from whatever materials could be obtained at the time. It boasted an axle, the differential from a republic truck and the winches were modelled from the diff of T-Model Fords. In the ten years before it ceased operation the Murrays worked as saw millers and carted their own wood from the tablelands to the Balgownie sawmill.  Bert's son, Arthur Murray, later said you could always tell these early trucks were fitted with cable brakes because of the huge dents at the back of the driver's seat from pushing the brake pedal as hard as possible to the floor.Murray & Sons ceased operations in 1942 due to wartime restrictions.  Colin and Arthur Murray then spent the war years working for the Darwin Overland Maintenance Force (DOMF) on the historic construction of the Stuart Highway from Alice to Darwin in the Northern Territory during WW11.