Horses

Well hung.

Roderick B Smith
retired RNV editor

If we load more on the front it will fix this!

110519Th Naivasha (Kenya): Donkey cart. (Roderick Smith)
This was taken during a charter tour for railway enthusiasts, mostly from UK.

Roderick.

Do's not do much work

Korumburra working horse display.

We went to Korumburra too

If you run out of horses!

Looks not unlike something I backed at Mooney Valley on the weekend................................

Roderick.

Bills troughs a lasting animal care legacy.
Herald Sun February 20, 2017.
YOU can lead a horse to water and, thanks to Melbourne philanthropist George Bills, it can have a drink even if you can’t make it do so.
George Bills and his wife Annis made their fortune in manufacturing but their legacy — hundreds of water troughs for horses and other animals all over Australia, and bequests to animal welfare agencies — still echo 90 years after Mr Bills died.
George, known around old Melbourne as Joe, was born in Brighton, England, in 1859 and, after moving to New Zealand for a time, settled in Victoria in 1873.
George Bills, the widower who left his fortune animal welfare. Picture: Supplied.
One of the troughs in Omeo.
He was taken by the beauty of Australia’s fauna, and with his brothers soon followed in their father’s footsteps and established a bird export business, which they opened in Echuca.
The business grew into a company that manufactured wire products — bird cages, door mats and innerspring mattresses, and took him to Sydney and Brisbane before he resettled in Hawthorn.
Joe met English-born Annis Swann and the couple married in 1885.
They were childless but both were devoted to animal rights and joined the Victorian Society for the Protection of Animals, a forerunner to today’s RSPCA.
Horses, particularly working horses and their treatment, were high in their consciousness.
Joe retired from the business in 1908 and he and Annis split their time between Melbourne, Britain and Europe, enjoying their fortune.
In 1909, the couple donated a small number of water troughs for the benefit of working horses plying the streets of Melbourne.
The following year, while on a trip to England, Annis died.
Joe returned to Hawthorn, and continued the couple’s devotion to animal welfare.
A Bills trough in action at Cowra, NSW. Picture: News Corp Australia
Korong Vale’s trough still stands.
He remained an active member of the VSPA, and regularly visited some horses near his home, always with a treat for them.
Joe was appointed a life governor of the VPSA in 1924 for his philanthropy. That generosity towards animals continued after Joe’s death.
In his last will and testament, signed in 1925, he dedicated the remainder of his estimated £80,000 ($6.23 million) estate, after personal bequests and annuities were paid, to easing the suffering of animals around the world.
Along with donations to the VPSA and other animal welfare agencies in Australia and the UK, Joe instructed his trustees to build and erect horse troughs “wherever they may be of opinion that such horse troughs are necessary or desirable for the relief of horses or other dumb animals either in Australasia in the British Islands or in any other part of the world”.
He died in December 1927, aged 68.
One of the troughs remains at Prince Alfred Park, Parramatta.
From 1930 to 1939, between 500 and 700 concrete troughs were built, mostly to a standard design by Rocla Concrete Pipes Ltd in Auburn Road, Hawthorn.
All were inscribed, “Donated by Annis & George Bills Australia”.
They cost £13 (around $1018 today) to construct before shipping and installation costs.
Bills troughs took pride of place on busy thoroughfares, outside town halls and pubs, and places such as markets where animals would be gathered.
Most were scattered through Victoria and NSW, but a handful made it as far as Britain and the United States.
In later years, some were relocated for road widening or were preserved in museums, but a blog established by Stanhope amateur historian George Gemmi ll and dedicated to the troughs lists more than 300 locations where they can still be found.
Many remain dotted through Melbourne and the suburbs.
National Trust Victoria’s advocacy manager, Felicity Watson, says Bills troughs are treasures.
“The remaining horse troughs funded by the bequest of George Bills are an evocative reminder of another era of transport, before horse-drawn vehicles were superseded by the motor car,” she said.
“They are now becoming rarer, and more than a dozen examples across Victoria are now heritage protected.”
But Joe Bills animal welfare legacy is much greater than the troughs that bore his name.
His VSPA was one of a number of rival animal welfare groups in Victoria and around the nation, but Joe’s financial support is partly credited with uniting them and creating today’s RSPCA.
The RSPCA’s Burwood headquarters.
A dog kennel and rest home for horses was established in Preston in 1934 on land bought through a substantial Bills Trust donation.
The sale of this site five years later allowed for the purchase of the land in Burwood East where the RSPCA’s national headquarters and two Bills troughs now stand.
Another big donation allowed the RSPCA to establish the George Bills animal rescue shelter at the RSPCA in Burwood East in 1964.
Nine decades after his passing, Joe Bills and his love of animals still makes the world a better place.
INSIDE THE SLUMS OF 1930s MELBOURNE.
HOW AUSTRALIA’S MOST-LOVED FOODS WERE BORN.
A history of Melbourne.
WHAT KIDS WERE INTO BEFORE IPADS.
HOW A MELBOURNE ICON CAME TO BE.
< www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/melbourne...c2bede4227be86c8d078 >
< billswatertroughs.wordpress.com > - with an album of photos.

Just one from the article.

And considering this is a truck site I must recall several letters to the editor of the Advertiser over a period of days in the late 70's that related to horses and trucks.
The first made comment about the amount of pollution made by the trucks using Port Road, Adelaide.
The second, several days later and referencing the first, said considering the tonnage transported it was not an unreasonable amount of pollution when one considered the same tonnage moved by horses and carts would have seen Port Road knee deep in sh*t.
But better was to come the following day when another reader highlighted the fact that most heavy haulage had been done with bullock drays. Also, as a bullock drops about three times as much as a horse, and for the same tonnage, it would have seen Port Road waist deep in excrement!! :blink: