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DUMAS
Sir Russell John DUMAS
DUMAS, SIR RUSSELL JOHN (1887-1975), engineer, was born on 17 January
1887 at Mount Barker, South Australia, one of five children of Charles Morris
Russell Dumas, printer, and his wife Amelia, née Paltridge. (Sir) Lloyd was his
younger brother. After winning a bursary to complete his schooling at Prince
Alfred College, Russell studied engineering at the University of Adelaide
(B.Sc., 1909; Dip.Elec.E., 1910; B.E., 1913; M.E., 1931). On 11 April 1910 he
began work as a draughtsman in the South Australian Engineer-in-Chief's
Department and from July 1912 was employed designing drainage-works at
Naracoorte.
Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force on 26 January 1916, Dumas was
commissioned in June. He served on the Western Front in 1917-18, mainly with the
5th Field Company, Engineers, rose to lieutenant and was twice wounded. His
A.I.F. appointment terminated in Australia on 16 November 1919. Next day he
resumed his former job. As assistant resident engineer (from 1923 resident
engineer), he helped to build locks on the Murray River.
At St Paul's Anglican Church, Naracoorte, on 2 November 1920 Dumas had married
Muriel Elsie Rogers (d.1960), a nurse. With their two children, in 1925 they
moved to Western Australia where he took up an appointment with the Metropolitan
Water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage Department as resident engineer on the
construction of Churchman Brook Reservoir, the first of several proposed dams in
the hills that were designed to supply Perth's demand for water. A number of
similar projects followed its completion in 1928. Between 1929 and 1933 he
directed construction of Drakesbrook and Wellington dams, the raising of Harvey
Weir, and the extension of the Collie and Harvey irrigation areas, all carried
out by sustenance labour. Dumas' own employment was precarious in these
Depression years. In 1930 he was placed on the temporary staff at a reduced
salary and was not reclassified until 1933. Meantime, he chaired (1932) the
Perth division of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. Appointed chief
engineer in the department in 1934, he directed the design and construction of
the Canning, Samson Brook and Stirling dams, and established his reputation. He
had gained his master's degree with a thesis on the design of high masonry dams.
Stirling Dam, at 148 ft (45 m), was the highest earthen dam in Australia. Proud
of these engineering achievements, Dumas was none the less critical of the
State's development process: 'no time or money for preparation, and the designs
and plans barely a nose ahead of construction if they are so much as that'.
'Planning ahead' was needed. It was a tenet he practised as he forged his
career.
Made director of works and buildings in 1941, Dumas became engineering head of
the Public Works Department. He had great faith in his profession. 'Engineering
is the basis of civilisation', he declared, and its greatest work the storage
and distribution of water. Water shortage was Western Australia's most immediate
agricultural problem. The Depression had highlighted the wheat-belt's need for a
comprehensive water-supply to enable farmers to carry sheep as an alternative
source of income. Engineers, among them Dumas, had put various proposals to
provide this service. The preferred scheme—to raise Mundaring Weir and
Wellington Dam—was to become Western Australia's major, postwar public-works
project, involving both the State and Federal governments. The commitment of
Commonwealth funds, finally negotiated in 1947, was primarily Dumas'
achievement.
Having been requested in 1941 to investigate the North-West's potential for
'increased settlement and greater productiveness', Dumas concluded that closer
settlement, through irrigation, was the answer and identified the Ord River as
the most promising site. He promoted the Ord River Scheme and facilitated the
first stages of its development, seeing it as a forerunner of many similar
settlements. His visits to the North in 1941 and 1942 fostered an interest in
that region of the State which strengthened after World War II through his
appointments as chairman of the North-West Development Committee and member of
the Commonwealth Northern Australia Development Committee. From 1949 he was a
powerful supporter of government assistance for I. H. Grabowsky (of Australian
National Airways Pty Ltd) to trial the Glenroy Air Beef project, but, as a
member of the 1954-55 Commonwealth Air Beef Panel, he agreed that air transport
of beef was 'not economically sound' at that time.
Dumas believed that bold initiative, basic planning and large-scale development
were essential to lift Western Australia from its status as a claimant State. As
chairman (1946-53) of the Albany Zone Development Committee, he drove the
extensive land development in that district. Industry had to be attracted, too,
and in 1951-52 he had his greatest success. With Premier (Sir) David Brand's
support, Dumas negotiated the establishment at Kwinana of the £40 million
Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.'s refinery, Broken Hill Pty Ltd's £4 million
steel-rolling-mill and Rugby Portland Cement Co.'s £2.2 million works (through
its subsidiary Cockburn Cement Pty Ltd). His role in attracting this capital was
so crucial that the government extended his employment beyond normal retirement
age, giving him additional power and status as co-ordinator of works and
industrial development to ensure co-operation from all public service
departments in the Kwinana initiatives. Dumas finally retired in December 1953.
He then joined the Weld Club and became a director of several companies,
including Cockburn Cement and Freney Kimberley Oil Co. In the early 1960s, in an
unusual display of public activism, he participated in the campaign to save
Perth's Barracks Arch. He remained influential in shaping economic development
policies through his advisory role to (Sir) Charles Court who, when he became
minister for industrial development in 1959, made Dumas chairman of the newly
formed Industries Advisory Committee.
One of Western Australia's most powerful public servants, Dumas transformed the
State's approach to development. He named Robert Chapman, his university
engineering teacher, as 'possibly the greatest influence' on his life, and
Essington Lewis as the Australian who had contributed most to the country's
'real advancement'. A man of great energy, prodigious hard work and
determination, Dumas seemed to those around him to be able to 'see far ahead'
and 'make things happen'—a 'visionary' and a 'bulldozer'. His achievements were
well acknowledged: a series of awards culminated in the Peter Nicol Russell
medal (1952); he was appointed C.M.G. (1950), K.B. (1959) and K.B.E. (1964);
and, prominent in Perth's landscape, the new multi-storey headquarters of the
Public Works Department was named Dumas House. Survived by his daughter and son,
Sir Russell died on 10 August 1975 at Albany and was buried in Allambie Park
cemetery.
Select Bibliography
J. S. H. Le Page, Building a State (Perth, 1986); B. Moore, From the Ground Up
(Perth, 1987); Public Service Review (Adelaide), Oct 1914, p 184, Feb 1917, p
117; L. Layman, 'Development Ideology in Western Australia', Historical Studies,
no 79, Oct 1982; West Australian, 17, 22 Jan 1953, 1 Jan 1959, 30 Apr 1960, 13
June, 31 Dec 1964, 11, 12 Aug 1975; Albany Advertiser, 3 May 1960; Dumas papers
(State Records Office of Western Australia); Public Works Dept, Dumas file
(State Records Office of Western Australia); R. G. Hartley, Norman Fernie—Engineer,
1898-1977 (typescript, 1991, State Library of Western Australia). More on the
resources
Author: Lenore Layman
Print Publication Details: Lenore Layman, 'Dumas, Sir Russell John (1887 -
1975)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 14, Melbourne University
Press, 1996, pp 46-47.