He was as true as a tree. Frank Withey, who died on the Gold Coast last Friday aged 90, belonged to a family of giants in the sawmilling industry in northern NSW.
To tell the story of Frank Withey is to tell the illustrious story of Standard Sawmilling at Murwillumbah, 140 km across the border from Brisbane.
The Withey family owned and worked the sawmill for 60 years. It still stands today near the Condong Bridge on the Tweed River, the oldest sawmill in the Tweed Shire.
The mill worked in the pit-sawing era when cedar and white beech were cut for buildings at the commencement of early settlement in the region.
It was unfortunate that the settlement grew much faster than the timber so crops and cattle were grown to survive.
The sawmill was started by the Lunds family in 1897 and after it changed hands several times it was taken up by the England and Kingston families in 1914.
Five years later H. G. Withey partnered the mill with his stepbrother S. England.
In those early years logs were floated down the Tweed River to the mill. Logs cut from the riverbanks – mainly pine and cedar – were separated from the log rafts to be loaded on ships for Sydney.
In 1928,.H.G. (Garth) Withey married Mary Loder of Duranbah and they produced four sons – Alleyne, Garth, Colin and Frank – and a daughter Ann.
In 1928, Mr Withey bought out England’s interests in the mill at a time when the last of the bullock teams were bringing timber from the Mooball State Forest direct to the mill. At that time, Standard Sawmilling had what was then considered “a very modern steam plant”, and it was proud of its good quality timbers that were all sold locally.
Then along came the motor transport and tractors replacing the bullocks, The main supply was then drawn from the Mebbin State Forest which was a haul of about 50 km.
Then Mr Withey purchased the Tyalgum Sawmilling Company which was owned by Brown Bros. and managed by Cecil Snow. They also conducted a hardware business in Wollumbin Street that was associated with the Tyalgum mill. The name was later changed to the Tweed Builders Store and a timber yard was opened at Bay Street Tweed Heads by Standard Sawmilling.
Mr Withey was a busy man. At one time he owned four sawmills, was on the hospital board and honorary treasurer for 30 years, chairman of directors of the Tweed Newspaper Co for seven years and a foundation member of Murwillumbah Rotary, established in 1937.
Garth Withey, as he was best known, was chairman of directors of Murwillumbah Co-op Building Society and chair of the Technical College Advisory Committee
He was also vice-president of the Richmond-Tweed branch of the Associated Country Sawmillers and with his wife Mary had property interests in Twin Towns at Tweed Heads and Coolangatta.
As the businesses expanded, Garth Withey took his four sons Alleyne, Garth, Colin and Frank into business in the early 1950s. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, hardwoods and hoop pine were the main timbers harvested by the sawmills in the Tweed-Byron area, drawn from Crown and privately-owned land.
In 1958 Mr Withey died but the business continued to expand under the capable hands of his four sons. The peak years of the mill were the late ’60s and early ’70s when there were 140 employees at the mill. A sales outlet was also operating at Annerley in Brisbane.
The total output for the Murwillumbah Forestry District was 17,252 cub m in 1983-84. The Crown land in those days was Whian Whian, Nullurn, Mooball, Wollumbin and Mebbin state forests. The timbers taken were mainly blackbutt, ironbark, red and white mahogany, tallowwood, brush box, turpentine, bloodwood, grey gum and hoop pine
In 1970, Standard Sawmilling covered an area of 18 acres and included a continuous radio frequency laminated timber beam plant using one of the largest kiln-drying plants in Australia and a large high temperature kiln for drying pine.
The company became well known for its “Stabel” range of timber products including “Stabelbeam”, a structural beam of excellent appearance which can still be seen in many homes today. The product had the advantages of providing a lightweight beam with tremendous strength and it could be left exposed as a practical yet decorative beam.
The dried, dressed and sized wood was crowded into a gluer which extruded the correct quantity to each side of the wood making up the beam. The wood was again crowded into a machine rather like a microwave oven, which fused or laminated the wood and glue together to form the Stabelbeam brand.
The Withey family was associated with Standard Sawmilling for 62 years until it was sold in 1981. It is presently owned and operated by Pentarch.
Frank Withey is survived by his second wife Lynne (Turner) and Megan a daughter of his late first wife Gaye (nee Woods) and a sister Ann. His two sons Scott and Cameron are deceased as are brothers Alleyne, Garth and Colin.
Friends in the timber industry are invited to attend a service for Frank Withey at the Southport Bowls Club, 2 Marine Parade, Southport, on Sunday, July 27, at 2 pm.
(With extracts from Tales of our Time)
Editor’s note: It has been 46 years since the first images emerged of protesters blocking the path of bulldozers to stop the logging of rainforest at Terania Creek on the NSW north coast. The protest is regarded as a watershed moment in Australia’s environmental movement and cited as the first time that people physically defended a natural resource.
While the fight to save the rainforest reached its climax in August 1979, the story began several years earlier when a young couple from Melbourne moved to a single-room cabin bordering the rainforest in Terania Creek, a large waterfall that flowed down a sheer, rocky cliff, surrounded by rainforest.
Hugh and Nan Nicholson were drawn to the “incredible beauty of the area” and a year later protested over a proposed Forestry Commission plan to selectively harvest timber from the surrounding forest.
Over the next four years, the efforts of the Nicholsons escalated from writing letters and submissions and lobbying politicians to hosting hundreds of protesters at the coalface of the fight.
While the demonstrators’ intentions were “non-violent, peaceful protesters”, not everybody held to that ideal. Death threats were made and received by both sides.
Even though Hurfords Hardwood had nothing to do with the Terania harvesting operations, the family’s south Lismore mill was burnt to the ground.
The company that held the licence for the coupe at Terania Creek was Standard Sawmilling at Murwillumbah.
