The connection between Ashfield, Summer Hill, the rabbit plagues, and the Australian Steel Industry

Ashfield, Summer Hill, and the Rabbit Plague

For over 100 years, the Lysaght Wire Mill at Chiswick produced most of Australia’s fencing materials, significantly the wire netting of which thousands of Kilometres was used in rabbit-control fencing, in a never-quite-successful attempt to eradicate these cute, fluffy introduced creatures which were determined to destroy our farming industry.
Ashfield and Summer Hill were, perhaps surprisingly, heavily involved in the distribution of Lysaght’s products throughout Australia during much of last century.
Much of engineer Brian Gray’s working life was spent in this industry, and his travels and experiences facilitating effective use of these products in the unending pursuit of the pesky rabbits provide him with much to tell us about this phase of our local history.