had protection—and in 1905 it was making steel fishplates—but not yet rails—for the NSWGR; it also manufactured corrugated galvanised steel sheet, but struggled to do so profitably. By 1905, Sandford was a wealthy man, with audited personal assets of £141,000, even if much of this wealth was invested in the ironworks. He lived at an estate known as 'Eskroy Park' near Bowenfels, and his ownership of a colliery and land sales in Lithgow gave him income that was more reliable than that coming from the ironworks. Premier Joseph Carruthers (a Free Trader) persuaded him to agree to William Sandford Limited contracting to supply all of the New South Wales Government's needs for iron and steel, for a seven year period, in 1905. Most of this steel would be in the form of heavy steel rails for railways. A condition of that contract was that local iron ore, coal and limestone were to be used to produce iron, necessitating the erection of a blast furnace. Sandford embarked on a major expansion, starting with the construction of a large modern blast furnace. On 30 April 1907, his daughter, Clarice, started the blast of the new furnace, and Sandford's proudest moment was when it was officially opened on 13 May 1907. As part of the same expansion, a new 15-ton Open Hearth furnace was added to make steel from the pig-iron, a new fishplate mill commenced operation in 1906, and a short rail branch line laid to the iron ore mine at Coombing Park near Carcoar. The Lithgow works had become the first integrated iron and steel works in Australia. Sandford had built his new blast furnace some distance from the steelmaking furnaces at the Eskbank works, which has been criticised as a poor decision. However, it was intended to be only the first of four such blast furnaces, feeding a new and larger steelmaking facility nearby, which in turn would feed a line of new rolling mills. Sandford had the general layout of this new plant designed by English consulting engineers, J.H. Harrison, based on earlier advice from an English expert, Enoch James. These plans are proof of the grand vision that Sandford had for Lithgow; his problem was how he could fund it. A proportion of the iron production was destined to be railed to Sydney for use in manufacture of cast iron products, such as pipes, and the location of