The Sunshine Harvester works was an Australian factory making agricultural equipment founded by industrialist H. V. McKay, and with engineering development headed by H.B. Garde. History Early years Having established an agricultural implement works in Ballarat he moved his factory and many of his employees to Braybrook Junction, in 1906, where he had earlier purchased the Braybrook Implement Works (1904). He named the new enterprise the Sunshine Harvester Works after his Sunshine Harvester, which was one of his major products. The name "Sunshine" is assumed to have been given by McKay to his harvester works after he attended a lecture by the American evangelist Reverend Thomas De Witt Talmage who visited Victoria in 1894. Another account holds that the name was suggested by James Menzies, who painted the first model. Through a revolutionary piece of marketing, this had gained a reputation as the first successful combine harvester in Australia. The factory became the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and, in its early stages, McKay successfully increased the concentration and efficiency of the workers: ‘between 1907 and 1910-11, McKay’s workforce expanded from just over 400 to around 1500’. McKay rapidly expanded the factory to become the largest manufacturing plant in Australia and, at its peak, it employed nearly 3,000 workers. In 1907, following a residents' petition, the locality was officially renamed Sunshine in honour of the factory. Housing for the Sunshine Harvester Works' employees swelled the local population and the town of Sunshine was touted as the "Birmingham of Australia". The Harvester Judgement (1907) The Sunshine Harvester Works was also the site of a protracted industrial dispute in 1907, between McKay and the unions representing the Sunshine workers. While this was based on claims for wages and conditions, McKay also argued that he should continue to receive import protection. The case was heard before H. B. Higgins at the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in Melbourne between 7 October 1907 and 8 November 1907. Higgins heard evidence from employees and their wives regarding conditions at the factory and costs for supporting their families. In the Harvester Judgement, he obliged McKay to pay his employees a wage that guaranteed them a standard of living which was reasonable for "a human being in a civilised community", regardless of his capacity to pay. McKay successfully appealed this judgement, but it became the benchmark industrial decision which led to the creation of a minimum