The NeedleBar

Beale & Co.

47 Trafalgar Street, Annandale, NSW


(Information from Irish Midlands Ancestry site (thanks to Jon Cnossen), overspiano.com.au, National Library of Australia, Rob Sanders, Bernadette Dewhurst-Phillips)


Octavius Charles Beale was born in 1850 in Ireland. At four he travelled with his mother to Australia to join his father and brothers in Van Diemen's Land. At 9 he returned to Waterford to continue education before joining a Melbourne hardware firm at the age of 16. At 23 he set up a branch in New Zealand, returning to Melbourne as a partner two years later. His wife Elizabeth Baily was to bear him 13 children. After she died in 1901 he married her sister Katherine in 1903.

After a brief association with Hugo Wertheim, Beale established his piano and sewing machine importing company. He remained as Managing Director until he was killed in a motor accident in 1930. These early pianos sold by Beale were called Hapsburg Beale.

In 1893 he opened a piano factory, which produced everything needed for piano manufacture. He had his own brass and iron foundries, introduced and patented his important all-iron tuning system. Beale pianos can be dated by serial number.

Veneer was first produced in Australia by Beale & Co in 1907, using a sawing method which was later replaced by slicing. Queenland walnut was the major wood used. Beale stressed that the woods used in his pianos were best suited to the climates of Australia.

It is unclear whether Beale made or bought in sewing machines. It seems more likely that they were bought in for re-sale. He did, however, manufacture cabinets and cases for sewing machines, and also for Singer in Australia.

Beale travelled widely and as a Royal Commissioner delivered a report on the decline of the birth rate, its moralistic and racialist bias had to be toned down before publication. He also reported on drugs and patent medicines, was a keen botanist and possessed a wide knowledge of Australian woods.

Beale became a founding President of the Federated Chamber of Manufacturers of Australia, President of the NSW Chamber of Commerce, trustee of the Australian Museum and the Bank of NSW, Fellow of the London Royal Historical Society, and the Royal Society of Arts and was granted freedom of the City of London, as a liveryman of the Company of Musicians.

Beale's mother had started a small Quaker school in Hobart, which amalgamated into The Friend's School, this is still operating. Although brought up a Quaker, he became fascinated by Freemasonry, becoming an Anglican and Mason.

The company may have been taken over by Ralph Symonds in 1960, then Paling & Co in 1961. It ceased production in 1975.

Beale pianos are still manufactured in China using Beale's methods under the name of Pearl River, in association with Yamaha.


© Alan Quinn 2003

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