Steel Wings Windmill

This Steel Wings Windmill was built in 1910 by the short lived Steel Wings Windmill Company (1907 to 1911) to a design patented in 1905 by Catherine Jane McMaster of Corfield, Queensland. Sir Samuel McCaughey purchased the windmill to pump water on his property “Goolgumbla” Station, 75 km North-West of Jerilderie.

The Steel Wings provided water to the Station homestead, ram sheds and dams along a 45km irrigation channel system until 1947. The windmill was damaged and collapsed in a severe windstorm in 1977 and the then owners of the Station (Dalgetys) offered it to Jerilderie as a historical exhibit.

The windmill was relocated to Luke Park in Jerilderie in 1979 and restored to working order under the guidance of the Steel Wings Restoration Committee. Further restoration work was carried out in 1989 and 1998. The Steel Wings design is unconventional in that the entire tower and blade structure rotate on a central spindle held by stay wires at a shallow angle. This example stands 50 feet high, with a 25ft diameter wheel (or fan), and a 24ft long tail piece. It operates a 6" diameter plunger on a 19" stroke, lifting 2 gallons of water per revolution.

Only six (6) Steel Wings Windmills were ever made, and this was the only working example worldwide until 2004, when a second Steel Wings was re-erected at the township of Taroom in Queensland.