Innes, Alexander

INNES, Alexander (1832–1914) was born at Rathven, Banff, Scotland, son of William Innes, master shoemaker, and Jane Hay. In May 1865, when contractors supplying sandstone – cut stone and rubble – for the new Parliament House, failed both in regard to quality and rate of supply, the Colonial Architect Charles TIFFIN terminated their contracts and quarried using day labour with Innes as “a thoroughly practical freestone quarryman and working foreman”. From 16 May a proven quarry at Woogaroo owned by Joshua JEAYS was leased with Innes as foreman in charge of a day labour gang of quarrymen and labourers. At the end of July, the arrangement was not working and Tiffin threatened Innes with dismissal unless 2 punt loads of stone were sent every week and the number of labourers was reduced by half. Alternatively he proposed that Innes after dismissing 10 or 12 labourers and some of the inferior quarrymen, agree on behalf of the quarry men to supply stone by the piece. In 1888, he gave evidence and otherwise assisted at an inquiry into Sandstone Quarries of the southern districts of the Colony, but by then he was a farmer at Sherwood where he died.