jABEZ wEDDERBURN, bORN 1864
SCALE MAKER IN AUSTRALIA
Jabez Wedderburn was one of four sons of a London scale maker, also Jabez. Jabez junior felt there would be greater opportunities in Australia, and emigrated to Sydney in the 1890s. Jabez had no help from London, and although he was a qualified scalemaker, he was forced to work as a coal miner in the Blue Mountains, a wharfie on the Sydney Docks, and also as a professional runner. However, by the turn of the century, he had five employees and a reputation around Sydney town as a proficient mechanical scale maker. Wedderburn became an established family business, passing to Jebez’ son Walter, his grandson William, and to his great grandson Phil, the current managing director. Along the way it transitioned from mechanical to digital scales, and expanded into labeling and packaging. The family are descended, via several generations of scale makers, from the early anti-slavery campaigner Robert Wedderburn, whose mother was a slave in Jamaica and whose father, James Wedderburn, was a Scottish plantation owner.
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