Achievements (needs updating, just a start here!) (1863-1877 with Best Overend)

Victoria

• 1862 'Lavatories &c' at Yarra Bend (asylum?) tendered for £97
• tendered 1862/3 for drainage at Parliament Houses £83
• 1863 Excavated (flattened!) Batman's Hill- first really big job £
• 1866 tendered for work at Industrial School in Sunbury (reservoir? did a bit of this type of work to start, later mostly rail)- need to check outcome
• 1867 Expedition Pass Reservoir (goldfields)
• 1874 Wangaratta to Beechworth line; sections of Geelong to Colac; Arrarat to Hamilton line
• 1884 Morwell-Mirboo rail
• 1884-87 Footscray to Bacchus Marsh rail
• 1885-88 Murtoa to Warracknabeal rail
• 1886-88 Moe to Narracan rail
• tunnel under Yarra? 1896 ie year of death, with Arthur? pipe/sewer? (see photo)

Tasmania

• 1868 Launceston & Western Rail (to Deloraine) £200,671 8s. 8d

South Australia

• 1879/80- Victor Harbor ('Port Victor') breakwater £107,457 17s. lOd (£96,185 13s 4.9.78 SA Advertiser?)
• 1878/80/82? Fort at 'The' Semaphore (Fort Glanville) £15,893 12s 7d good photos here
• 1877 Kapunda and 'North West Bend' Rail (to Morgan) (Best Overend died during this- heat? 'Pthisis'=TB?) £165,523 8s? £188,985 1s. 2d? Trove page
• 1879 North Adelaide Reservoir (near the Caledonian Hotel) approx £11,000
• 1879 Burnside reservoir (did Semaphore fort/Victor Harbor and Burnside simultaneously, according to employment ads)

While in Adelaide, lived in 'The Olives', address now is 5 Olive St, Glenelg (see recent photo from Google Earth, I will take my own= lazy! - have done but not much better)

Western Australia

• 1880 First section of Fremantle to Guildford Rail 'Eastern Line' £74,591 19s. 5d.

Queensland

• 1887-1891 - Cairns to Kuranda Rail (the hard section!!) Said to "cost a million pounds, killed one man per mile, cost about one pound per inch". Originally tendered £290,984 3s, but paid £874,078 16s. 11d, claimed a further £267,000 (arbitration), was awarded less than costs. We recently (October 2014) saw this, rode on it, hard to imagine building it with pick/shovel/bullocks and dynamite! Will add photos.

Questions to be answered/further research needed:

I need to investigate more (ideas/suspicions) (in no particular order!)

• met wife in Bay of Biscay boat bingle incident?
• Father in law was engineer? Employed her relatives? He arrived as a 'farm labourer', presume no further study?
• His 2 brothers that arrived in Australia with him.
• he said his first railway contract was in 1859??
• his 3 surviving sons- descendants? (actually 4- Arthur, William, John, Mortimer) but only 3 were adult at time of death (done?)
• The Queensland Rail case ('Robb Arbitration') Claimed £262,311; was offered £100,000 by Qld govt but didn't take it, and ended up with award less than his costs (around £20k)(same time as Fed Bank collapse!)
• The tunnel collapse under the Yarra 1895
• The Robb 'Millions'/ownership of Cudgen/when transferred./ 1893 insolvency /Federal Bank collapse(who is Richard Stranger? must be an in-law, transferred £ to him)
• John Robb Way in Cudgen
• Robb's buildings (corner Collins and King streets, Melbourne)
• owned the Royal Exchange building, Adelaide (opened 1888)- what happened to the building? Seems that Muirhead's management issue?
• Philanthropy (hospitals, church, Robb scholarship) tag = John Robb philanthropy
• when exactly was at 'The Olives', a daughter was born there?
• North Adelaide reservoir? seems to be something there still, investigate
• Wreck of John Robb (dive site) used in Victor Harbor job
• Were there no NSW projects? Why? (did tender for waterworks at Prospect in 1885)
• Issues with workers- strikes, payments- housing at sugar mill- preferred local Tas to English imports who left the worksite/decamped (generally very good reputation?) Italians in Cairns? South Sea Islanders in Cudgen? (accommodation there) nb need to watch 'Sugar Slaves' doco, also NSW vs QLD law differences;Medical treatment (Cairns); strike at Expedition Pass reservoir, strike in Cairns.
• partnership with Best Overend- met in 1862? both tendered for Yarra Bend 'lavs' separately.
• Celebrations- sod-turnings (Freo rail), bridge (Cairns), Stoney Creek Bridge finish (Cairns), explosion (VH), also personal (Williams wedding- gift list!!!)

Link to Trove tags

Link or modified version of family tree