Ian Stewart Award

This award has been established to encourage young people to get involved in our hobby to keep it alive for future generations. Ian Stewart was very passionate about getting the young involved and was a founding Member of the NHMA. He felt that a National body to bring all Vintage Machinery Enthusiasts together was the way to grow the hobby and pass on the knowledge of all members to the younger generations.

The guidelines for the award are set out in a way that asks the young enthusiast to strive to do the best they can with their chosen project and seek advice and assistance from a mentor and other club members. The NHMA committee all agreed that the award funding deserves to be a substantial amount, so we felt that this investment of up to $8000.00 per year was an appropriate amount ($1000.00 per Australian state and territory).

Before completing an application form an individual or group must seek the support of a local club. This club must be an NHMA Member Club and must complete the relevant section of the application form and forward the application to NHMA.

Ian Stewart Award Letter From State Reps
Ian Stewart Young Enthusiast Award application form

The NHMA Committee is proud to announce the recipients of the 2023 Ian Stewart Award presented April 2024.

This year saw our nominations grow to 9. These were spread out across three states NSW, Victoria, and South Australia. The quality of the presentations was excellent, and all these young restorers should be commended for their efforts.
Nominations for 2023 were
NSW – Angus Redwell, Manilla Club; Josh Menz, Henty Club; Jeremy Adams, Corowa Club; and Josh Magregor, New England Antique Club.
VIC – Kai Johnson, Dovetown Club; and Josh Hunt, Geelong Club.
SA-Johnny Mclntosh, York Peninsular Club; Lachlan Bull, and Liam Marshall Lower Murray.

Lachlan Bull, Gawler Machinery Restorers Club, S.A.

Lachlan is a 14-year-old junior dub member who has been actively participating in the Gawler Machinery Restoration Club since he was 11 years old. During this time, he is an eager and invaluable member who displays regularly at events his own engine along with the engines and machinery the family owns with his younger brother, father, and grandfather. He has good knowledge of care and operation of all the equipment and machinery he uses. He is a regular at Club meetings and working bees and participates in club discussions. Lachlan always assists other club members with loading and unloading of engines and machinery which is invaluable for our older members to participate in events and displays.

Lachlan has restored to operating condition an lnternational Pig engine which is in it’s original working clothes look. This engine is a regular at most club displays along with the other Bull family’s engines – all their display items are original patina or working clothes machines. The engine is maintained, run, fuelled, oiled, and operated by Lachlan and he is always at the fence line talking with members of the public or assisting other members.

Josh Hunt, Geelong Vintage Machinery Club, Victoria

Josh, aged 19, joined vintage in 2019 when he was 15 where he worked doing a blacksmith demonstration. As the years progressed Josh worked to refine and expand his skills in blacksmithing and welding further doing other demonstrations at Geelong show and other vintage rally days.
Josh and his mum worked together to restore a coke crusher and grister over the years. Josh saving his wages from his part time job bought his first tractor last year. An Allis Chalmers model B tractor where he has been working hard to bring it back to full restoration and wonderful working order. Josh has found many new friends and mentors in the vintage machinery club along with sharing his much-loved hobby with his mum.

Josh Menz, Henty Club, New South Wales

Josh has restored a Fordson tractor. It wasn’t a rusty tractor as such, as it had been repainted a light blue at some point in its life but had since faded after being decades old. He was able to make it run the day he got it with the help of his dad but the head gasket had blown so he decided to fix that issue and  restore the entire tractor. Now it’s a shiny, new-looking, restored tractor that he is quite proud of.

He took a good handful of parts at a time and cleaned rust, grease and dirt off of them,  painted them with primer and a couple of top coats, replacing gaskets and axle seals, welch  plugs and many other badly worn parts. In January 2023 he finally cleaned and painted enough parts to start putting the tractor together. The reassembly process took until  August when he had to make a new wiring harness. He was lucky in the fact that the tractor came with a complete (but unusable) wiring harness that he could copy. He was able to source some matching cotton braided wires and bullet connectors and was able to make a whole new wiring harness. At this time also, the tractor was complete enough to start it for the first time since the disassembly. It started right up and after some carby adjustments, it ran perfectly.

Past winners of the Ian Stewart Award
2020 – Daniel Howarth, NSW, Owen Cox Mow Mobile,
2021 – Jack Cox, SA, 5HP Petter Junior 2 Stroke Engine and Jake Williams, NSW, Buzacott Farm Pumper.
2022 – Daniel Ives, QLD, Lister Autotruck and Lyam Marshall, SA, Hornsby Petrol Engine

We encourage you as club members to speak up in support of this award at your next meeting and encourage your younger members to get involved. Your club committee can get the paperwork from the NHMA Secretary, the NHMA web site or the NHMA Facebook page. Let’s get an application from every State and Territory for the 2024 Awards.