Last updated: 20-Dec-2025, 05:29 PM AEST
Search Home ATL-TAB Don shares his JourneyAutomatic Totalisators Limited archive, 1917 - 1988
The history of ATL begins with Sir George Julius, inventor of the world's first fully automatic electric totalisator. Julius was born in Norwich, England, in 1873, the son of an Anglican clergyman, Rev. Churchill Julius. While still a child the family moved to Australia where his father was appointed Archdeacon of Ballarat's city church. In the early 1890s the family again moved, this time to New Zealand where George Julius graduated in 1895 with a Bachelor of Science degree from Canterbury College, Christchurch. In 1897 he was appointed as Assistant Engineer for Western Australian Railways, being quickly promoted to Chief Draftsman, and later Engineer-in-charge of tests. The idea of the totalisator developed during this time. In a local election a dispute had arisen regarding the counting of votes which gave Julius the idea of a mechanical electoral recorder that would simplify and authenticate voting and the counting of the poll. After considerable hard work and time he did create a machine capable of handling these tasks accurately, however, he could not interest governments in its merits. He was not disillusioned by this since he knew he had created a mechanical computing device which would have important applications.
Meanwhile, Julius was building a reputation around Australia for his incisive and brilliant mind. Determined to express his ideas he resigned from the railways in 1907, aged 34, to set up his own engineering consultancy.
Julius was not a betting man nor was he interested in horse racing but something turned his attention to designing a safe, accurate and foolproof racecourse wagering system. For five years he carried out research and development to bring his idea to realisation. He produced a machine that would automatically and instantaneously record and display the number of tickets sold on each horse, and also the aggregate number of tickets sold right throughout the progress of betting. This remarkable machine he called the "Premier" Totalisator. The Ellerslie Racecourse management in New Zealand were the first willing to have the machine installed at its racecourse. In 1913 the Julius Automatic Totalisator came into operation. Three years later Julius installed his second tote at Gloucester Park in Western Australia. A year later Automatic Totalisators Limited, a public company, was incorporated and built the world's first electro-mechanical totalisator.
Automatic Totalisators Limited (ATL) was incorporated as a limited company on 21 April 1917 to manufacture, install and operate totalisator systems throughout the world. George Julius was a director and major shareholder of the company and acted as consulting Engineer to ATL. Its office was at 60 Margaret Street Sydney and the factory was based at Newtown. In 1933 ATL centralised its operations and moved to newer premises at 182 Chalmers Street Sydney and then to Meadowbank in the early 1950s.
The Council of the Institution of Engineers Australia
By 1929 ATL's overseas operations had grown to include installations at: the Rangoon Turf Club, Burma; Singapore Turf Club; Western India Turf Club Ltd; Ceylon Turf Club; Perak Turf Club at Ipoh and Selangor Turf Club, Kuala Lumpur, both in Malaya; Longchamp Racecourse, Paris. The Longchamp installation being important enough to ATL's future European expansion that it formed a subsidiary company, Automatic Totalisators (France) Ltd to handle the company's business in France. In 1931 ATL received its first order from the USA for the Miami Jockey Club's racecourse in Florida. Additional installations were made for a Win and Place Installation at Wellington, New Zealand in 1936.
In Australia installations were made around the country including the Western Australian Trotting Association in 1916, Canterbury, Newcastle, and Rosehill Racing Clubs in 1918, and South Australia Jockey Club 1921. In 1930 the totalisator was legalised in Victoria and ATL secured orders at four of the major racecourses, Victoria Racing Club's racecourse at Flemington, the Victorian Amateur Turf Club's racecourse at Caulfield, the Moonee Valley racecourse, and the Williamstown racecourse. In 1933 it added the Ascot Racecourse for the Victorian Trotting and Racing Association and in 1936 the Epsom Turf Club's and Mentone Turf Club's racecourses in Melbourne to its list.
By the outbreak of the Second World War ATL had further installations at Brisbane Amateur Turf Club, Albion Park; Mornington Racing Club, Victoria; Pakenham Racing Club, Victoria; Canterbury Park Turf Club, Sydney; Moorefield Race Club, Sydney, and Rosehill Racing Club, Sydney, just to name some.
The entry of Japan into the war led to ATL being required by the Australian Government to manufacture munitions for the war effort. The manufacture of totalisators had been placed on the prohibited list by the Government. As a result of the pressures of defence work George A Julius resigned as a director of ATL and Mr A.F. Julius was appointed to fill the vacancy.
During the post war period demand for totalisator equipment soared. Between 1948 and 1955 ATL carried out installations at 99 racetracks around the world including Thailand, Scotland, Philippines, South Africa, Pakistan, Iraq, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela.
The first totalisator designed by Julius was operated by weights through chains and steel cables. In 1920 solenoids and electrical wiring were introduced. Win and place pools began in 1923, and the automatic calculation of odds in 1927. No major changes occurred until 1955 when the first use of punched tape equipment in the selling of doubles became possible. In 1966 it developed the world's first Computer Tote system taking the racing world into a new era of electronic betting. The New York Racing Association which controlled the Aqueduct and Saratoga racecourses were the first to install ATL's unique computer tote installation.
By 1974 ATL had installed 50 computer tote systems around the world and served metropolitan racetracks with the Mobile Computer Tote, a totalisator operated from a large trailer and transported by truck to different locations.
ATL's operations were expanded to include the manufacture of automatic turnstiles, hospital internal communication systems, control and alarm equipment, motor vehicle registration plates, commercial signs, and precision tooling. Many of ATL's operations were conducted through its subsidiary companies. These included, Club & Casino Systems Pty Ltd, New Zealand Totalisators Ltd, Automatic Totalisators (USA) Ltd, Automatic Totalisators (France) Ltd, Automatic Totalisators of Canada Ltd, Page Manufacturing Co. Pty Ltd, Premier Equipment Pty Ltd, and Gladstone Electric Company Pty Ltd.
In 1980 ATL's operations were acquired by the Smorgan group of companies and in 1988 AWA, which had previously taken over Universal Totalisators Australia, purchased the operations of ATL from Smorgans.
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Description: Archive, totalisator, Automatic Totalisators Limited, Australia, 1917-1988
Records of the Automatic Totalisators Limited which was established in 1917 including statutory records, 1919-1974, printed material, 1930-1970s, product information and installation instructions, 1950s-1960s, product brochures and information booklets, 1917-1971, correspondence and reports, 1951-1986, newspaper clippings, 1930-1971, tote tickets and punch tape, 1921-1974, photographs of ATL installations, equipment, staff and premises, 1920s-1980s, assembly and wiring diagrams, 1948-1954, promotional film, 1978 and lithographs of Flemington racecourse, 1970.
Archive creator: Automatic Totalisators Limited; Australia; 1917 - 1988 The Registration Number of an object is a unique identifying number applied by the museum at the point of acquisition. Current numbering format comprises the year of acquisition, followed by a sequential number. For example, '2007/45' is the Registration Number that represents the 45th acquisition in the year 2007.
Registration number 94/222/23 Production date 1917 - 1988
This text content licensed under CC BY-SA. This object belongs to: Automatic Totalisators Ltd Archive Collection
Pictured above - Sir George Julius.
Don McKenzie 21-Oct-2025
Although I never had the privilege of meeting Sir George, his legacy at ATL shaped my early career...
He passed away not long after I showed up on the planet - but I think he left a few cogs and gears lying around for me to trip over later in life. Decades on, there I was, elbow-deep in one of his totalisators, wondering if he ever imagined some poor bloke would still be nursing them along half a century later. Those machines had personalities - they'd whirr, click, and sulk when you ignored them. Every time I coaxed one back to life, I liked to think Sir George gave a quiet nod from wherever brilliant engineers go. He built the dream; I just kept it from throwing a tantrum.
Sir George Julius is often credited as the father of scientific and industrial research in Australia due to his pioneering work as the first Chairman of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), now known as the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
Sir George Julius, Australia's Father Of Scientific & Industrial Research."I coined that term, so if there's any dispute about it, I'm the one you should be talking to."
Some notable achievements of Sir George Julius include:
I was born in 1943, yet strangely, a photograph taken five years before my birth stirred a surprising number of questions in my mind.
The original black-and-white image can be found on Brian Conlon's Tote website - a link is provided above.
In the photograph, many of the staff are wearing grey dust coats.
When I joined the P.M.G. as a technician-in-training in 1959, we were issued with grey dust coats. And when I arrived at ATL in 1976, most of the field engineering staff were also wearing them. You were expected to be a motor, electrical, and printer mechanic - the environment was dirty and greasy, after all. In those days, the ticket-issuing machine (the TIM) was also a printing press!
You'll notice two shades of grey in the coats. The darker one resembles the P.M.G. colour I remember from my early years. When I joined ATL, I even managed to resurrect my old P.M.G. dust coats - perhaps a tradition handed down from the early Julius Tote operations rather than anything directly linked to my P.M.G. days.
My job title changed several times during my years at ATL - from Mechanic to Technician, and eventually to Engineer. The girls on the floor would yell "Mechanic!" whenever they needed help, a call that must have dated back to the very first days of tote operations.
Robin Bone was a great Tote Manager, often travelling to the country tracks while I was maintaining the old electro-mechanical totes. He insisted on calling us Engineers as part of his effort to modernise the organisation, and he used the term at every opportunity.
Personally, I would have been content with Technician at the time, but Robin had a way of lifting everyone's spirits. He was a genuine leader - someone who inspired pride in our work. When I left ATL in 1999, my title was Senior Computer Systems Engineer.
When I first saw the photograph, I thought my old friend Alf Schloeffel might be in it. However, Alf had been sent from Sydney to Melbourne in 1931 for six weeks to assist with the tote installation at Flemington - and he liked Melbourne so much that he never went back!
I imagine Alf knew Sir George fairly well, but I've often wondered why he was chosen for the Melbourne assignment. Perhaps he was young and eager for adventure - or simply the best man for the job. I also wonder whether a whole team accompanied him. If only I'd realised the significance of that move while he was still alive, I could have asked him - about the trip, and about Sir George as well. Sir George appears in another photograph taken in the Machine Room at Flemington in 1931.
So what was the big drawcard in Melbourne in 1931? The rush to get the Julius tote up and running came down to one horse - Phar Lap. He dominated the track, winning 37 of his 51 starts, including the 1930 Melbourne Cup. A year later, he ran eighth while carrying an incredible 68 kilograms, still a record weight for the race. His death in America in 1932 shocked and saddened the entire country.
Alf was still working for ATL in 1980 and well into his eighties, still smoking, and still taking eight spoonfuls of sugar in his tea. He passed away at the age of 86.
To the right-hand side of the photo, there's an old car that caught my attention. I pride myself on vintage car identification, but this one had me stumped - and I spent far too long trying to solve it.
As a young man, I owned and worked on Fords from the T Model through to the B Model, covering most years up to 1934. I also owned both 1924 and 1938 Chevrolets. So I was confident the car in the photo wasn't one of those. Perhaps an Essex or a Plymouth - maybe something similar. I doubt it was a small English car. Still, that distinctive taillight and spare wheel mounting remain a mystery.
Dear Don,
That too is brilliant. I will try and get something done tonight, I will stay up late for it. Your enhancements have enormously improved that photo. I too had repaired that photo from the original using Microsoft Paint. The cockroaches had been nibbling the original photo which was most prevalent in the front row but also on the building and some other process was responsible for the face of the man standing in the front row to the left of the young boy, who had a scar running vertically down his face. I have attached a copy of the original so you can see how far this photo has come.
The young boy, by the way, is - so far as I recall - Keith Dodwell. He was instrumental in the early history of ATUSA ATL's American subsidiary company and he continued to work for the company well into his retirement and was very hospitable when Narelle and I visited what was then renamed Autotote in Philadelphia, at which time Keith was vice president.
The man standing in the first row, dressed in a white coat with his left hand in his pocket, from memory is William Johnson senior. I know William Johnson Jr, his son, who also worked for ATL for many years mostly overseas and has contributed much to the totalisator history website. I have seen Bill Johnson multiple times since he moved to Brisbane from Newcastle. His brother is also a fascinating person, although I have not met him. He also worked for ATL for a while. He has walked from Adelaide to Darwin, and as if that was not enough, from Sydney to Perth for charity. I cannot begin to comprehend that as I have flown light aircraft for many of those tracks and it is absolutely mind-blowing how someone could have walked them.
All the best,
Brian