James Alston arrived in Australia from England with his parents, as an immigrant lad, some time during the 1860's. As a young man, in the early 1880's, he set himself up in business as a blacksmith and agricultural machine manufacturer, in the town of Warrnambool on the south-west coast of Victoria. His earliest known patents for windmills are dated 1884, but beyond doubt, his experiments on windmills and his interest in them must date from several years prior to this time. His earliest patent illustrations show an open wheel type of mill, possible inspired by imported American designs of the period. In 1886, he patented a mill with a modern type, multi-sailed wheel, and it is interesting to note, it was an all-metal mill, as was his earlier design.
        An interesting point is that Alston's patented all-metal mill with modern wheel design was built contemporarily with the experiments being carried out by Thomas Perry in the U.S.A. It is fairly safe to assume that Alston's designs were of quite an original nature, because Perry's experiments, carried out under the auspices of the U.S. Wind Engine and Pump Company in 1883, were not make open to public scrutiny by that company until the late 1880's. Alston was a prolific inventor and obviously possessed an agile brain. His last known patents for improvements to windmills were issued in the mid 1930's. At that time James Alston must have been around 85 years of age.
        In the late 1890's he moved his headquarters to the city of Melbourne, in all probability to be closer to sources of supplies and material. Melbourne, then as now, the largest port in Victoria and second largest in Australia, besides being the state's major railhead.
        It should perhaps be mentioned that during this era in the history of Australian manufacturing industries, Australia was largely dependent upon Great Britain for the supply of steel, so necessary in the construction of agricultural machinery. Angle steel and galvanised sheet in particular, arrived in large quantities from that source. Although Iron founding was well established in Australia by 1900, there were still no large blast furnaces or rolling mills, so essential for the production in quantity, of mild steel in its various forms.
        Improvements and innovations continued. About 1911, the fully enclosed oil bath gearless mill was patented: one of the first mills ever to offer full mechanical enclosure coupled with self lubrication.
        In 1916, the double geared oil bath mill was introduce, thereby phasing out the popular open type double crank mill, a bread and butter model that had been in production since 1900 or thereabouts.
        Alston was also known to have imported competitors' mills of foreign make, for comparison and evaluation tests with his own windmills. Evaluation tests with American-made mills would not have been difficult as they were readily available to anyone who could afford to purchase them.
        James Alston died in 1943, and without his guiding hand at the helm, the firm of James Alston and Sons Pty. Ltd. went into gradual decline. Plagued by a post-war shortage of steel and inhibited by rather outmoded designs, the vacuum left by flagging Alston sales was filled rapidly by more modern types of windmills, such as Southern Cross, Comet and Metters.
        About the only change worth noting in Alston windmill design after the war, was the introduction of aluminium sails on the double geared mill. This was merely a stop-gap caused by shortage of galvanised sheet. These sails were not overly successful, due to electrolysis problems between the aluminium and steel mounting bolts.
        By the late 1950's the firm was moribund and ended in bankruptcy about 1960. The machinery and other assets passed into other hands, the old two-storey red brick factory, so long a landmark across the Yarra River from the business heart of Melbourne, was finally demolished.

12ft E D G Self-Oiling Mill

5ft "Aqua" Geared Mill

22ft 6in Direct Acting Mill

Slide Bearing and Ball Bearing Pattern Mill Heads

Gearless Mill Heads

Planetary-Geared Mill Head Patent No. 12835/19

Single Crank Geared Mill

Enclosed Double Geared Mill Instruction Manual circa 1935

Although the ALSTON windmill is not manufactured anymore, servicing and restoration of these mills is still carried out by numerous windmillers.