The administrative plan of the Department of Munitions (CA 39) created on 11 June 1940 involved splitting the organisation of munitions manufacture into eight main sections or directorates. These
directorates were increased to sixteen at the peak of production. One of the original directorates was the directorate of Machine Tools and Gauges, formed in May 1940 and headed by Colonel F.G. Thorpe. Its functions were the production, reconditioning, acquisition or disposal of:
 
(i) Machine Tools
(ii) Electrical Equipment
(iii) Ball Bearings
(iv) Tools and Gauges and Precision Measuring Equipment
(v) Hand Tools
 
The first move of the Directorate was to institute control over the the use of vital equipment which lay at hand before looking to the problems of increasing the quantity of that equipment. To this end regulations prevented the expenditure of more than 100 on "alteration in or readjustment of any machinery" for the purpose of making or producing a new design. (Statutory Rules 1940, No. 118, 26 June. Amendment to National Security (General) Regulations). This restriction on "tooling up" prevented, to some extent, the introduction of new articles or speculative articles for merely civil requirements and reserved tooling for direct defence purposes. Local production was then investigated and ultimately a complete record was complied of every machine tool and allied piece of equipment.
 
The directorate was under the immediate control of the Director-General and was thus independent of the Boards of Area Management. The second year of the war saw a great expansion both in change and quality and by then no less then seventy-five firms were engaged. Control of machine tools was relinquished by the end of December 1945 and of hand tools by 17 June 1946. 1946 has been taken provisionally as the closing date for this agency.
 
 
1. Federal Guide 1943. p. 48
 
2. Committee of Review - Civil Staffing of Wartime Activities, Report on the Department of Munitions.
 
3. Commonwealth Year Book No. 36, 1944-45 (p. 1958) No 37, 1946-47 )p. 11623,p. 1165).
 
4. S.J. Butlin, War Economy 1939-42, AWM, Canberra, 1955.
 

Historical agency address
499 Little Collins Street, Melbourne