Black mineworkers were involved in gold mining in Johannesburg from 1886, but were excluded from the white miners' union for many years. It was only in December 1982 that the National Union of Mineworkers was formed. In 1995 this site became the NUM headquarters. The building was constructed in 1934 for Hubert Davies and Company which imported, manufactured and installed engineering equipment and machinery for industry and the mines throughout Southern Africa. Founded in 1894 by J Hubert Davies, a consulting engineer from Scotland who had come to the Rand in 1889, the company's first big projects were the electrification of various mines.