The earliest known use of screw pile foundations was in 1833, when the Blind Irish Engineer, Alexan

These were manufactured in cast iron and apparently installed with a capstan and a number of dray horses! Also in England in 1863, the West Brighton pier was constructed utilizing steel screw piles. Several original piles where exhumed just recently, showing that even in the most extreme exposure conditions, they have lasted over 160 years, well beyond their design life.

This innovative design caught on and made its way across the Atlantic and before long most of the lighthouses in the mid-Atlantic region were being built on helical pile foundations. There were more lighthouses built on helical pile foundations in Chesapeake Bay than anywhere else in the world. A total of Forty-two helical screw pile lighthouses were built on Chesapeake Bay between 1850 and 1900.

This "emerging technology" was imported to Australia in 1872, and used to build the "Cape Jaffa Lighthouse" erected to alert ships of the Margaret Brock Reef off the South Australian coast. The oldest known functioning screw pile structure in Australia is the Victor Harbour jetty, known as the "Screw Pile Jetty" in South Australia which was built in 1881. 

In Australia since the early 1990s, screw piles have been used extensively across the country in compressive , tensile and lateral load applications in new domestic and commercial buildings and structures. They are used in civil applications, as well as underpinning existing buildings. The rapid expansion of this industry is due to the cost effectiveness of the product, combined with the rapid installation technique as well as the "cleanliness" of the system