This post looks at the history of Laverton as the potential site of a noxious trades area. In 1917, Carlo Catani was invited to be on the panel of three experts of high standing, to investigate and report on this matter (1). Laverton, advertised as a new and model suburb, was sub-divided in 1886, a project of the Federal Investment Company of Australasia. The land sales were handled by Staples, Wise & Co and promoted by the publication of a booklet Laverton, the new and model suburb : with a short history of Melbourne from its foundation to the present time, written by C.R. Staples of the Estate Agents firm (2).
Laverton, the new and model suburb: with a short history of Melbourne from its
foundation to the present time by C.R. Staples.
Digitised at the State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/119810
The booklet had a short history of Melbourne and then a description of Laverton -
Laverton, the latest-born suburb of Melbourne, is situate on the main Geelong and Ballarat Railway, being the first station beyond Newport, from which by train it is only ten minutes journey. The new workshops at Newport, tenders for which have lately been accepted, will, when complete, employ some 3000 workmen all the year round, and as consequence land suitable for building purposes within easy distance must increase in value. Laverton has been laid out by the well-known surveyors, Messrs. Bruford and Braim, of 67 Chancery Lane, Melbourne, upon the most improved system, the owners taking pride in the endeavour to make it really model suburb. All the streets are sixty-six feet wide, reserves for public buildings have been set aside, and an area of over twenty-five acres has been dedicated to the inhabitants for park and recreation reserves.
Motions carried at a municipal conference convened by the Hawthorn Council, in favor of the creation of a special noxious trades area, were placed today before Mr D. M'Leod, Minister for Health, who, in his reply to the deputation, said that the Government had arranged for the appointment of three engineers of high qualification to report on the suitability of Laverton as a special site. Cr S. Pynor, Mayor of Essendon, Cr E. C. Rigby, of Hawthorn, and Cr A. C. Westley, of Oakleigh, were the principal speakers in urging that the Minister should remove the noxious trades from the residential part of the metropolis.
Mr M'Leod, in the course of his reply, said that an officer of the Department of Public Health had prepared a valuable report as to the suitability of Laverton as a site for noxious trades, but before the heavy expenditure involved was undertaken Mr C. Catani, formerly Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, and probably Mr G. Kermode, the present Chief Engineer, and Mr W. Calder, the chairman of the Country Roads Board, would be asked to make an inspection of Laverton, which could be sewered and readily furnished with the necessary water supply and other essentials. More important still, there was a bed of brown coal, up to 47 feet in thickness, passing under the site. Electricity could be provided for power at a cheap rate, and as the bay was close at hand products could be shipped by sea. "If the Laverton scheme can be carried out," continued the Minister, "it would be unwise to have anything to do with a piecemeal scheme. The Government agrees, while it is anxious to encourage the establishment of industries in Victoria, that noxious trades should be removed from the residential area" (8).
Cr Rigby spoke at the conference of the impact that government inertia had on this industry - The fear of removal had been having a retarding effect on them for some time, and had been keeping them back so far as improvements and extensions were concerned. Some of the structures had been up for 50 years and were dilapidated beyond repair. The municipalities did not feel strong or harsh enough to insist that they should be pulled down altogether or entirely remodelled in view of the hope and indeed the promise of the Government— that they would be removed outside the residential areas. They had no hot-headed desire to injure the trades concerned (9).
Laverton, the latest-born suburb of Melbourne, is situate on the main Geelong and Ballarat Railway, being the first station beyond Newport, from which by train it is only ten minutes journey. The new workshops at Newport, tenders for which have lately been accepted, will, when complete, employ some 3000 workmen all the year round, and as consequence land suitable for building purposes within easy distance must increase in value. Laverton has been laid out by the well-known surveyors, Messrs. Bruford and Braim, of 67 Chancery Lane, Melbourne, upon the most improved system, the owners taking pride in the endeavour to make it really model suburb. All the streets are sixty-six feet wide, reserves for public buildings have been set aside, and an area of over twenty-five acres has been dedicated to the inhabitants for park and recreation reserves.
The site of Laverton is an admirable one, commanding extensive views in all directions, comprising the Bay with its shipping, the Dandenong Ranges, Plenty Ranges, Mount Macedon, and the You Yangs in fact, every prominent landmark within radius of fully thirty miles is plainly visible. The land itself is unsurpassed in the district, and has been known for years as one of the richest spots in the locality, and the owners guarantee that every allotment is suitable, without the expenditure of shilling, for the immediate erection of dwellings, it having sufficient elevation for drainage without any broken ground, cliffs, or other impediments.
The price and terms upon which it is offered to the public are unequalled in the history of land sales, and have been arranged so that everyone may have chance of securing one or more allotments, and the owners, not grasping at every attainable shilling, offer the land at an absurdly low figure, leaving the unearned increment for the benefit of purchasers.....When it is considered that land at Caulfield, Surrey Hills, Brighton, and other older settlements practically as distant from Melbourne is worth from £2 to £10 per foot, the chance which is now offered of obtaining profitable investment must be apparent to all. The time occupied by the train in bringing passengers from Caulfield to Melbourne is twenty-six minutes, from Surrey Hills thirty-five minutes, from Brighton thirty-three minutes, from Williamstown thirty minutes, from Oakleigh thirty-seven minutes, whilst from Laverton it is about twenty-eight minutes. The Railway Station is in the centre of the northern boundary of the town, and, as already stated, the Newport workshops can be reached in about ten minutes (3).
Laverton township - complete plan for private sale by Staples, Wise and Co.
Digitised at the State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/115262
In spite of the promotional booklet and attractive adverting posters the new and model suburb seemed to be slow to take off. In 1891 there were 33 dwellings housing a population of 156 and in 1901, 37 dwellings and a population of 155. Thirty years later, 1921 the population was still only 195 (4).
In 1917, there was agitation to have a noxious trades area established and Laverton was suggested. Noxious trades included abattoirs, meat works and other businesses which used the by-products of the slaughtering process such as the blood, bones, fat, hair, wool, hooves, and the offal; the tanneries, cattle yards, fellmongers and wool washers.
Historian Dr John Lack (5) gives us this background to the noxious trades industry - Agitation against river and air pollution resulted in the Yarra Pollution Act (1855) and the discouragement of noxious trades above and opposite the city. Over time the trades tended to gravitate to the lower Yarra at Fishermans Bend and Yarraville, to Stony Creek and to the Maribyrnong at Flemington and Footscray, encouraged by the Sandridge (Port Melbourne), Footscray and Melbourne municipal councils. Their smells made the river approach to Melbourne notorious, and together with household drainage and nightsoil earned Melbourne the appellation 'Marvellous Smelbourne' (as opposed to Marvellous Melbourne). High levels of meat consumption, the rejection of offal except in hard times, and low levels of development and investment in preventative technology, together with the hot Australian summer, may have made pollution from noxious trades worse than in Britain.
West Melbourne ('Worst Smelbourne' or 'Worst Smelldom') was judged to be even worse, and the glue works, tanneries and bone mills of Footscray, through which the western and northern railway lines passed, gave that suburb a reputation as the Cologne of the Antipodes. The 1887-88 Royal Commission on the Sanitation of Melbourne recommended effective controls on pollution, but the sewering of the City Abattoirs at Flemington and the noxious trades along the Maribyrnong came only in the early 1900s, and it tended to anchor existing industries and attract others, including the Angliss Meatworks. In the long depression of the 1890s and early 1900s, councils in inner working-class Melbourne were reluctant to pressure industrialists to improve or move, and men like James Cuming and William Angliss of Footscray were powerful figures. New traders sprang up on old licences at Braybrook, discharging their wastes to the Maribyrnong River which barely flowed in summer (6).
It was thus no wonder that some municipalities wanted to create a separate noxious trades industry and a municipal conference, convened by the City of Hawthorn, was held in August 1917 on this matter as The Herald reported on August 22, 1917 (7) -Motions carried at a municipal conference convened by the Hawthorn Council, in favor of the creation of a special noxious trades area, were placed today before Mr D. M'Leod, Minister for Health, who, in his reply to the deputation, said that the Government had arranged for the appointment of three engineers of high qualification to report on the suitability of Laverton as a special site. Cr S. Pynor, Mayor of Essendon, Cr E. C. Rigby, of Hawthorn, and Cr A. C. Westley, of Oakleigh, were the principal speakers in urging that the Minister should remove the noxious trades from the residential part of the metropolis.
Mr M'Leod, in the course of his reply, said that an officer of the Department of Public Health had prepared a valuable report as to the suitability of Laverton as a site for noxious trades, but before the heavy expenditure involved was undertaken Mr C. Catani, formerly Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, and probably Mr G. Kermode, the present Chief Engineer, and Mr W. Calder, the chairman of the Country Roads Board, would be asked to make an inspection of Laverton, which could be sewered and readily furnished with the necessary water supply and other essentials. More important still, there was a bed of brown coal, up to 47 feet in thickness, passing under the site. Electricity could be provided for power at a cheap rate, and as the bay was close at hand products could be shipped by sea. "If the Laverton scheme can be carried out," continued the Minister, "it would be unwise to have anything to do with a piecemeal scheme. The Government agrees, while it is anxious to encourage the establishment of industries in Victoria, that noxious trades should be removed from the residential area" (8).
Cr Rigby spoke at the conference of the impact that government inertia had on this industry - The fear of removal had been having a retarding effect on them for some time, and had been keeping them back so far as improvements and extensions were concerned. Some of the structures had been up for 50 years and were dilapidated beyond repair. The municipalities did not feel strong or harsh enough to insist that they should be pulled down altogether or entirely remodelled in view of the hope and indeed the promise of the Government— that they would be removed outside the residential areas. They had no hot-headed desire to injure the trades concerned (9).
The occupants of Laverton from the 1925 Sands & McDougall's Directory of Victoria.
It was still very much a country town
State Library of Victoria collection.
The occupants of Laverton from the 1935 Sands & McDougall's Directory of Victoria.
Click on image to enlarge. State Library of Victoria collection.
Carlo Catani, George Kermode (1873-1941) his replacement at the Public Works Department and William Calder (1860-1928) of the Country Roads Board were officially appointed on September 5, 1917 to inquire into and report on the suitability of Laverton as a site for noxious trades (10). The Health Minister, Mr McLeod was reported as saying that the board is not likely to take long over its report (11). One newspaper report on the aforementioned noxious trade conference convened by the City of Hawthorn noted that Mr. Catani has given evidence that Laverton was suitable in every way - for water, rail and road transport, and situation (12), so you would assume that the report would have been in favour of Laverton being the location for noxious trades. However, the only information I have on the findings of the panel is from a letter Mr Henry Keiley of Brougham Street, Kew (13) wrote to The Herald in July 1918 regarding the unrecognised possibilities of the textile industry in Australia and he said that a board of engineering experts-Messrs W. Calder, C. Catani and another were appointed to report at once on the suitability of Laverton as a noxious trade area. The board never reported on it; the matter is shelved (14).
This was not the first time that this matter had been shelved. Mr Keiley had written another letter to The Herald in August 1917, where he said ...with regard to the noxious trades and the proposed site at Laverton. The Board appointed six or seven years ago drew up a report which, like many similar reports, was never acted on, as the Government would have had to pay heavy compensation to the various businesses affected (15).
Yet another report was commissioned on the suitability of Laverton in January 1919. The Age reported that it is understood that Messrs. W. Davidson (late Inspector-General for Public Works), J. M. Reed (late Secretary for Lands) and E. H. Ballard (Chief Engineer for Railway Works and Ways), who were appointed a board to report on the technical practicability of the Laverton site for a concentration of noxious trades, are finding no insuperable difficulties, and their report, which is believed to be of a favorable character, will be in the hands of the Government very shortly (16).
The Age report continued on an optimistic note -
The definite approval of the Laverton site by the Government, and the presumably early commencement of the work of concentrating the noxious trades there will, it is stated, have a revolutionary effect upon the conduct of many of the industries concerned. Having uncertain tenures, owners of noxious works within the metropolis have not, in the main, attempted to erect buildings of a really substantial nature, suitable to the trade. Moreover, in many of the works up to date machinery, designed for the elimination of the personal factor in the more objectionable features of the trades and the reduction of the nuisance to the neighborhood, has been conservatively neglected. With the concentration of the trades at Laverton these undesirable features will, it is stated, have to disappear (17).
The Age also addressed the issue of the need for workers to move to Laverton as it
follows that the concentration of noxious trades at Laverton will be accompanied by the growth of a not inconsiderable township there, at whose door the concentration of every noxious trade now in Melbourne, under present offensive conditions, would be intolerable. However, it is authoritatively stated that the measures which will be insisted upon to modernise the noxious trades, once they are concentrated at Laverton, will minimise the nuisances to an extent hardly conceivable by the unfortunate inhabitants who happen to be living alongside them at present. The Laverton scheme will provide for the erection of a model township, which will be at some little distance from the site of the noxious works, and in a direction away from the prevailing wind. Here, after his day's work in the noxious factory, the worker will while away his evening hours in his generous garden plot — amidst the roses, the geraniums and the sweet peas— and forget. Thus, paradoxically, optimists believe that the future noxious trades town of Laverton will become one of the sweetest and most beautiful towns in the Commonwealth. It is all, it is claimed, merely a matter of science and supervision (18).
This was of course, the second plan for the township of Laverton - as we saw, the 1886 land sales described the future town as a new and model suburb, and in the 1919 scheme as a model township. However, once again the plan to move the noxious industries to Laverton, did not happen. As Dr John Lack writes -
During the 1920s there was agitation for the removal of the City Abattoirs and the noxious trades to a special outer site in either Braybrook or Werribee shire, and several inquiries were held. But vested interests, wary of the distances involved, the cost of new works, and the imposition of controls, succeeded in postponing any action. Eventually, after World War II the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works designated a noxious trades zone at Laverton North, and today the pungent odour of industry can sometimes be detected by commuters on the Western Ring Road. Closures of obsolete large abattoirs at Flemington, Footscray and Newport, the growth of country killing, the decline in the local tanning industry, the growth in the export of by-products, improvements in transport, storage and processing, and the substitution of synthetics for natural products have largely eliminated noxious trades odours from Melbourne's suburbs (19).
During the 1920s there was agitation for the removal of the City Abattoirs and the noxious trades to a special outer site in either Braybrook or Werribee shire, and several inquiries were held. But vested interests, wary of the distances involved, the cost of new works, and the imposition of controls, succeeded in postponing any action. Eventually, after World War II the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works designated a noxious trades zone at Laverton North, and today the pungent odour of industry can sometimes be detected by commuters on the Western Ring Road. Closures of obsolete large abattoirs at Flemington, Footscray and Newport, the growth of country killing, the decline in the local tanning industry, the growth in the export of by-products, improvements in transport, storage and processing, and the substitution of synthetics for natural products have largely eliminated noxious trades odours from Melbourne's suburbs (19).
Carlo's involvement with the decision to designate Laverton as a noxious trades area came after his retirement as Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, but it is a testament to the esteem in which he was held that he was invited to be on the panel of three experts of high standing, as The Age described it (20). The fact that it seems that his panel did not make a report at the time was just symptomatic of the Governments longstanding inaction in this area.
Trove list - I have created a list of articles relating to Laverton and the plan to turn it designate it the noxious trades area in 1917 and 1919, access it here.
Footnotes
(1) The Age, August 23, 1917, see here.
(2) Laverton, the new and model suburb: with a short history of Melbourne from its
foundation to the present time by C.R. Staples. Digitised at the State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/119810
foundation to the present time by C.R. Staples. Digitised at the State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/119810
(3) Ibid
(4) Population figures - Lost and Almost Forgotten Towns of Colonial Victoria: a comprehensive analysis of Census Results for Victoria 1841-1901 by Angus B. Watson (The Author, 2003) and Victorian Places https://www.victorianplaces.com.au/laverton
(5) Dr John Lack author of A history of Footscray (Hargreen Publishing, 1991) and other works on Footscray.
(6) eMelbourne https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01069b.htm
(7) The Herald, August 22 1917, see here.
(8) Ibid
(9) The Age, August 23, 1917, see here.
(10) The Herald, September 5, 1917, see here.
(11) Ibid
(12) Footscray Advertiser, August 4, 1917, see here.
(13) Henry Loftus Keiley, listed in the Electoral Rolls as a wool classer. He was a regular letter writer to the newspapers in the 1910s, early 1920s. His father, also called Henry, was the music critic at The Argus for twenty years (The Age, December 30, 1933, see here).
(14) The Herald, July 13, 1918, see here.
(15) The Herald, August 14, 1917, see here.
(16) The Age, January 14, 1919, see here.
(17) Ibid
(18) Ibid
(19) eMelbourne https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01069b.htm
(20) The Age, August 23, 1917, see here.
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