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[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAVID CROTTY: The 1880s was a period of
enormous growth in Melbourne.
There was a huge amount of business activity, borrowing,
and at that time, Melbourne really was the commercial
centre of Australia.
All following on from the huge wealth
caused by the gold rush.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: There was an enormous influx of
immigrants, gold seekers, and just people looking for a
better life.
DAVID CROTTY: There was tremendous population
pressure, as well.
And along with that went things like increasing levels
of ill health.
There were things like typhoid which was
causing real public concern.
And a lot of that was due to the fact that there wasn't the
working infrastructure for sewage disposal in Melbourne
at that time.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: The one thing you could say about
Melbourne in the 1880s, the sewage system was still very
much in the dark ages.
It was the one thing that wasn't modern about Melbourne.
DAVID CROTTY: And a lot of the back lanes - which you still
see in Melbourne today - they're not there because
they're trendy places to put coffee bars.
They're actually there because people needed them to access
the sewage pans that had to be emptied out
physically by hand.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: In 1892, around about the time they
began building the sewage system, Melbourne was plunged
into financial crisis.
The land boom that had continued through most of the
previous decade had come to an abrupt end.
Many of the city's workers were unemployed.
About 1/3 of manufacturing workers had lost their jobs.
And so it provided a much-needed boost in
employment.
Thousands of people were employed actually constructing
the sewers, including office workers and tradesmen, and
people who had other professions took on manual
labour just to make ends meet.
DAVID CROTTY: It was very important for people to build
and manufacture things locally in Melbourne.
There was very much a feeling that Melbourne was going to be
the Chicago of the south and was going to be a major centre
for manufacturing and production.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: The concept was that if they
supported local manufacturers, most of the cost of the
equipment - even if it cost a few thousand pounds extra
initially - would be put into the local economy.
So it would help to generate employment and the wages would
be circulated around through the local economy, and so on.
DAVID CROTTY: The introduction of the Melbourne Metropolitan
Board of Works sewage system was a major step forward for
Melbourne's health, and also the quality of life.
It really was the beginning of the process of going from the
outdoor dunny to the modern indoor bathroom.
MATILDA VAUGHAN: It would have been so nice to walk down a
Melbourne street and not have to wade through any filth or
someone else's filth.
It would've made the whole city a much more pleasant
place to be.
SPEAKER: Ladies and gentleman, it was an American who said,
"the modern city as we know it owes its existence to the fact
that you can flush a toilet on the 10th floor of a hotel, or
an apartment house, or an office building, and in the
normal course of events achieve satisfactory results."
DAVID CROTTY: World War II had a massive impact in Melbourne,
particularly after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbour, and then subsequently the
Japanese bombing of Darwin.
And people suddenly realised that Melbourne was vulnerable,
potentially.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: Of course, being an essential industry
and being close to the mouth of the river and Port Phillip
Bay, the Pumping Station was particularly vulnerable.
DAVID CROTTY: There were immediate precautions put in
place to build air raid shelters and to protect
Melbourne's vital infrastructure against the
possibility of air attack.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: They also took the dramatic step of
de-installing the most recent electric pumps that had only
been installed in 1938.
The logic being that if the Pumping Station was bombed and
equipment was knocked out of operation, they could rush
those pumps back in, have them back installed, and in
operation within 36 hours.
By the early 1950s, the Pumping Station had pretty
much reached capacity and the original sewers were bursting
at the seams, so to speak.
MATILDA VAUGHAN: I think it's significant in that it's this
spot where we have this industrial building that has
changed the lives in ways that people don't even know.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: It's been an essential part of the city
for the best part of 75 years.
And interestingly, around 1/4 of Melbourne's sewage today
still flows through the Spotswood site on its way to
Brooklyn each day.
And those sewers that were built over a century ago are
still an essential part of the city's sewage system today.
[MUSIC PLAYING]