City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

VOLUME 2: THEMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORYBotanical Gardens (sic) and also around homes in Toorak. It was really red and it used to makebeautiful paths. The clay was used by Fowlers. The sand was used for castings in iron foundries.(Jones, 1994:21-2)4.2 Noxious industriesNoxious trades or industries were those that caused unpleasant odours and water pollution,such as tanning, wool scouring, meat processing and boiling down works. They wereconcentrated along the Yarra banks in Richmond and Collingwood polluting the water inMelbourne’s early years. By the 1860s, various attempts to have them removed wereunsuccessful, however they did discourage new operations from commencing close to the city(Vines & Churchward, 1995:23-24, 76-78). Darebin’s relative isolation, with few residents tocomplain about the odours together with the availability of water from the creeks and the YanYean pipeline, attracted some of these noxious industries in the 1860s.A number of noxious industries were operating in Northcote in the 1870s, including severalpiggeries and boiling down works in Clarke Street, Herne’s bacon curing works, and also themanufacture of oil cloth at Lawrence’s dye works. In 1880, Northcote residents formed theNorthcote Health League to campaign for the removal of these noxious trades from their area.The League had limited success because some Jika Shire councillors had interests in theindustries and were reluctant to impose restrictions. Nevertheless, the campaign was a majorfactor in the severance movement of the southern part of the shire to form the Borough ofNorthcote in 1883, and the subsequent removal of noxious trades from Northcote (Lemon,1983:71-76). Preston, still sparsely populated, already had two thriving noxious industries -bacon curing and tanning, which contributed to Preston’s local economy and character formany years.Bacon curingVictoria’s first bacon factory was established in 1862 by William Watson and WilliamPaterson, who had both worked as bacon curers in their native Scotland. They chose the site onthe corner of Plenty Road and Dundas Street because the land was relatively cheap and farenough from Melbourne to avoid complaints of pollution, but not too far from the Melbournemarket. An important consideration was also the availability of water from the Yan Yeanpipeline that had been completed five years earlier. Although water was not yet connected toPreston’s buildings, it was available from local standpipes. Watson and Paterson built aweatherboard factory and adopted the tradename ‘Pioneer’ for their hams and bacon. Theirproducts won prizes at Exhibitions in Europe and USA. The firm trained many men in thebacon trade, two of whom set up their own factories. After Watson retired from the firm thebusiness was carried on by the Paterson family until 1958, when it was taken over by OttoWurth Pty Ltd (Carroll 1985:43-5).In 1872 one of Watson and Paterson’s employees, James Hutton commenced his own baconcuring works in Preston. He moved to Coburg for a few years, then because of complaintsfrom the local council, moved back to Preston (Vines & Churchward, 1995:24). He built athree-storey factory in Oakover Road in 1880, and brand his products ‘Pineapple’. Anotherfactory was later added on the corner of High and Raglan Streets. The firm diversified intosausages and other smallgoods, and had interests in Queensland. In 1903, Huttons was thelargest firm of its kind in Australia. Most of the pigs were bought from a pig market and sentby rail to Bell Station, where there were pig pens on the eastern side. Local residents rememberthe squeals of the pigs as they were prodded along the road to the High Street factory forslaughtering. Huttons closed their abattoirs in the early 1970s because of complaints about thenoise and smells, and moved the slaughtering operations to Kyneton. They subsequentlymoved all their Preston operations to Oakover Road (Carroll, 1985:47-9; Jones, 1994:30-1)Meanwhile, several bacon curers had also set up in Preston and one or two in Northcote,including Smith & Kenihan, later William Smith and Sons in Bastings Street. By 1930, only49