 |
 |
 |
| A view across Coode Island from the top of the CSR Refinery. Coode Island is Melbourne's major storage site for toxic chemicals. |
|
|
| Photo by Vivienne Mehes, 1995, from the exhibition 'Big River - soundings on the Lower Yarra'. |
|
 |
|
| Yarraville Sugar Refinery on the Maribyrnong River, as it was in 1876. |
|
|
| Wood engraving published in the Australasian Sketcher, September 2, 1876, Melbourne. Contributed by the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. |
|
|
|
Named by its promoters to emphasise its proximity to the Yarra River, Yarraville was subdivided for housing early in 1859 by the partnership of Biers, Henningham and Co., which issued 900 invitations to its inaugural 'Fete, Pic-nic and Land Sale'.
Guests were brought to the site by train to hear the local MP, Joseph Wilkie, praise Yarraville's healthy location and its proximity to town.
Soon, however, Yarraville's ambience became much less salubrious. In the 1870s the waterfront was taken up by large and very smelly factories, many of them fleeing opposition from local councils in other parts of Melbourne. Bone mills, fertiliser works, an acid plant, the Victoria Sugar Co.'s refinery - all clustered along the river, making Yarraville the home of Melbourne's chemical and fertiliser industries.
While none of the companies that built these factories have survived in their original form, their influence can still be seen along the Yarraville riverbank, where the CSR sugar refinery and Orica chemical works now occupy the huge, sprawling sites on which the industrialists of the 1870s brought modern manufacturing to Melbourne. Across the river is Coode Island, still Melbourne's major storage area for toxic chemicals in spite of a devastating fire in August 1991.
Back from the river, Yarraville is changing fast. As employment has declined in local factories and on the waterfront, Yarraville has reinvented itself as a commuter suburb. Its picturesque weatherboard cottages have attracted city office workers and renovators, and the commercial precinct around Anderson Street, possibly Melbourne's narrowest main street, now sports restaurants, cafés and organic produce shops.
 |
|
| Renovated cottages in Yarraville. By the end of the twentieth century this once-industrial suburb was being rapidly gentrified. |
|
|
| Photo by Jenny Lee, 1999. |
|
Further reading: John Lack, A History of Footscray, Hargreen/City of Footscray, 1991.
(Copyright Imagine The Future Inc. and Australian Film Commission, 2002.
Text by Jenny Lee for ITF.
Home
|
