MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: The construction of the Pumping
Station in Melbourne's sewage scheme was the largest public
infrastructure project undertaken in Victoria during
the 19th century.
DAVID CROTTY: Well, there had been many attempts to try and
introduce a proper sewage system into Melbourne.
It really followed on from the great infrastructure projects
in places like London in the mid-19th century.
And it was pretty soon realised that Melbourne needed
its own sewage system.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: Construction on the Pumping
Station site commenced in March of 1894.
And the buildings themselves were completed by the latter
part of 1896.
And the Pumping Station officially came on line in
February of 1898.
Spotswood was chosen as the location for the Pumping
Station because it's close to the mouth of the Yarra river.
Melbourne's built on a large, wide-open basin.
And so naturally, the easiest way to design a sewage system
was to have most of the sewers gravitating to the
mouth of the river.
The construction of the Melbourne sewage scheme and
the Pumping Station played a key role in Melbourne's
economy during the 1890s, at a time when there was a lot of
unemployment.
Thousands of workers were employed actually building the
sewers and the Pumping Station.
And hundreds more worked in the factories that supplied a
lot of the bricks, the cement, and also the iron pipes, and
machinery, and so on that we used in the construction.
DAVID CROTTY: The original engines for the Pumping
Station were built by Thompsons of Castlemaine.
And that probably didn't work out so well, because the first
Thompsons engines were not that great.
MATTHEW CHURCHWARD: They were of a design that hadn't been
used previously in Australia.
And although this was a very experienced engineering
company, it was largely an untried design for Australian
conditions.
In the end, the board managed to order one steam engine from
Hathorn Davey of Leeds in England.
And it proved to be the most successful of the earliest
engines installed in the Pumping Station.
So it was subsequently copied for further engines by a local
manufacturing company.
After the First World War, when additional pumping
capacity was required, the board sought tenders for
electric pumping machinery and installed the first generation
of electric pumps.
By operating the pumps with electricity, they could
substantially reduce their running costs here at the
Pumping Station itself.
By 1925, they had a total of five electric pumps installed
at Spotswood.
That was sufficient capacity to handle most of the average
daily flows.
The Pumping Station finally closed in the mid-1960s,
largely because of the age and poor condition of the rising
main pipes between Spotswood and Brooklyn.
The board elected to build a new pumping station at
Brooklyn and phase out operation of
Spotswood Pumping Station.
The Pumping Station provides an extraordinary insight into
Melbourne's early history.
Not only was it a vehicle for improving the sanitation and
public health of a city, but it was also an amazing
engineering milestone.
DAVID CROTTY: Spotswood Pumping Station
is an icon of Melbourne.
It's Melbourne's first real attempt at an integrated
sewage system, which really made life in Melbourne both
bearable and healthy.
And it's one of the real undiscovered treasures of
Melbourne that people are quite amazed when they come
and discover for themselves.