Information

The Baynes family ran a huge commercial enterprise across southern Brisbane. William Baynes had been one of the first butchers in the area, and established the Graziers Butchering Company in 1880. This business exported meat and supplied up to 30 suburban butchers. The Baynes’ established a wool-scouring, fellmongering and soap-making facility at Belmont in 1896. Woolscouring is a process of washing wool, and a fellmongery involves the preparation of animal skins for leather-making. The soap was made from rendered sheep fat. The Belmont factory was state-of-the-art and could produce 60 sixty bales of wool and 3000 sheepskins daily. The Belmont tramway, opened in 1912, had a siding to the factory that enabled product to be transported from there directly to the wharfs on the Brisbane River at Queensport. The Baynes business carried on in various forms until 1937.

Citations

The Queenslander, 28 March 1896, 29 August 1896; Betty Crouchley and H. J. Gibbney, ‘Baynes, George (1862–1907)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University (http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/baynes-george-5606/text8667), sighted 9 August 2017.

Image Citations

Wool scouring at Baynes Bros. woolscouring business, Belmont, Brisbane, 1900. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Record number: 50532.

Map References

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