Eureka Sanitary Works

Stage Number: MBSH.02.01.03

Group: Southern

Local Study Area: Dutton Park-South Woolloongabba-Buranda

Epoch: Late 19th Century

Street Address: Junction of Gladstone Road and Annerley Road

Latitude & Longitude: -27.49713889,153.02775

Time Link: 1889

Map Link: 1889

Image Time Point: 1889

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Information

From 1889 onwards, the Eureka Sanitary Company had a contract with the South Brisbane council for the removal and disposal of ‘night soil’ collected from the outhouses of the local area. Their sanitary works was the final destination for the human waste in South Brisbane, which was removed from outhouses in airtight pans, stacked on carts, taken to the sanitary works, and then incinerated. The works consisted of stables and a large two-storey building of timber and iron with a 23-metre-high smokestack. The night soil was received on the upper floor and pumped down a pipe into the incineration cylinder, and burned using complex gas-powered machinery. The resulting smoke could hang over the immediate area, and in 1892 a deputation of local people petitioned the colonial secretary about the ‘horrible stench’ and pollution from the works was ‘a nuisance and injurious to the health of all the inhabitants of the district’. The council subsequently prosecuted Eureka for ‘causing a nuisance’ and the company was forced to upgrade their works. In 1902 Eureka was bought out by the General Contracting Company, based in Milton, and a sanitary contractor named Henry Carr used the Boggo (Annerley) Road premises until they were demolished around 1907.

Citations

Christopher Dawson. ‘You Reeker, Eureka’, Life and Death in the Sunshine State, 2012. Brisbane Courier, 19 November 1882.

Image Citations

Map References

QSA. QSA Series ID 2043 City of Brisbane and Suburbs Maps – A1A Series. 8 chains to the inch. Plan of the City of Brisbane and suburbs according to the original Crown Grants. 8 chains to the inch. Survey Office, Brisbane.. 634511