Commonwealth Acetate of Lime Factory

About

Commonwealth Acetate of Lime Factory is a heritage-listed factory at 82 Colmslie Road, Morningside, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Colmslie Migrant Hostel, Fairmile Naval Base, Hans Continental Smallgoods Factory, and HMAS Moreton, Colmslie. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 7 December 2007.

The former Commonwealth Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie consists of a number of brick and timber buildings built between 1917 and 1920. Two timber demountable blocks were added as migrant accommodation c.1949. Since the early 1970s most of the site has been occupied by Hans Continental Smallgoods Pty Ltd, which has constructed a modern factory on the southern part of property. The remaining original buildings are used as offices and for storage. The riverfront fish markets have occupied the northern part of the original factory site since 1966.

During World War I the Australian Commonwealth Arsenal developed its own defence factories, due to disruption of the supply of manufactured goods and armaments to Australia. By 1919 the defence factories included the Lithgow Small Arms Factory in Lithgow, New South Wales; a Clothing Factory in South Melbourne ; and the Defence Explosive Factory Maribyrnong (Cordite) at Maribyrnong, Melbourne; a Government Woollen Mill; and the Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie, Brisbane. The latter provided acetate of lime for cordite production at Maribyrnong.

After World War I the Australian government sought to protect the local steel, copper, chemical, and woollen textile industries, which had grown during the war, and to promote research and development. Government factories and laboratories were to provide a knowledge pool for the private sector, and the latter would then be able to help supply the country's defence needs in wartime. This policy of "Self Containment" led to Australia being able to supply itself with light weapons and ammunition by World War II. The Munitions Supply Board (1921 to 1939) inherited the defence factories of the Commonwealth Arsenal, and its High Explosives and Filling Factory Group in Victoria became the centre of chemical engineering in Australia. Other Munitions Supply Board assets in the 1920s included the Ordnance Factory Group, Gun Ammunition Factory Group, and Small Arms Ammunition Factory in Victoria, and the Small Arms Factory Group in New South Wales. The Munitions Supply Board thus controlled the largest and most advanced factory system in Australia, and the largest industrial research laboratories, under the Munitions Supply Laboratories organisation.

A committee from the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs selected a site for the Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie in mid 1916, after Cairns was considered and rejected. Subdivisions 2 and 3 of Eastern Suburban Allotment 22, Parish of Bulimba, County of Stanley, covering 9 acres (3.6 ha) 2 roods 29.5 perches (2,770 m 2 ) were resumed on 21 September 1916 at a cost of £ 1,719. A plan drawn up by the Department of Home Affairs in November 1916, and signed "HJB", laid out the main built elements of the factory, and their function, as designed by the bacteriologist and chemist Auguste de Bavay.

Born in Belgium, De Bavay had worked for a number of breweries (including Fosters, Swan, Cascade, Carlton and United ), as well as working in the mining industry, and in the paper industry. He had designed the revolutionary ore-extraction technique of the "skin" or "film" flotation process, patented in 1905, to deal with "the Sulphide Problem". In 1914 de Bavay was asked by the Minister of Defence to investigate the manufacture of acetone for use in cordite manufacture, and in two weeks he had developed a process to ferment and distil molasses. He was later asked to build the Colmslie factory, which had a well-equipped chemical and bacteriological laboratory. His son, Francis Xavier de Bavay, became the first manager of the factory.

The cost of the factory was about £ 120,000. Production began in 1918, with 30 employees, and continued after the war ended, in order to lay up reserve supplies. When production of acetate of lime (calcium acetate) ceased early in 1922, about 1,000 metric tons (980 long tons; 1,100 short tons) had been made; enough to produce 200 metric tons (200 long tons; 220 short tons) of acetone, leading to 1,000 metric tons (980 long tons; 1,100 short tons) of cordite, or about 400 million rounds of.303-inch (7.7 mm) rifle cartridges.

The process of making acetate of lime started with molasses (from the Babinda Sugar Mill and Mulgrave sugar mill ) that had been shipped from Cairns to Brisbane. The molasses was pumped into a holding tank near the river, and was diluted with water. The liquid was then heated and cooled in the three-storey Agitator and Cooler House, to destroy foreign bacteria. In the two-storey Fermenting House yeast was added to large wooden temperature-controlled vats, with fermentation producing a dilute (8%) solution of alcohol ( ethanol ). The "wash" was transferred to vats on the top floor of the three-storey Settling House, where it was allowed to settle out. The wash was then transferred to the adjacent three-storey Acidifier House, where it was repeatedly pumped through wooden vats, which contained wood shavings and Bacterium Aceti. Over several days, the alcohol was converted into acetic acid ( vinegar ). The new wash was heated by steam coils, and the acetic acid and water was distilled off, in the two-storey Evaporator House. The acid distillate was neutralised with milk of lime to produce acetate of lime, and this solution was concentrated for evaporation on a heated revolving drum, where it was scraped off as solid flakes. The bagged product was then sent to Maribyrnong for conversion into acetone. Acetone enabled the combination of nitroglycerine and trinitrocellulose to form cordite.

Alcohol distillation at the factory was approved in 1919, due to shortages of certain grades of concentrated alcohol, and the dilute alcohol produced by the fermentation of molasses was distilled to produce concentrated alcohol in the Alcohol Still House, a two-storey eastern extension to the Evaporator House. From early 1920 a pot still was used to produce alcohol for the ammunition factories, and in 1922 a continuous still was installed.

Due to fears that oil resources were limited, alcohol produced from molasses was also considered as an alternative fuel. "Power alcohol" was manufactured at Colmslie from August 1924 to June 1926, before production was halted by concerns that the cost was too high. Approximately 800 kilolitres of this alcohol was made, and was mixed with benzol and ether to produce 1200 kilolitres of motor fuel. This fuel was used by the Post Master General's Department, in its postal vehicles in Brisbane and Melbourne, and by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) vehicles in Victoria.

From 1926 the factory was closed down to a reserve status, under a caretaker. In 1935 the factory's plant was moved to the Footscray and Maribyrnong factories in Melbourne, and the factory was handed over to the Department of the Interior in January 1936. In June 1936 the idea was floated that the Post Master General's Department could use a building for its frequency measuring equipment, using the chimney and water tower to mount aerials. The Department's Radio Broadcasting Branch, Wireless Experimental Section, occupied various buildings from 1937, including the Acidifier House and the Fitter's shop.

The Wireless Experimental Section's peace and quiet was disturbed when an advance party of RAAF personnel arrived at the factory on 23 May 1939. Several factory buildings were required for billeting and storage purposes while the RAAF was awaiting the completion of huts at Archerfield. The Ordnance Service also staked a claim for storage space from February 1940 onwards, and the Field Hygiene Section of the Seventh Division occupied a number of buildings in late 1940. The Engineer's Supply Service branch arrived in April 1941, and the Allied Works Council was present in 1942. The 6th Anti Aircraft battery was a resident by June 1942 and the 2nd and 14th AA batteries by August 1943.

The Post Master General, Ordnance Services, and the Anti Aircraft batteries were still using some buildings in October 1943, but from November 1942 onwards the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) gradually took over most of the complex, which became part of the Fairmile Naval Base (by 1948 the base was referred to as 'HMAS Moreton, Colmslie'). The factory's jetty became a refuelling wharf, and navy workshops and a repair slipway were built between the factory and the river.

New tenants were soon to follow. In December 1943 Prime Minister Curtin had expressed the view that, for security reasons, Australia's population had to increase to 20 million. The Commonwealth Department of Immigration was created in 1945, and in 1946 the goal was to allow 70,000 migrants into Australia each year, (roughly 1% of Australia's population at the time). The United Kingdom-Australia Free and Assisted Passage Agreements became active in March 1947. Adults would only pay £ 10 towards their passage, and children aged 14–18 would be charged £ 5. A shipping shortage handicapped the program until 1948, but from 1947 to 1958, of 457,898 migrants moving from the United Kingdom to Australia, 68% received assisted passage. In this period the British represented about a third of all migrants to Australia. The peak years of assisted British migration to Australia were between 1949 and 1952.

In order to address labour shortages, the Australian Government also decided to use another source of immigrants: the mass of Displaced Persons in Europe. In July 1947 an agreement was reached with the United Nation's International Refugee Organisation, which would provide the ships to deliver a minimum of 12,000 Displaced Persons per year. This was the first assisted passage scheme for non-British migrants. The migrants included people from the Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Other Displaced Persons came from Eastern and Central Europe, including Czechs, Yugoslavs, Ukrainians, Hungarians and Poles. By 1951, about 170,000 Displaced Persons had moved to Australia.

In 1949 the Migrant Accommodation Centres Division was formed within the Commonwealth Department of Immigration. It was decided that Displaced Persons would go to Holding Centres, where the dependants would stay until the "breadwinner" of the family, working in the vicinity of the Holding Centre, could afford accommodation elsewhere. However, if a worker was allocated to a Worker's Hostel that had room for dependants, the family might be able to live together at the hostel. Although the Department of Immigration administered Holding Centres, the Department of Labour and National Service administered Worker's Hostels.

In June 1949 the Department of Immigration was planning to open four Holding Centres for " New Australians " in Queensland. Wacol opened 9 November 1949, on Army land; Stuart, on RAAF land south of Townsville (the former Operations and Signals Bunker at Stuart ) opened 30 March 1950; Frazer's Paddock at Enoggera opened 14 April 1950, on Army land; and Cairns opened 19 August 1950, on acquired land. In 1952 the standard capacities of these camps were listed as: Wacol 1465; Stuart 500; Enoggera 515; and Cairns 370. At this time 13 Holding Centres were still active in Australia. By April 1960 Wacol was the only migrant Holding Centre left in Queensland.

In mid 1948 the Director of Migrant Hostels had visited the old Acetate of Lime Factory, now acting as a naval barracks, with representatives from the Department of Labour and National Service, and the Department of Works and Housing. In December 1948 the Department of Labour and National Service had asked the RAN for the use of the factory buildings for Baltic Displaced Persons, and the site was transferred from the Department of Interior to the Department of Labour and National Service. However, the land near the river would be used by the Army. In June 1949 it was reported that there would be a Worker's Hostel at Colmslie with a projected capacity of 500 persons. The existing buildings of the Acetate of Lime Factory would provide accommodation, but a number of timber huts were also added the site, as illustrated on an April 1949 map by the Commonwealth Department of Works and Housing (the huts are not present on a 1948 site map prepared by the Department of the Interior). Two of these huts, which were used as six room sleeping blocks, remain on site today, to the north of the brick Engineer's Office and Fitter's shop. By December 1949 the term "Colmslie Migrant Hostel" was being used in correspondence.

Initial government policy was that British migrants would not be sent to Holding Centres. The Immigration Depot at Yungaba, Kangaroo Point, was remodelled to receive the first post-World War II British migrants to Queensland, who left Britain in May 1947. In general though, Yungaba was used as transit depot for those British migrants who had their own accommodation arranged. British migrants who needed longer-term accommodation would be housed at Workers' Hostels.

In January 1952 "Commonwealth Hostels Limited" took over management of the Colmslie Migrant Hostel. Although it was policy that assisted British migrants should live at hostels, there were also non-British migrants at Colmslie in the late 1950s. According to one woman who lived there between 1959 and 1962, these included Germans, Finns, Danes, Yugoslavs, and Russians. Mr Flood, the hostel's Manager at the time, lived in a bungalow (no longer extant) surrounded by palm trees and hibiscus. This was originally the Factory manager's office and laboratory, situated south of the Evaporator House.