A century ago, the final 1914 report of the 1898 UK Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal provided an improved scientific knowledge of sewage treatment and an increased awareness of public health. This led to a greater desire to correctly treat sewage, rather than the previously recommended processes of ‘disposing’ of it by spreading it onto land or piping it into the sea.

Sewerage is a necessary consequence of water supply. Victorian towns had previously been given the powers to raise funds to develop reticulated water supply systems, but without the corresponding authority to develop reticulated sewerage schemes, public health was placed at risk. The Sewerage District’s Act 1915 was meant to enable this, but the dark shadows of the First World War and the post-war influenza pandemic slowed progress.

Furthermore, the young Commonwealth of Australia did not yet have a Department of Health to provide a national focus for Public Health, and there were few engineers in Victoria, and indeed across Australia, who were knowledgeable or skilled in the design and operation of sewage treatment systems.

This talk will provide a contextual history of the development of public health engineering overseas and in Australia; outline the social and economical constraints of the period; explain the legislation in Victoria that enabled the formation of Sewerage Authorities; and identify the key civil engineer leaders in Australia and Victoria who successfully guided the design, construction and operation of most of the town sewage treatment plants in Victoria from 1925 to 1940.

Many of the engineering practices they established then, still continue as the leading consulting engineering practices of today.

This session will be presented by Ken McInnes

Ken has been researching engineering history and heritage for five decades and has served on many related statutory, professional and community organisations including: Historic Buildings Council of Victoria; Engineering Heritage Victoria (past chair); Engineering Heritage Australia (past chair); and National Trust Timber Bridges Committee (chair). He has also helped steer many heritage studies. His professional career as a civil, environmental and computer software engineer has included senior roles in major consulting engineering practices, state Public Works Agencies, and convening and lecturing University subjects on internet and web technologies. He is currently an Adjunct Research Fellow, at Swinburne University of Technology, and his current research focus is on researching and adding biographies of engineers and works into the “Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation”.