Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Glebe Island Bridge

Glebe Island Bridge

1873
Glass photonegative

Completed in December 1861, the Glebe Island Bridge connected the city to the Edmund Blacket designed stone buildings of Glebe Island Abattoirs. Not surprisingly, Glebe and Balmain residents complained constantly of the smell and the abattoir featured prominently in the 1882 Royal Commission into noxious and offensive trades. The government banned the boiling down of offal in 1883 and eventually the abattoirs were moved to Homebush.

From the Sydney Morning Herald 4 Aug 1874

Sir, a "Master Butcher" writes a long letter in your issue of Saturday, giving reasons why the abattoir on GlebeIsland should not be removed... If I had the “Master Butcher” on the island, I could point out leaking masses of offal buried between the clefts of this rocky island, and covered with so little soil that the mass under it could be distinctly seen, even lately. I could also show... that from the whole place a stench most horrible arises, which is wafted by every wind that blows to some point where there is an ever increasing population—spreading the germs of disease in various forms. Signed A.M., [Letter to the Editor, Sydney Morning Herald 4 Aug 1874.]