The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, abbreviated as MMBW, was a public utility board in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, set up in 1891 to provide water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment functions for the city; and was charged with responsibility for metropolitan highways and bridges from 1956 to 1974; and assumed responsibility for urban planning from 1949 to 1987. Following devolvement of its former planning and road transport functions, in 1992 the MMBW was merged with a number of smaller urban water authorities to form Melbourne Water.
Establishment From Melbourne's settlement in the 1830s into the boom years of the 1880s, the disposal of sewage was very basic. In the early days the majority of waste from homes and industries flowed into street channels and on to local rivers and creeks which became open sewers. By the 1880s, many homes in the inner city had privies backing into a rear lane, the pail closet system where "night soil" was collected in pans by a "nightman" reaching through a small door in the back of the outdoor toilet. It was carted away to the outer fringes of Melbourne, where it was often used as fertiliser by market gardeners. Because the waste stayed in the pan for up to a week, and some waste still flowed straight into the street, Melbourne was nicknamed "Smellbourne".
By the late 1880s Melbourne's population had grown immensely to nearly 500,000 people, and the city's waste disposal habits made the rivers, creeks and bays unhygienic and unsightly, and epidemics of typhoid became frequent (one in four children did not survive past their second year). This led to a royal commission into Melbourne's public health in 1888, which recommended a sewerage system, and supported the establishment of a Board of Works to build it. James Mansergh, an eminent British sanitary engineer, was brought out by the Victorian Government in 1889 to recommend the most appropriate plan; he advocated a water-borne sewerage system, something local engineers had long asked for.
The MMBW was established by the passed by the Victorian Parliament in December 1890. The board was based on London's Metropolitan Board of Works, which was established as an appointed rather than elected authority to take charge of citywide initiatives, such as sewerage and parks. The act made the board responsible for the construction and operation of a sewerage system, as well as the existing water supply from the Yan Yean Reservoir.
The MMBW took on the government debt incurred in the building of the Yan Yean water supply, an amount then in excess of , but was also empowered to impose rates for water supply and sewerage on properties in the "Metropolis" (being "The City of Melbourne and the Suburbs thereof").
Sewerage system Construction began on Melbourne's sewerage system under the leadership of the MMBW's first engineer-in-chief, William Thwaites in 1892. Thwaites had convinced the board to abandon Mansergh's scheme and to adopt an alternative, simpler scheme that in all essential aspects was identical to a scheme he had proposed in 1889.
Huge brick-lined sewers were built under the city, draining towards the west running under the Yarra to a pumping station at Spotswood (which still exists as part of the Scienceworks Museum). It was then piped on to a treatment farm, now the Western Treatment Plant, near Werribee, a small country town at the time, where the treated water was used to irrigate pasture and market gardens. The system began operations in 1897.
By 1910, there were 123,227 connections to Melbourne's water supply system and 105,993 connections to the sewerage system.
As part of this work, the MMBW measured up and drew detailed maps of all the settled areas of Melbourne at a scale of 40 feet to 1 inch (1:480), creating a set of maps that are now an important historic resource.
Later activities There was no initial planning for a separate citywide storm water management system. By the 1920s a need for improved metropolitan drainage, in particular infrastructure involving more than one municipal district, was identified. Under the Metropolitan Drainage and Rivers Act 1923 the MMBW became responsible for metropolitan main drains, for which it was empowered to imposed a drainage rate. Local councils remained responsible for local drainage.
In the years towards the end of World War II, there was a general concern to prepare citywide plans for post war reconstruction and development, and a Town and Country Planning Board was established in 1944. The Town and Country Planning (Metropolitan Area) Act 1949 gave the MMBW authority to prepare a comprehensive plan for the metropolitan area of Melbourne, and in 1954 the board was made the ongoing chief planning authority for metropolitan Melbourne. The board had made a thorough study of land use and infrastructure in Melbourne and produced the Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme 1954 which recommended amongst other things land-use zoning, a system of freeways and bypasses, and a park system.
Under the Town and Country Planning Act 1958, the board was empowered to impose a "Metropolitan improvement rate" for its responsibilities. The MMBW remained the de facto, unelected planning authority for Melbourne until the Ministry for Planning and Environment was created in 1987.
The responsibility for the construction and maintenance of metropolitan highways and bridges was vested in the board by an amending Act in 1956, causing a great deal of conflict with the Country Roads Board (CRB), until all road responsibilities passed to the CRB on 1 July 1974. At that time also, the MMBW's responsibility for protection of Melbourne's Port Phillip foreshores (extending from Mount Eliza to Werribee) was transferred to the Ports and Harbours Division of the Public Works Department.
Abolition In 1992 the MMBW was abolished and replaced by Melbourne Water. During the 1990s Melbourne Water lost the majority of the former MMBW's remaining functions, water supply, sewerage, and some parks. Water supply and sewerage services were split into three public water retailers, while its waterway functions were transferred firstly to Melbourne Parks and Waterways and then to the Minister for Conservation, with Parks Victoria becoming a service provider to the State for the conservation and management of waterways (for which the parks charge, being the former "Metropolitan Improvement Rate" is imposed on Melbourne household water bills) as well as some metropolitan parks. The waterways that had previously been vested in the MMBW reverted to crown land (s.175 of the Water Industry Act). By the end of the 1990s Melbourne Water's main responsibility was for the provision of bulk water from Melbourne's numerous reservoirs (including water provision to irrigators in outer Melbourne), main drains (for which it continued to impose a metropolitan drainage tariff, having lost the power to impose a rate), and sewage treatment. As a successor in law to the Dandenong Valley Authority it is also responsible for flood protection in that former authority's declared "Waterway Management District" (e.g. Patterson Lakes). It imposed a "waterway management charge" (otherwise known as a Special Drainage or Precept charge) for the building of levee banks and other flood protection works in these flood prone areas.
List of chairmen and chief engineers The following individuals served as chairmen, chief engineers, or equivalent titles at the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works between 1891 and 1992:
Chairmen Ordinal Officeholder Title Term start Term end Time in office Notes Edmond Gerald FitzGibbon Chairman 1891 1905 years Walter Carre Riddell 1905 1927 years 1927 1940 years John Cecil Jessop 1940 1956 years Raymond E. Trickey 1956 1966 years Alan Humphrey Croxford 1966 31 July 1982 years Raymond David Marginson 1982 1992 years
Edmond Gerald FitzGibbon Edmond Gerald FitzGibbon (1 November 1825 – 12 December 1905) was Melbourne Town Clerk from 1856 to 1891 and first chairman of the MMBW, appointed in 1891. He had previously campaigned for a London-style Board of Works to provide Melbourne with essential public utilities including water supply and sewerage. He campaigned against pollution of the Yarra by effluent from factories. As early as the mid-1860s he was negotiating with governments and suburban councils to get agreement. The resistance of the suburban councils finally gave way when FitzGibbon helped obtain favourable terms. He was, however, criticised by the press for the high capital expenditure, having raised large loans from London Banks, when it was believed the works could be financed more cheaply in Melbourne. During FitzGibbon's fourteen years as chairman of the MMBW, the sewerage system was completed and water catchments were consolidated and protected. FitzGibbon, having succumbed to illness, died in office.
A bronze statue was erected in 1908 at the corner of St Kilda Road and Linlithgow Avenue, in the Melbourne city centre, to commemorate his achievement. The statue was sculpted by James White with a Harcourt granite pedestal, and known as the 'Edmund Fitzgibbon Memorial'.
Walter Riddell Walter Carre Riddell (1859–1930) was chairman of the MMBW from 1905 to 1927. Riddell was one of the pioneer settlers of Riddells Creek in Victoria, and became a councillor for the Shire of Caulfield in 1889. Riddell had a long-standing interest in sanitation having undertaken extensive travels in Europe in 1888 where he had inspected sewage farms in Germany and Britain. He was a commissioner on the first Board of Works representing the council in 1891. Riddell was appointed as chairman in 1905, initially for fifteen months in an honorary capacity, as the Act prohibited him from taking a salary until he had given up his legal practice. He was elected full-time chairman in April 1907 with a unanimous vote. During his twenty years' tenure, Melbourne's sewerage system did not present major problems, with the 'metropolitan farm' working adequately and \extended as necessary. A new system of grass filtration was introduced to supplement land filtration when the weather was too wet for evaporation and soil absorption to work effectively. Riddell took a special interest in the cattle breeding programs at Werribee; and was also responsible for recognising the uneven growth of Melbourne was putting a strain on the sewers, and so began the planning for separate south-eastern treatment plant and sewer network.
John Jessop John Cecil Jessop (1892–1968), was chairman of the board from 1940 to 1956, taking over the role at a difficult time, when the board was under pressure to meet demand for services in a period of rapidly growing post-war development. He presided over the preparation of the 1954 Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme, which saw many American innovations such as the freeway and open space networks.
Raymond Trickey Raymond E. Trickey was chosen to succeed as to chairman of the Board of Works in 1955, taking up the position in 1956. He had spent the preceding twelve years on the board, primarily on the finance committee, and previously had been on the Brighton Council for 24 years and mayor three times. His appointment was challenged by Prahran Council who wished to extend the term of retiring chairman, Jessop, and open the position to other than existing commissioners. Trickey's tenure was seen as ineffective, especially in contrast to his successor, Croxford.
Alan Croxford