West End Gasworks
| West End Gasworks | |
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West End Gasworks Distribution Centre, 1999
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| Location | 321 Montague Road, West End, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 27°28′51″S 153°00′14″E / 27.4809°S 153.0038°ECoordinates: 27°28′51″S 153°00′14″E / 27.4809°S 153.0038°E |
| Official name: West End Gasworks Distribution Centre, South Brisbane Gas and Light Company Works, West End Gasworks | |
| Type | state heritage |
| Designated | 22 October 1999 |
| Reference no. | 601595 |
 Location of West End Gasworks in Queensland
Location of West End Gasworks in Queensland
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West End Gasworks is a heritage-listed gasworks at 321 Montague Road, West End, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as South Brisbane Gas and Light Company Works. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 22 October 1999.
The West End Gasworks was established in June 1885 to supplement the Brisbane supply of gas.
Commercial gas supply originated in London in 1812, Sydney in 1841, Melbourne in 1856 and Brisbane in 1865, at Petrie Bight. The Brisbane Gas Company's main market was north of the Brisbane River, but supply had extended across the river to South Brisbane by 30 June 1885 when The South Brisbane Gas and Light Company Limited was registered.
From 1861 to 1864, Brisbane's population more than doubled, to 12,551. In the mid-1860s, Brisbane's infrastructure blossomed, with construction of the first cross-river bridge, a new Town Hall, a vastly improved water supply and its first gasworks. Commercial gas supply originated in London in 1812, Sydney in 1841 and Melbourne in 1856.
The Brisbane Municipal Council was anxious to provide street lighting, for which gas was seen as the only feasible system. Earlier in the decade, the Colonial Government, supposedly for health reasons, refused permission for the Council to establish a gasworks on a site at Petrie's Bight. On the same site, however, in 1864, the Government authorised private enterprise to establish this new public utility. Central to these decisions was the Minister for Lands and Works, Arthur Macalister, then at the epicentre of friction between the Government and the Brisbane Council, friction which has erupted on several occasions ever since.
The main demand for gas during the 1870s was probably for lighting, and the Municipal Council was almost certainly the Brisbane Gas Company's biggest customer. After the financial woes of the later 1860s there followed two decades of steady growth in Brisbane, reflected in an increase of demand for gas, for both lighting and for domestic and industrial fuel. Supply was expanded to, among other places, South Brisbane.
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