Marnock Geelong (Former Phoenix Wool Scouring Works)

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

The industrial complex contains buildings which relate to the former Phoenix Wool Scouring Works and as such has historical significance for its associations with the development of the woolen industry in Geelong. The timber building adjacent to Riversdale Road contains evidence of plant use for scouring and carbonizing activity. There is information, which suggest that the Phoenix works was the first business in Victoria to make a separate industry of this kind of work. Historical associations with Brig. General Robert Smith, its founder, are also important in the region.

The scouring and carbonizing plant date from the 1930s and 1940s and were installed in the early 1970s on the sire. Changes to machinery and updating components of plant is commonplace in the local Dyson foundry, with some equipment manufactured at Leeds, England and other components fabricated on site.

Other major wool-scouring works founded at the time were the Corio Wool Scouring Works, Marnock Vale Wool Scouring Works and the Austral Wool Scouring Works. The first of these are now demolished; the second site houses some important plant within a more modern structure, and the Austral site has little evidence of its wool-scouring history that remains. The former Phoenix Wool Scouring Works, therefore is a valuable and intact survivor of an important phase in the development of Geelong's Woolen Industry.

Historically, Geelong stands pre-eminent as a wool scouring and milling town and key river sites which established this reputation warrant attention and conservation.

POLICY/RECCOMENDATIONS

Existing Listings: None

Recommendations: RNE LPS Place

REFERENCES

Geelong Water and Sewerage Detail Plan No 164

Newtown Rate Book 1919-20, South Ward, No 1224.

Glady's Seaton. Model Borough, City of Newtown, 1983, p95.

Ibid and Geelong Advertiser, 15 march, 1934.

Seaton, pp 94-95

Newtown Rate Book - 1925 - No 1416.

Ibid 9135, No 1552

There is a 'Barwon Soap Works' sign on the side of the shed. In 1903 the Barwon Soap Works, founded in 1871 and owned later by JC King had officer in Fyans Street, South Geelong. Cyclopedia of Victoria, 1903, Vol II, p. 159.

Group

Farming and Grazing

Category

Woolscour