Burdekin River Pumping Station
Burdekin River Pumping Station is a heritage-listed pumping station at Weir Road, Breddan, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from to 1910s. It is also known as Charters Towers Water Supply Scheme. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 3 July 1995.
History
The former Burdekin River Pumping Station was erected as part of the important Charters Towers water supply system, constructed from 1887 to 1891 for the Burdekin Water Scheme Joint Board. When completed the scheme included a pumping station, rising main, reservoir on Tower Hill, chimney stack, engineer's residence, workers' cottages, provisional school, tram track, bridge across the Burdekin River and several trestle bridges to carry the rising main across small creeks between the pumping station and the reservoir in the town. The project cost around, exclusive of ongoing maintenance, the building of a weir in 1902 and construction of an aerial tramway across the river.The significance of the Charters Towers water supply system to the development of the surrounding goldfields cannot be overestimated. Discovered in late 1871, Charters Towers was the richest of the North Queensland mining fields, and made a major contribution to the social, political and commercial development of North Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Peak production was reached in the early 1900s but by 1929 gold mining at Charter Towers had almost ceased.
Early Charters Towers mining activity depended on the local creeks, but the demand for water grew as population and mining expanded. Charters Towers was proclaimed a town in 1877, and by the early 1880s was a prosperous settlement with a rail link to the coast opened in 1882, yet still no sanitation system or reticulated water. In dry seasons the town survived on well water, and crushing slowed at the mines. A report and estimate for a water supply scheme for Charters Towers was prepared in 1878 by the Resident Engineer for Northern Waterworks, John Baillie Henderson, but action was delayed until the very dry years 1883–85 during which time a public campaign run by Thadeus O'Kane, editor of The Northern Miner, placed pressure on the government to provide an adequate water supply at Charters Towers. This campaign corresponded with a growing movement in industrialised countries for the establishment of water supply and sewerage infrastructures in urban communities.
In 1884 the Queensland Water Supply Department revived and modified the 1878 scheme. A new report was prepared but considered too expensive. Only following the 1886 speculative boom in Charters Towers did the government instruct Henderson to prepare a cheaper scheme. This was done by reducing the number of pumping stations from two to one and installing only one pumping engine initially. Water was to be pumped through a cast-iron rising main to a circular reservoir on Tower Hill, from where it would be reticulated by gravity.
Under the Local Authority Act 1886 the Burdekin Water Scheme Joint Board, drawn from members of Dalrymple Divisional Board and Charters Towers Municipal Council, was established to administer the project. Because the Board had no borrowing rights, loans of each had to be raised through the Charters Towers Municipal Council and the Dalrymple Divisional Board, which were responsible for managing the loans.
In November 1886 a survey of the waterworks site was completed, with reserved for the service reservoir at Tower Hill in Charters Towers, reserved for the pipe track to town, and at the junction of the Burdekin and Sheepstation Creek set aside as a water supply reserve for the pumping station. The water supply reserve also functioned as a timber reserve to supply the wood to fuel the steam-driven pump engines, and was extended in the 1890s.
While the land survey and loans were being arranged Henderson prepared the plans and Frederick Talbot Joyce, a London trained civil engineer from Sydney, was selected as the site engineer. By early 1888 the Joint Board had placed an order with Hathorn Davey & Company of Leeds, England for a 75 horse power, inverted compound non-rotative engine coupled to a two-stage pumping system, with a capacity of. The engine was designed by Henry Davey who made a significant contribution to the development of steam powered water pumping systems during the late 19th century. His differential system, applied to vertical compound engines, greatly increased the efficiency of non-rotative pumping engines and prolonged their viability as alternatives to rotating machines. Plans for the engine foundations, specifications for the assembling of engine and boilers, directions for the construction of buildings to protect them, and plans for a high chimney arrived from Hathorn Davey in June 1888.
Despite initial progress, the project was plagued with problems and delays due to inexperience in implementing such a large project, a shortage of skilled labour, personality clashes and professional conflict between Henderson and Joyce. In mid-1888 the project ground to a halt and the Joint Board considered removing the project from the hands of the government engineers, but the loan structure prohibited this. It took intervention by the colonial secretary, Sir Thomas McIlwraith, for Henderson to abandon opposition to Joyce's plans and in June the Queensland Government approved issue of a loan so that the work could proceed.
Thomas H Mann & Co. was appointed contractor for the civil works at the pumping station, and in September 1888 F Taylor was appointed Foreman of Works and construction of the reservoir on Tower Hill commenced. Talbot Joyce prepared plans and specifications for the Charters Towers water reticulation scheme - pumped through of pipe to service 5,000 people, with the possibility of supplying after the installation of a second engine. Thomas Tolson was granted the contract to dig the pipe trenches and build the trestle bridges across the small creeks between the pumping station at Sheepstation Creek and the town. In October 1888 Thomas Mann called tenders for making 80,000 bricks at the pumping station site, and in November the Joint Board accepted the tender of Contes and Company of London to supply pipes to the value of.
During January 1889 substantial progress was made with the civil works at the pumping station. An inlet tunnel long to the river had been completed and was being lined with concrete and the pump shaft had been sunk to its full depth. The frame for the machinery shed at the pumping station had been constructed by Benjamin Toll, the boilers had arrived from England, and the site for the reservoir on Tower Hill had been excavated.
In 1889 conflict arose between the Dalrymple Divisional Board and the municipalities of Charters Towers, Millchester and Queenton, which were preparing to merge as one local authority, with the Divisional Board claiming that its ratepayers would have to pay higher water rates than those in the greater Charters Towers area. Disagreements over aspects of the waterworks project were common during Joint Board meetings and a violent disagreement over chairmanship of the Board in 1889 was resolved in the Supreme Court. By late February the civil works at the pumping station were nearing completion. A major difficulty arose in April 1889 when it was discovered that Hathorn Davey had sent coal-burning Lancashire boilers when specially designed wood-burning boilers had been ordered. Hathorn Davey thought it understood that Lancashire boilers were more suitable for the site because they had two flues which allowed for the burning of either coal or timber, but offered to pay for the construction of furnaces. This offer was accepted and the furnaces, built of brick by Thomas H Mann & Co, cost to install.
By August 1889 the chimney was under construction and work was progressing well, when Talbot Joyce tendered his resignation following a dispute with Taylor and the contractor for the reservoir. Joyce's resignation was accepted by the Joint Board, Taylor was sacked and a new foreman appointed. By October the completion of works was slowing down and Talbot Joyce was reinstated, to resign of his own accord in March 1890. William Bolland took over as site engineer, and remained Resident Engineer of the Charters Towers water supply system until well into the 20th century.
An engineer employed by Hathorn Davey was sent from London to install the pump engine in 1889–90, and a tool shed and fence round the engine site were erected. The pump commenced operation in early February 1891, although not to full capacity. By August 1891 the reticulation system was operating fully, and by December 1,036 dwellings had been connected. After some delay the colonial government approved a loan extension for the reticulation scheme and by 1894 3,132 premises were connected.
Flooding in 1894 caused problems at the pumping station when dirty water threatened to damage the pump and the intake tunnel silted up. To overcome this problem two shafts were sunk into the river bed to a depth of so that sand-filtered water could be procured.
During the very dry years 1895–96 the high demand for water created difficulties in keeping the pumping station working, and the decision was made to purchase a second Hathorn Davey pump engine. By late May 1896 a new engine of the same capacity had been installed. The wood supply for these engines was exhausted on the western bank, so a low level bridge across the river was erected and a tram track laid for a distance of 1? miles to tap the supply of wood on the eastern side of the Burdekin.
In January 1898 Pumping Station Provisional School opened on land excised from the Water Supply Reserve, and served the families of the resident station workers and local farmers until closed in 1936.
The 1890s had been exceptionally dry and by 1900 Queensland was experiencing the worst drought on record. The drought corresponded with a large increase in population in Charters Towers and a subsequent increase in demand for water. There were 20,000 people in the district by 1897 and the population reached a peak of 26,780 in 1900. The reticulation scheme, extended in 1894, was not able to cope with the enormous increase in demand. The introduction of water restrictions changed the face of the town which, with the introduction of water reticulation in 1891, had become noted for its beautiful gardens and cool streets.
In 1902 the Board erected a substantial weir on R.122 upstream from the pumping station. The designer and site engineer was William Bolland, and construction was completed in November 1902. At in length, maximum depth and capacity of, the new weir was exceptional in scale and design for its time, and proved to be a tourist attraction and recreational venue for Charters Towers.
In the 1910s development at the pumping station included an aerial tramway constructed to replace the bridge across the Burdekin which was swept away in 1910/11; relocation in the creek bed of the rising main across Sheepstation Creek in 1913, eliminating on- going maintenance of the repeatedly flood-damaged trestle bridge; and in 1915–16 replacement of the Lancashire boilers with Cornish boilers purchased from the Brilliant and St George Mill and the Brilliant Central Mine. These were functioning by February 1916.
As the pump engines aged and the demand for a substantial supply of water continued, the provision of another pumping plant was discussed and a site selected up stream from the weir. However, before these plans were implemented the pressing need for water eased. By 1924 gold production at Charters Towers was on the decline, the population was falling, the demand for water had decreased and the pumps were able to meet the needs of the town. They continued in operation until 1942 when electric pumps were installed in a new shed behind the old pumps. These electric pumps remained in operation until 1975.
The 1942 installation of electric pumps was necessary because of the vast increase in population in Charters Towers and district during the lead up to the war in the Pacific. By February 1942 a Japanese invasion of Australia seemed imminent. To meet the danger, five US air bases with up to 15,000 personnel were located in the Charters Towers district. The Royal Australian Air Force and the Australian Army also had bases in the area.
After the war No 2 Hathorn Davey pump engine was used occasionally but No 1 was not used again. No 2 pump was decommissioned in 1954 and it is understood that in the 1960s the boilers were removed and sold for scrap and the engines partially dismantled. In August 1975 a new electric pumping station was built at the weir.