Animal Research Institute Buildings is a heritage-listed set of research station buildings at 681 Fairfield Road, Yeerongpilly, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Stock Experiment Station (1909–1932) and Animal Research Station (1932–1953). It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 June 2008.
History The former Animal Research Institute at Yeerongpilly was established by the Department of Agriculture and Stock in 1909 as the Stock Experiment Station. The Station was the first purpose-built, farm-based facility of Australia's first Stock Institute and its work was primarily to research and control diseases in livestock, develop vaccines and improve animal health and production. The complex was extended over time to accommodate the changing needs of the institute, the University of Queensland's first veterinary training facility in 1938–1940 and then, between 1933 and 1967, the interrelated work of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). In 1889 an Intercolonial Stock Conference in Melbourne recommended that an Australasian Stock Institute be established to study diseases in livestock; however the various colonies could not reach agreement on the matter. The first such institute was set up in Queensland in 1893 following a deputation of stock owners to the then Colonial Secretary, the Hon. Berkeley Basil Moreton. The Queensland Stock Institute was initially set up in rented premises in Turbot Street, Brisbane, under bacteriologist Charles Joseph Pound. The premises included a laboratory and a museum.
Pound was a "microscopist" who trained in London in microscopy, physiology and bacteriology and at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in developing vaccines, then a new technology. Arriving in Sydney in 1892, he worked first for the New South Wales Department of Health before taking up the position in Queensland.
As part of his work for the new Stock Institute, in 1894 Pound proved that cattle ticks transmitted Redwater Disease (Bacillary Hemoglobinuria), which was causing heavy losses in Queensland cattle. He conducted the first inoculation studies into this disease in Australia and established a methodology and dosage that are still used worldwide. He trained stockowners in the techniques of collecting recovered blood, defibrillating it and using this vaccine to inoculate their stock. To facilitate this, he invented the "Pound" syringe and arranged for it to be manufactured. Backed by his lectures and published articles, this work made a major contribution to the success of Queensland's cattle industry. Pound's activities also included obtaining pathological specimens of various manifestations of diseases in stock and other domesticated animals, and items sent in by stock owners were added to the museum's collection. However, the primary object of the Institute in 1895 was to cultivate the pleuro-pneumonia virus for inoculating cattle. In 1897 administration of the Institute passed from the Colonial Secretary's Office to the Queensland Department of Agriculture, founded in 1887.
In 1899 new premises for the Institute were constructed in the then Brisbane suburb of Normanby (now within Spring Hill). The two-storey red brick building, located next to the Brisbane Grammar School residence on College Road, included rooms for Mr Pound and clerical work; a general laboratory; plus chemistry, incubator, sterilizing and photographic rooms on the ground floor, and a museum, library and lecture room on the first floor. Outbuildings included two stalls and loose-boxes, plus other facilities for stock used in experiments.
Due to the government's increased focus on human health, Pound was transferred to the Health Section of the Home Secretary's Department as Government Bacteriologist and the department was renamed the Bacteriological Institute. He was the only scientist in Australia then producing tuberculin, used in diagnosing human and bovine tuberculosis, and also carrying out work on leprosy.
In 1907, due to concerns about the impact of cattle tick on the dairy industry, the Institute returned to the control of the Department of Agriculture and Stock and Dr Sydney Dodd was appointed Principal Veterinary Surgeon and Bacteriologist for three years. He continued research work on the eradication of cattle ticks and the diseases caused by them. At his suggestion, the Department acquired of land at Yeerongpilly for an experimental station capable of accommodating the animals needed for research and sufficient for grass and crops to make the farm self-supporting in fodder. The Yeerongpilly site was more suitable than other sites considered as it was bounded on the north by the river, on the south by the railway line, leaving only narrow frontages on the east and west to adjoining land and public roads, thereby reducing the danger that disease could spread.
The first land sales in the Yeerongpilly area had begun in the 1850s and arrowroot and cotton were initially grown, being replaced by sugar cane before the industry moved north following a series of cold winters. In 1879, the Yeerongpilly Divisional Board was formed. The development of rail links in the 1880s opened the area to residential development; but this slowed in the late 19th century following the 1893 floods, which submerged much of Yeerongpilly; and the depression of the 1890s. In the early 20th century, development increased again and most of the area was connected to electricity by the 1920s.
The Stock Experiment Station complex, designed by Dodd, opened in 1909 making Queensland the first state to possess such a facility. As well as Dodd, it employed two laboratory assistants and two farm workers. The offices and laboratories were housed in a timber building, the Stock Experiment Station Main Building, probably designed by Arthur Morry, who was then the Department's architect. It had five rooms off a central corridor that led to a large, sixth room. There were verandahs on the eastern, northern and western sides. The rooms were all airy and well-lit, with fly-proof shields to windows and doors. The main laboratory in the room at the rear was fitted-out with shelves, cupboards and workbenches, much of which remains in 2011. There were also support structures and animal yards, along with a post mortem room, sheep and pig pens and an incinerator.
In 1909 a stable was erected to the north of the Stock Experiment Station Main Building. The Department of Agriculture and Stock Annual Report for 1910 described the building:"The stable provide four stalls, a loose-box, and feed-room, with a room for harness, tools, etc., and another room for small animals, specially ventilated. The manger fittings are of iron, with water-pots and hay-racks combined. The floors of stalls are laid with a special channelled stable brick, and a tramway is laid the whole length of the building with an overhead traveller for removing the carcasses of dead animals."A similar building of 12 stalls, designated as cattle byres, was erected immediately to the north but it does not survive. The total cost of the complex to October 1909 was .
In 1910 Dodd resigned and Pound was transferred from the Bacteriological Institute, taking charge of the new Station until his retirement in 1932, when the facility was renamed the Animal Health Station and a large wing was added to the northern side of the main building to provide additional laboratories. This wing comprised three rooms accessed by a verandah on the western side, part of which was later in-filled. Some original benches and bookcases have been removed. A verandah annex accommodating toilet, store, shower and dressing room on the 1909 section was extended in 1940 to include a ladies dressing room and the whole was modified in 1958 for further laboratory space and updated staffroom and toilets.
Facilities for undertaking post mortems were an essential part of the work of the Stock Experiment Station. The first detached post mortem building was erected in the 1920s and by the early 1930s a new one was required. This building, the Animal Morgue, was erected in 1934 to designs prepared by Department of Public Works architect DFW Roberts. It comprised a single room with a purpose-built concrete mortuary table in the centre and two concrete dissecting benches against the northern wall. As much as possible of the building was constructed of concrete for ease of cleaning and hygiene. It was well ventilated with ceiling vents and a Robinson's Patent ventilator on the roof. The joins between walls and floor were coved. The windows and doors were timber and fly-screens were provided to all openings. Taps operated by foot remain at the dissecting bench in the north-eastern corner.
In the 1930s, staff carried out the first animal husbandry research studies in Queensland with nutritional experiments on pigs and poultry. Major alterations were undertaken in 1939 to convert the Animal Health Station for use as an anatomy school by the University of Queensland's Veterinary School. In April 1935 Queensland Premier William Forgan Smith had stated the reasoning behind the government's funding of a veterinary school for Queensland - that:"Queensland ... was a primary producer, and its problems could in large measure be solved by research; veterinary science would supplement the contribution of agriculture ... a scientific veterinary staff would enable the Department of Agriculture and Stock to deal efficiently with all aspects of veterinary problems and only a Queensland school could meet Queensland's needs ..."The Courier Mail concurred:"animal husbandry, sheep, beef and dairy cattle supported the whole edifice of the state's economy. The need was clear ..."Subsequently, in 1936, a faculty of Veterinary Science had been established within the University of Queensland to provide local training for veterinarians. For practical and economic reasons the faculty used the existing facilities at the Animal Health Station at Yeerongpilly and the North Queensland Stock Experiment Station at Oonoonba in Townsville (est. 1915), as it was thought that their work would complement that of the Veterinary Science Department.
A dedicated building for the School was planned for the Yeerongpilly site and its first stage - comprising part of the animal hospital and the northern wing of the main building - was completed in 1938. Facilities for anatomy were still required so the 1909 stable was altered for this purpose by infilling the door openings on the north with weatherboards and casement windows, lining interior walls with VJ pine boards, inserting a ceiling and covering the brick floor with a concrete slab. (It is not clear if all brick floors were simply covered or some removed. Some channeled brick flooring remains in the room on the south-eastern corner of the stable in 2011.) In a skillion-roofed, weatherboard-clad annex was erected along the stable's eastern side.
The final two stages in the building of the Veterinary School were completed by 1940 commencing with the remainder of the Hospital Block and the southern wing, and ending with the eastern (entry) wing. It contained five laboratories, offices, library, dark room, stores, toilets, locker and common rooms; the northern wing offices, lecture rooms, X-ray room and operating theatres; and the southern wing a museum, preparation room, post-mortem room and common room. The Hospital Block was L-shaped forming a courtyard at the rear of Main Building. It provided accommodation for cattle, horses, dogs, cats, and small animals receiving treatment. A two-storey fodder store was located on the south-western corner of the Hospital Block and a blacksmith shop on the eastern end of its southern wing. The construction of the Veterinary School was completed for .