Old Williamstown Morgue - Always read the plaque
“Always read the plaque” as the great and powerful 99% invisible has popularised, the signage is a great place to start.
The first one is on the main road before the turn on to Ann Street, (the street that the Morgue is on). It reads:
"In the developing colony of Victoria, Williamstown was an important and busy port.
As the population grew a morgue became necessary. Previous to 1859 autopsies were conducted in pub cellars or right on the main bars.
The bluestones for the morgue were hewn with prison labour. The morgue originally stood near Gem Pier. Bodies were hung from the ceiling to discourage rats and the tides washed the autopsy wastes away.
The buildings behind the morgue are what remains of the former Port of Melbourne Authority Workshop site, where tugboats were repaired."
The second and third plaques, which are attached to the morgue itself read
"This building of local bluestone hewn by convict labour was completed in July 1959 (contractor H.R. Thomas) and stood near Gem Pier until 1873. When it was re-erected on this site. Usage was discontinued in 1925."
"This morgue is under the care and protection of the Williamstown Historical Society Inc. Enquiries Ph. 9397 5423"
The two signs that actually provide detail on the site show the interesting prioritisation of its place in history. With some sources, like the plaque of the building and the Victorian heritage database focusing on its role as a bluestone building. Constructed in the Georgian style with a galvanised iron roof that has replaced the original slate tiles. With a use of high windows to hide it's use as a morgue, “It’s siting also reflects its original use as it is in close proximity to the port.”. The architect is James Balmain. It was shut in 1925 due is health and safety concerns.
With other sources pointing out:
The role convict labour had
Stephanie Trigg has featured the morgue on her fascinating blog about the history of victorian bluestone “the stones themselves were "hewn" by convicts, who slept at night on the big prison hulks anchored in Hobsons Bay.”
The bodies hung from hooks
That rather than having constructed shelves for decedents as modern mortuaries do, the corpses were instead hung from the ceiling like some sort of grotesque meat market “To deal with the problem of ”rats mutilating the corpses” it is said bodies were suspended from hooks.”
“It’s siting also reflects its original use as it is in close proximity to the port.” indicated that by design some amount of human remains were left to be taken by the tides. That is why the morgue was moved in 1873, because as Gem Pier got busier, people started to notice.
“The plan was that the remains of autopsies and mortuary procedures would be washed away at the end of the pier, and the fishes would do the cleaning up... but apparently this became a little unsavoury and in 1873 the building was taken down, bluestone by bluestone, and reconstructed a few blocks away in Ann St.
“Originally erected in convict-quarried bluestone in 1859 next to Gem Pier, it was given the shoreline placement to allow ”product of each post-mortem … to be swept out the doors and onto the beach [...] The ”ghastly contents” that swilled on the tidal wash, however, became so intolerable that in 1873 public agitation resulted in the Williamstown Morgue being removed to nearby Ann Street. ”
It’s closure in 1925 for health and safety reasons infers that the place was so bad even for 1925, when workers compensation was in its infancy (with the first workplace compensation act being enacted in South Australia in 1900) and environmental protection being so far in the future that Victorians would need to wait for another 46 years for the EPA to be formed. It was still decided this mortuary was so unsafe and undignified that someone managed to get it shut down.
The balance between gruesome scare mongering and seemingly cherry picking the details about the morgue that are the most boring and dry facts in order to make it’s history seem more reputable and valid is fascinating. The urge to make clear that it is not just the topic of titillating tourist guides spruiking ghost encounters, but has value beyond being a home for the dead. Alternatively, perhaps more darkly in an attempt to sanitise the history of how the dead were treated in melbourne. The history of this place touches the edges of living memory with it almost being a century since the morgue was closed. This probably a whole different topic that I am not qualified to cover. Although admittedly my highest qualification for writing the history of this morgue is the certificate of merit for history that I received in year 8.
