In March 1919, a massive fire destroyed Goulburn Valley Industrial Company's freezing works in Shepparton, leaving a huge damages bill.
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wirot pathi
Hidden in History is a new weekly column that unearths the quirky, curious and sometimes eyebrow-raising tales from Shepparton’s past. Provided by the Shepparton Heritage Centre, these articles are rooted in fact — but told with a wink and a sense of humour.
March 1919, a fire — believed to be the largest the town had experienced to that time — destroyed the Goulburn Valley Industrial Company’s freezing works.
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The fire broke out in the top storey of the huge freezing chamber and, fanned by a northerly wind, took hold of the estimated 90,000 fat mutton and lamb carcases stored inside.
The acrid stench of burning tallow and meat would have been unforgettable.
The News reporters went to work at their typewriters, producing column after column of over-plump, prosaic passages of reportage:
“The flames themselves attained no such remarkable height, for the closely packed carcases were like a solid mass of meat through which the fire had to eat its way.
“This it was steadily doing, and with its progress the smoke belched forth ever thicker and blacker, while the woodwork of the walls crackled, and the corrugated iron sheeting twisted and buckled under the intense heat.
“Now and then a section of the wall would give way, tumbling bodily outwards, followed by hundreds of charred and shrivelled carcasses.”
At an estimated sale price of £1 per carcase, the inferno left the National Insurance Company of New Zealand facing a damages bill of about £100,000.
