Vestey's Meatworks and the Darwin High School Water Tank
by Panayiota Tsoukalis

The Vestey's Meatworks began in 1917 on Bullocky Point during World War 1 (1914-1918). The Meatworks proposal came about when there was a great labour shortage as all the labourers had gone off to fight in the war. This proposal opened the doors to many of the working class, down south who took advantage of the labour shortage to miss out on war.
Vestey's Meatworks was a massive development and cost 1,000,000 pounds to establish. Converted to today's dollars, it's about $250 million. Along with the meatworks establishment, came a string of cattle stations that the Vestey's Brothers bought in the Northern Territory. They bought the cattle stations and then came to the conclusion that a huge meatworks company could be established as there was nothing like that in Darwin previously. The Government began to interact on the huge development and built a train station and railway leading to Pine Creek, in order to transport cattle and meat.
The development was beginning to spread and it drew in plenty of workers nationally. Vestey's originated in Britain where the well known family already had a string of meatwork companyies and cattle stations. They also had a huge chain of meatworks in Argentina. The development of meatworks at Bullocky Point was just a back up for the overseas ventures.

Due to the labour shortage, labourers were taking advantage of the situation and requesting outrageous wages. Asa result, Vestey's could no longer afford to keep the meatworks running. On top of that a huge conspiracy was uncovered between the Government and Vestey's regarding the illegal takeover of a large pastoral property. The NT Administrator, Dr. J A Gilruth was said to be distributing $40,000 worth of bribes and the Government Secretary, Carey, (also the Chief Clerk at the meatworks) was deeply involved. Carey had also tried to break up the NT Workers Union.
In 1919, Vesteys realised that the meatworks was never going to be economically viable as it was too big an establishment for the NT. To continue running the venture, the Northern Territory was required to produce 800 cattle per day. This was not possible as cattle could not breed fast enough, rhey were poorly managed and they were left to roam on the roads and highways and many were the victims of accidents and many runovers. The meatworks may have been successful if it had been a quarter of the size. The Government propaganda is what attracted Vestey's to Darwin in the first place. The Goverment made them think that the NT sounded like a cattle haven with never ending resources, when in actual fact, we have less than 5% of Australian cattle. When the meatworks shut down, the former processing site became a social-economic distress centre for the homeless and soldiers of World War 11 were billeted at the Tank. The tank eventually became a water reservoir in the 1930's and acted as Darwin's Water Supply until 1937 when a cyclone hit and contaminated the water supply.

Before the Bullocky Point land was converted into Darwin High School, it remained a water tank and a popular swimming spot. Darwin High School was situated on Woods Street and it wasn't until 1966 that it first opened its' doors to students up at Bullocky Point.
While in Woods Street, the school was known as Darwin Primary School, then Darwin Higher Primary School. The building at Woods Street later became the Adult Education Centre and after that became the Woolworths carpark.
In the late 1980's a man called Graeme Townes put together a proposal to preserve the tank and to provide 50% more space at a lower cost to a gymnasium. In 1984, Townes had the idea of putting a roof on the tank and converting half into a swimming pool. He did not act upon this however, until he heard that the NT Department of Transport and Works planned to demolish it and construct a new gymnasium.
The development began, however the tank was never knocked down. Instead, Townes had submitted plans to the Government to remodel the existing tank and provide an assembly hall,gymnasium,basketball, volleyball and badminton court. This
is how our tank still stands today, as a useful historical monument and a unique and original part of the school. Many people know Darwin High as the school with 'the Tank', and so it has become a part of Bullocky Points identity after 80 or so years.