The Pioneering Hide, Skin and Leather Industries of Brisbane: The Dixon Tanneries [Part 2]

The second Dixon tannery we now turn to is that of Donald Dixon’s Tannery.  For this, we need a brief excursion into family history.  Two of Thomas Coar Dixon’s sons were entrusted with the management of his two ventures: the Boot Factory and the Tannery.  William Victor went into the Tannery and his brother, Ernest Joseph, went into the Boot Factory. We now follow William Victor and his son, Donald Coar Dixon. Donald worked in the Tannery under his father and learned his trade.  Family historian, Douglas Kesteven (and son-in-law of Donald Dixon), recalls: ‘Don would often say he grew up with tanning liquor in his blood’.  Donald enlisted in WWII, served first in the RAAF before being seconded to the RAF.  On returning home after the war, he returned to the West End Tannery for a short period before leaving in the early 1950s to start his own tannery in Fleming Road, Hemmant, in the Redlands area.[9]

By the early 1950s, the Donald Dixon tannery was in full operation.  By the early 1960s, the tannery was employing about 400 people.  And, by the 1980s the company had opened a new factory in Toowoomba to handle the initial tanning process whilst the Hemmant plant continued to dye, condition and apply the finishing coats to the product.  However, despite the Toowoomba plant operating well, the Donald Dixon Industries venture was facing problems.  The loss of key people, ill health of its founder Donald  Coar Dixon, and shrinking local markets. led to a slow and inevitable decline.  The site is now vacant land.[10]
 

Lost Heritage:   A country's heritage is all the qualities, traditions, or features of life there that have continued over many years and have been passed on from one generation to another

Endangered Crafts/Trades:   Traditional crafts and trades that are at risk of dying out in the succeeding generation.

Deindustrialisation:   The reduction of industrial activity or capacity in a region or economy.

The story of the tanneries of Brisbane is, in part, a story of lost heritage, lost trades, and deindstrialisation.  There are many change factors throughout history.  The story of the rise – and decline – of the skin trades in Brisbane demonstrates the historical shifts in a sector of the local economy; in local work practices;  local cultural shifts; the introduction of new technologies; as well as governance responses and initiatives generated around these shifts.  From the early twentieth century these pioneering skin industries were subjected to a raft of pressures.  The Dixon factories in West End and Hemmant – as were many others –– were experiencing mounting difficulties.   By the 1970s Australian tanneries in general were hit by loss of tariff protection and subsequent cheap imports; encroaching urbanisation meant that tanneries that started up in locations some distance from residential development were increasingly under attack as ‘obnoxious, smelly neighbours’ and associated with that were increasing legislative requirements in respect to environmental pollution, especially water pollution; the introduction of cheaper synthetic options to leather; and for many, the need for urgent and expensive update of technologies.

Tanneries, like their partners in the ‘skin trades’. were not only becoming ‘problems’ (pollution, loss of markets etc.) but losing relevance (competitive products).  These industries had serviced a pioneering rural economy, had provided goods and services for a colony in its early years; had given gainful employment to several generations of workers; and had skilled those workers not only in specific trades but had introduced them to an industrial and increasingly, industrialised world.  Importantly, these industries had played an important role in developing the colony’s (and later state’s) economy.   The historical records illustrate these achievements as we acknowledge the ongoing relevance, and value, of leather producers and their products.