Brisbane History, Published 13 April 2026
The "Rat Gangs" of Brisbane
In 1900, Brisbane faced a silent, scurrying invader: the Bubonic Plague. The crisis hit home on April 27, 1900, when a 26-year-old van driver named James Phillips, who worked near the city wharves, became Brisbane's first diagnosed victim. The government quickly realized that steamships weren't just bringing luxury goods; they were bringing "The Black Death" via fleas hitching a ride on black rats. This sparked a public health emergency that transformed Brisbane from a colonial outpost into a modern, sanitized city.
Enter the "Rat Gangs." These were official teams of men hired to hunt, trap, and kill rats in the city's most vulnerable zones - from the bustling Eagle Street wharves to the crowded, swampy slums of Frog’s Hollow (the area around Albert and Edward Streets). With a government bounty of sixpence per rat - a tempting sum for the working class - the hunt was on. It was a high-risk, gritty job that saw men crawling under rotting timber warehouses and through primitive sewers to stop the lethal bacillus in its tracks.
The operation was remarkably scientific for the era. Every rat caught was tagged with its precise location and rushed to the Bacteriological Institute in its new red-brick home at Spring Hill (next to Brisbane Grammar). There, experts dissected the rodents to track the spread of the disease. This data fueled the "Cleansing Squads," who took a scorched-earth approach - tearing up porous wooden floors, limewashing walls with disinfectant, and burning tons of accumulated debris right in the middle of city streets.
While the plague scares eventually faded by the early 1920s, the legacy of the rat catchers is literally built into the Brisbane we walk through today. Their work forced the city to abandon rot-prone timber for rat-proof concrete and accelerated the construction of a comprehensive underground sewerage system. They were the unsung, soot-covered heroes who laid the sanitary foundations of our modern capital.
Images include public‑domain photos of rat gangs and a docked ship (ca 1900-1910), colourised by the Dave & Malou Channel. The dockside rat scene was created using AI.
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