Since the early 1970s most of the site has been occupied by Hans Continental Smallgoods Pty Ltd, which has constructed a modern factory on the southern part of property.

[1] During World War I the Australian Commonwealth Arsenal developed its own defence factories, due to disruption of the supply of manufactured goods and armaments to Australia.

Government factories and laboratories were to provide a knowledge pool for the private sector, and the latter would then be able to help supply the country's defence needs in wartime.

[1] A committee from the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs selected a site for the Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie in mid 1916, after Cairns was considered and rejected.

Subdivisions 2 and 3 of Eastern Suburban Allotment 22, Parish of Bulimba, County of Stanley, covering 9 acres (3.6 ha) 2 roods 29.5 perches (2,770 m2) were resumed on 21 September 1916 at a cost of £1,719.

A plan drawn up by the Department of Home Affairs in November 1916, and signed "HJB", laid out the main built elements of the factory, and their function, as designed by the bacteriologist and chemist Auguste de Bavay.

He had designed the revolutionary ore-extraction technique of the "skin" or "film" flotation process, patented in 1905, to deal with "the Sulphide Problem".

The wash was then transferred to the adjacent three-storey Acidifier House, where it was repeatedly pumped through wooden vats, which contained wood shavings and Bacterium Aceti.

In June 1936 the idea was floated that the Post Master General's Department could use a building for its frequency measuring equipment, using the chimney and water tower to mount aerials.

The Department's Radio Broadcasting Branch, Wireless Experimental Section, occupied various buildings from 1937, including the Acidifier House and the Fitter's shop.

[1] The Wireless Experimental Section's peace and quiet was disturbed when an advance party of RAAF personnel arrived at the factory on 23 May 1939.

The Ordnance Service also staked a claim for storage space from February 1940 onwards, and the Field Hygiene Section of the Seventh Division occupied a number of buildings in late 1940.

In December 1943 Prime Minister Curtin had expressed the view that, for security reasons, Australia's population had to increase to 20 million.

A shipping shortage handicapped the program until 1948, but from 1947 to 1958, of 457,898 migrants moving from the United Kingdom to Australia, 68% received assisted passage.

[1] In order to address labour shortages, the Australian Government also decided to use another source of immigrants: the mass of Displaced Persons in Europe.

In July 1947 an agreement was reached with the United Nation's International Refugee Organisation, which would provide the ships to deliver a minimum of 12,000 Displaced Persons per year.

Two of these huts, which were used as six room sleeping blocks, remain on site today, to the north of the brick Engineer's Office and Fitter's shop.

The Immigration Depot at Yungaba, Kangaroo Point, was remodelled to receive the first post-World War II British migrants to Queensland, who left Britain in May 1947.

Mr Flood, the hostel's Manager at the time, lived in a bungalow (no longer extant) surrounded by palm trees and hibiscus.

The Engineer's Office and Fitter's Shop became a baggage store and the Assistant Manager's quarters, and the Winch House became a tool room.

The two-storied Fermentation House of the Acetate of Lime Factory still stands on this land, which now contains the Brisbane Fish Markets.

[1] Although the molasses storage tanks and Montejus pit near the river were demolished before the end of World War II, and the Agitator and Cooling House, Settling Tank House, and Laboratory/Bungalow have disappeared since World War II, a number of the main buildings involved in the process of producing acetate of lime are still present on the site.

However, the top two floors of the Acidifier House were removed some time after 1965, and with its modern cladding the building no longer resembles its earlier form.

[1] The Lime Slacking Store is an L-shaped single-storey building, built of brick with a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron.

The original timber roof trusses survive above the office cubicles, there are small vents two thirds up the walls at regular intervals, and the ends of metal bolts can also be seen, ground-off flush with the brickwork.

[1] The former Commonwealth Acetate of Lime Factory was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 7 December 2007 having satisfied the following criteria.

Between 1943 and 1948 the factory was part of a Royal Australian Navy Base, illustrating how Commonwealth properties could be adapted for military use in a crisis.

In addition, the factory network of the Munitions Supply Board was related to a deliberate government effort to provide a scientific and technical knowledge base for Australian private industry.

The two de-mountable timber huts on the site may be among the last remaining in-situ Queensland examples of the temporary accommodation provided on military properties for post-World War II migrants.

An innovative process for manufacturing Acetate of Lime from molasses was developed for the Australian Government by the noted bacteriologist and chemist Auguste de Bavay, and the Colmslie factory was built to his specifications.