In 1862 the South Australian pastoralist Hurtle Fisher acquired Raleigh's property and set about turning it into one of Australia's most famous stud farms for racehorses.

In the mid-1890s Charles Brown Fisher sold his stud farm on the eastern side of the current EFM site to Sir William John Clarke, the largest landowner in Victoria and a breeder of thoroughbred horses.

The particular development of the current EFM property as a centre of munitions production derives from its selection in the first decade of the twentieth century as the site of the Commonwealth's factory for the manufacture of cordite.

Melbourne was selected as the site for a factory to produce cordite for small arms ammunition because it was the headquarters of Australia's defence forces and, being the centre of the nation's emerging chemical industry, could supply the necessary raw materials.

Two years later, in 1917, the complex expanded its production of cordite, moving from manufacturing the substance purely for small arms ammunition into making it for artillery shells as well.

A further important development occurred in 1918 when Maribyrnong began to manufacture its own acetone from acetate of lime obtained from molasses produced at a purpose-built Commonwealth factory in Queensland.

In the 1920s, capital works were undertaken at the factory to make it capable of producing the many components of modern high explosive artillery shells, including their fuses and trinitrotoluene (TNT) filling.

The factory soon began to produce TNT, with its first major customer being the Victorian Government which was engaged in underwater blasting at Port Phillip Heads.

Commonwealth Government policy allowed EFM to manufacture chemical products for sale in the commercial sphere where there was no source of supply from private enterprise within Australia.

One major effect of this policy was that, as in the war years, the Maribyrnong complex played the leading role in stimulating the Australian chemical engineering industry in the interwar period.

The factory complex also produced pigmented acetate, nitrocellulose, dopes and identification colours for commercial aircraft companies and for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

Under Leighton's energetic leadership the complex's range of commercial products was further expanded in the period 1930–33, with manufacture commencing of acetone solvents, collodion (gun cotton), paper cartons (target centres), TNT charges, salt cake and nitrobenzene.

As it turned out this was to be the first of a series of five major rearmament programmes instituted in the period leading up to the outbreak of World War II, all of them aimed at modernising Australia's defences and making the nation more self-sufficient in this area.

Against the opposition of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in England, the EFM complex began research into the manufacture of nitrogenous products and established a pilot plant for producing nitric acid by the oxidation of ammonia.

A further noteworthy feature of the development of the EFM complex in the mid-to late-1930s was the provision of additional staff buildings to accommodate a projected major increase in the size of the factory's workforce when war broke out.

Maribyrnong provided the managers for these factories and also the background of practical experience which enabled them to turn out products meeting the stringent requirements of service specifications."

As the largest and longest established explosives factory in Australia, the EFM, now under the management of Arthur Albert Topp, also played the leading part in the research and development of new munitions and manufacturing processes.

Later in the same year, the factory succeeded, after a lengthy research programme, in replacing cotton with paper-wood cellulose from Australian-grown pine trees to produce nitrocellulose for propellants.

A new area for the filling of naval mines and depth charges was consequently built on the flats within the northern loop of the river and even the high ground of Remount Hill, though not overly convenient for handling explosives, was utilised for process buildings and magazines.

Many of the production, storage and filling buildings are still surrounded by earthen or concrete blast walls which were constructed as a means of containing any accidental explosions that might occur.

For transporting materials around the factory all care was taken to reduce friction and prevent the accumulation of electrostatic charges mainly through the establishment of a network of cleanways.

These were slightly elevated roads made of concrete and surfaced with wood or asphalt on which ran the factory's special electrically powered rubber tyred transport vehicles.

[1] In the post war years, the EFM complex continued to make explosives at Maribyrnong for Australia's armed forces, though on a much reduced scale.

The planning evident in 1917 continues to underpin a cultural landscape which comprises a number of functional areas, separated for safety by open space, which illustrate the production of cordite and chemicals and materials used in the manufacture of explosives and propellants and munitions.

Earth mound blast walls within the site are functional landscape elements intrinsic to explosives establishments of this type, and which reinforce interpretation of the nature of the industrial processes.

The Fisher Stables, listed as indicative in the RNE at 2/12/51/2, are associated with the remains of Joseph Raleigh's house and a reported burial site for racehorses on The Remount in the northern part of the MRL(EOD) and EDE areas.

They include the original 1910 office and laboratories (EFM Buildings Nos 1 and 2) and a range of other important structures that reflect the various aspects of the manufacturing process and the working culture of the factory.

The technical standards achieved during the 1920s and 1930s, and which underpinned its later technological role, gave the factory leadership in the chemical engineering industry in Australia during the interwar period.

The use of the Fisher Stables as focus of a Remount Depot before the First World War, and the erection of barracks accommodation for the Royal Australian Field Artillery, increased the Army's association with the Maribyrnong River.

[1] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Defence Explosive Factory Maribyrnong, entry number 105325 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2019 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 9 March 2019.