The Garden Island Naval Precinct is a heritage-listed naval base and defence precinct located at Cowper Wharf Roadway in the inner eastern Sydney neighbourhood of Garden Island, New South Wales, Australia. The precinct was built from 1856. It includes the HMAS Kuttabul naval base, formerly known as HMAS Penguin. The property is owned by Australian Department of Defence. It was added to the Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 June 2004 and the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 12 November 2004.
History The Garden Island Naval Precinct, incorporates Fleet Base East, including the Garden Island Dockyard and adjacent facility Sydney Maritime Headquarters (MHQ) at Potts Point. The precinct is the main naval base in Australia and has the largest repair and refitting dockyard in Australia. Originally established as a British naval depot, the island developed slowly from the early colonial days, with the greatest spurt occurring during World War II. This period saw massive building programs including the construction of the Captain Cook Graving Dock and land reclamation by 1945 that joined the island to the mainland at Potts Point. The dock was then the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere. The Garden Island facility was for a long period known as HMAS Penguin, after the survey vessel, later depot ship, built in 1876. The Garden Island establishment was commissioned at HMAS Penguin until 1 January 1943.Frame, 1990. At this time, the base was renamed HMAS Kuttabul in memory of the loss of that depot ship in the Japanese attack of Sydney Harbour.
Ba-ing-hoe and Derawan, pre-1788 to the 1820s The topographical formations now known as Garden Island and Potts Point first became recognisable features in the Sydney Harbour landscapes about 6,500 years ago when sea levels stabilised at their current levels. The Cadigal people came to know them by the names of Ba-ing-hoe and Derawan.Attenbrow, 2002. In June 2004 the NSW Government announced an initiative to reintroduce a dual naming policy for such significant landforms. Over the following few thousand years, the harbour's Aboriginal population gradually increased, developed significant technologies (such as fish-hook making), raw material utilisation (such as recovering shells for tool making), and maximised estuarine food resources from rocky shorelines, such as shellfish.
Within 2–3 years of the arrival of the British in 1788, the Cadigal people's patterns of life were increasingly difficult to sustain, due to conflict, loss of resources, disease and the attractions of developing colonial towns. In 1791 it was reported that only three Cadigal people remained alive after a smallpox epidemic.Turbet, 2001: 21. Others have questioned this rapid demise when, for example, in 1795 it was reported that a large number of people had gathered in Farm Cove, west of the precinct, for an initiation ceremony.
The island itself must have had some significant connections to certain Aboriginal people, and was known to have been the scene of early armed conflict between local Aboriginal (probably Cadigal) men and British soldiers in 1788. Cadigal use of the island was not recorded by colonial observers, although other Aboriginal associations were reported. The story of Bungaree's death on the island is notable and has been explored by several writers. Although from Broken Bay, "King" Bungaree was recognised by Governor Macquarie as the "Supreme Chief of the Sydney Tribes",Sydney Gazette, 27 November 1830. and was a well known and respected figure around Sydney. Bungaree had accompanied Matthew Flinders on several of his voyages along the east coast, the Torres Strait and the Gulf of Carpentaria between 1799 and 1803. He travelled with King in 1819,McBryde, 33 so was probably the first Aboriginal person to have circumnavigated Australia (although not in a single voyage). Macquarie's last vice-regal act was to arrange for Bungaree to be given a boat and net so that he could engage in commercial fishing.Horton, 164
In late 1830 Bungaree was admitted to the General Hospital, and after being sick for some time asked to be taken to Garden Island to die. The 'King's' wish was granted and on 27 November 1830 he died surrounded by "his own tribe, as well as that of Darling Harbour'. A coffin was sent to the island from the government lumber yard, and it was reported that Bungaree was to be buried in Rose Bay next to one of his queens, possibly Matora. Frame argues that Bungaree was taken to die on the island in appreciation of his services to the Royal Navy in assisting Flinders and other navigators. Attenbrow states that by the 1820s the original ways of life of the Cadigal had been lost, although descendants of the Cadigal of 1788 still remained in Sydney. By the 1820s, Ba-ing-hoe and Derawan had become well known in Sydney by the English names of Garden Island and Paddy's Point,Pollon, 208 and colonial forces were beginning the shape the precinct.
The search for a naval depot, 1788–1856 On 5 February 1788 Governor Phillip granted Ba-ing-hoe to the ships' company of for their use as a garden. On 11 February 1788 a party of men was sent to Garden Island for that purpose. From this time the island became known as Garden Island, although Sirius Island and Sirius Garden Island had some limited use. Conflict with the local Cadigal people began at this time when, on 18 February, 17 Aboriginal men (probably Cadigal), landed on the island and collected some of the garden tools lying around. The Royal Marines fired small shot at their legs, forcing them to drop some of the tools before they got away back to the mainland.
Thus, within weeks of the First Fleet's arrival, the island had become a microcosm of the future of relations between Aboriginal people and their colonisers. Even more tangible evidence of the invasion of the Cadigal domain was provided by some of the early gardeners when three men carved their initials into a rock on the island's northern hill: "FM", "IR" and "WB" with the year "1788". The men were clearly staking a visual, if unofficial, claim to English control of the land. The garden continued to be cultivated until the loss of HMS Sirius on Norfolk Island in 1790. Although gardening flourished for some time, the new name of the island, and its associations with the navy, became a permanent reminder if its history since 1788.
In 1789, the Row Boat Guard was established to patrol the harbour for smugglers, and a watch house was built on the island, but later transferred to Watsons Bay because of a lack of fresh water. In 1796 the island was transferred to the company of , and a house was built with convict labour – the first permanent structure on the island. In 1799 a gun battery was established on the island's northern hummock, and between 1800 and 1806 the island was possibly used as a lazaret or quarantine station, but the Royal Navy never relinquished its claims to the island. In 1800 the company of gained control of the island, and a Dr Brandt, with his pet dog and baboon – which became an attraction for local Sydneysiders to visit the island – lived in the convict house. In April 1803 the Sydney Gazette reported that an Aboriginal man had been shot dead when a party of Aboriginal and white men in canoes and dinghies landed on the island and raided the gardens. A succession of Royal Navy ships companies occupied the island, using it mainly to grow vegetables and fruit for the ship kitchens until 1810 when arrived in Sydney with a new Governor, Lachlan Macquarie.
Within a few months of Macquarie's arrival, he had a notice published in the Gazette stating that Garden Island was now part of the Governor's Domain, that all produce of the island was now the Governor's, and prohibited the setting of fires on the island. Thus the island was removed from naval jurisdiction and made part of the vice-regal estates. This action was not contested by the Royal Navy, which was busy with the American War (1812) and the Napoleonic Wars that ended in 1815, and it was not until 1821 that the stationing of Royal Navy ships in Sydney was resumed. By that time the island was considered part of the Domain, and often visited by the public. In 1821 it was proposed to build a monument to the late Princess of Wales on the island. In 1825 the remains of Judge Advocate Ellis Bent were exhumed from the George Street Cemetery (now the site of Sydney Town Hall) and re-interred in a tomb on the island, and in 1826 Bent's close friend, Major John Ovens, was also entombed on the island.
A contemporary wrote in 1842 that "they wished to lay their bones on this little isle, where they had so often wandered to contemplate and admire the beauties of nature". The tomb was located on the southern hummock in a "sylvan glade". In 1827 the tomb was plundered by thieves for the lead of the coffins, and in 1886 the remains were relocated to St Thomas' churchyard in North Sydney. Three years after the entombment, king Bungaree was brought to die on the island (see above). During the 1830s-1850s, the Sydney press often referred to the island's natural beauty in the harbour, and the general public seemed to have made use of the island for rambling and other recreational pursuits, but the lack of suitable boats for tourists hindered their visiting, and eventually became a reason for returning the island to naval control. By the 1850s, the potential for the island as a place of remembrance and public resort was about to end.
Developing a naval depot, 1856–1914 Between the 1820s and 1850s, the size of the Royal Navy greatly contracted at a time when the extent of the British Empire continued to grow. At the same time, the technologies of shipping, both naval and merchant, underwent great change with the introduction of steam and the use of steel cladding, to mention just two. The navy continued to be subject to pressures in reducing expenditures, continued to regard the Australasian colonies as offshoots of its East Indies stations, and remained unconvinced as to the value of extensive harbour defence systems. In addition, the imperial authorities in London were coming to a view that the cost of colonial defences should be at least partly born by the colonies. Within New South Wales the view was somewhat different.
The expansion of the wool industry and the gold rushes showed Australia was more than a stopping point between the Pacific and Indian oceans, and the use of Sydney as a base during the Maori Wars in New Zealand emphasised its strategic role. At the same time the agitation for, and then the granting of, responsible government to NSW in 1856 resulted in the elected colonial politicians campaigning for the use of Sydney Harbour as a base for the Royal Navy in the South Pacific.
The navy's then use of Fort Macquarie as its main residence was not secure due to that site's co-use as part of the Sydney Harbour military defence system. Naval agitation to secure a more secure tenure led to requests of the NSW Government to set aside Garden Island as a purely naval preserve. Debate continued over the need to set aside portions of its northern end for harbour defence purposes and to limit naval building in these areas. The Navy took control of the island in 1858 at a time that coincided with the development of the separate British fleet, the "Australia Station" – to guard against aggression by external naval forces. Garden Island became the base for the flotilla. A survey of the island by crew from provides a unique insight into the undeveloped nature of the island and the logistical difficulties of establishing the base. Commodore Loring became the first commander of the Australia Station on 26 March 1859 with his flagship .