Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L00053:body:0:p19
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L00053
Segment Type: other
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Character Range: 46436–49259

building and repairing warships. The building program affected most parts of the island. No. 1 Slipway was upgraded and extended and new dockyard buildings were built on the plateau at the site of the former convict work yard. These included the Drawing Office c.1919 (Building 10), the Electrical Shop c.1916 (Building 15) and the Timber Store c.1916 (Building 19). The prison buildings were adapted for administration purposes, with the Mess Hall (Building 3) becoming the main office of the dockyard, the northern and eastern wings of the Prison Barracks (Building 5) converted to a Ship Drawing and an Engine Drawing Office and the southern wing used as a boardroom.
Figure 16: Engineers' & Blacksmiths' Shop (Building 138) c.1870
At the time this photograph was taken, the Fitzroy Dock and the maintenance workshops were transferred to the control of the NSW Harbour and Rivers Department. The dockyard no longer relied on convict labour and the men in this photograph would have been free, paid labour.
This period also saw the construction of the Parramatta and Camber Wharves, the Destroyer and Sutherland Wharves and the roadway tunnel connecting the docks to the northern shipyard.

Wartime
WW I prompted significant growth in the dockyard with up to 4000 men employed building war ships and converting merchant ships for war service. New workshops had to be erected quickly and were mostly metal framed structures clad in corrugated iron. Although many of these buildings may have been seen as temporary, most of them remained for the rest of the dockyard's life.
Six houses were erected on the eastern end of the plateau. These included the Medical Officer's Assistant and Police Residence (Building 21), the Launch Driver and Coxswain's Residence (Building 23) and Managerial Staff Residences (Building 24).
A new power station was also built. Throughout the war the dockyard's steam power supply was a problem and in 1918, a new coal fired powerhouse (Building 58) was completed. This supplied all the power, lighting and hydraulic needs of the dockyard. It also powered the pumps that emptied and filled the docks. This powerhouse remains intact with much of its equipment in situ, including the elevated main switchboard, the largest surviving marble paneled DC switchboard in Australia, the mercury arc glass rectifier bank (installed in 1937 when the island was connected to the mainland AC electricity supply) and the two centrifugal hydraulic pumps. The adjacent boiler house and steam turbines were removed in the 1960s but the brick chimney remains and is a significant landmark on the Cockatoo Island skyline.

Privatisation
Immediately after the war the dockyard was kept busy reconverting naval ships for merchant service. However, following a 1926 High Court judgment, which precluded the dockyard