Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L00053:schedule:5:p27
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L00053
Segment Type: schedule
Provision Reference: sch 5 (pt 27/42)
Character Range: 558056–560878

the country after Mort's Woolwich dock and the ASN works in Pyrmont. By 1870 a new dock was recommended at Cockatoo Island by Captain Gother Kerr Mann. While this was being debated the male prisoners were transferred to Darlinghurst gaol from the island in 1871. During the 1870s the silos were pressed into service for water storage. In 1869 the Executive Council had approved the transfer of prisoners from Cockatoo to Darlinghurst; the prison buildings subsequently became an Industrial School for Girls and a Reformatory in 1871. However, overcrowding elsewhere forced the return of male prisoners and the barracks were divided between prisoners of both sexes. The new dock, approved in 1882, was longer than any existing in the world. This dock, the Sutherland Dock, built by private contractors and free labour, eventually cost 268,000 pounds and was completed in 1890. The tender was awarded to twenty-three year old Australian engineer Lewis Samuel. New workshops were also built with wharfage for repair work. However, during the 1880s prison accommodation continued to deteriorate and the number of prisoners declined to about 100 each, male and female. In 1888 the girls departed and the establishment was again proclaimed a prison. Further additions included a fumigation building, surgeon's consulting rooms and isolation cells were added in 1897 with stone quarried on site. Although the prison was condemned in 1899 by the Public Works Committee it remained in operation. Electricity was installed in 1901, the birth year of the new independent nation, Australia. As British control ceased in 1901 the NSW government took over with further building of workshops in corrugated iron on steel frames forming additions to the original stone workshops. The dockyards expanded rapidly. Major new workshops were provided, now largely in brick, along the eastern shore with docking wharves and included an erecting shop, foundry, blacksmith and shipwright shop. In 1903 a Royal Commission was established to look at all aspects of the working of the Government docks and workshops. In 1908 a steel foundry was established on the Island followed by a range of new workshops. By 1905 parts of the men's prison quarters collapsed so that in 1906 they were transferred to shore for the last time and relocated at Long Bay Gaol. The female prison division was similarly closed in 1909; NSS Sobraon, the school ship, was relocated elsewhere in 1911.
3) Commonwealth Dockyard 1913-33. In 1911 the Royal Australian Navy was established and in 1913 the Commonwealth Government bought the island from NSW for 870,000 pounds. Despite the building expansion from 1900 much of the dock and workshops equipment was in poor shape and major expansion and upgrading of equipment was increased. Development occurred on the escarpment