Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L00053:body:0:p12
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L00053
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 29074–31891

used as a fishing base.
No physical evidence of Aboriginal heritage has been found on the island, and the activities that have taken place and the alteration of the physical landscape make it unlikely that any evidence of Aboriginal use or occupation remains intact.

European Heritage
European occupation of Cockatoo Island began in 1839 when the first prisoners were transferred there. Since then it has been used to accommodate a girls' reformatory and industrial school, boys' training schemes and shipbuilding and repairs.
The buildings and artefacts that remain on Cockatoo Island represent all these phases of its occupation and development, from the convict gaol to the last structures built to carry out the Oberon Class submarine refits. Traditionally, buildings on Cockatoo Island have been retained, re-used and adapted to suit current needs. Periods of use overlapped and buildings were put to many different uses. The Island contains several areas of High Archaeological significance. Buildings, gardens, artefacts, ephemera, and most importantly the patina and historic layout are all still represented. Convict grain silos can be found side by side with a WW II search light tower, a steam powered crane with the convict constructed dock, and dockyard graffiti with the mercury arc glass rectifiers in the powerhouse. As a consequence, the island is a rich mosaic of all these things and is of exceptional heritage value.
The buildings remaining from these different phases of development are shown on Figure 7.

Arrival of the Convicts
In February 1839 sixty convicts were relocated to Cockatoo Island to alleviate overcrowding at Norfolk Island. Cockatoo Island was chosen because its isolation by water offered security for the people of Sydney while allowing easy supervision by the colonial administration. The island was to soon gain a justifiable reputation as a grim and brutalising place.
The newly arrived convicts were put to work quarrying the stone for the prison buildings that were to become their accommodation. The island had no naturally occurring supply of drinking water and so they also manually excavated large water tanks and, in what was a controversial attempt to ensure a reliable supply of grain for the colony, they excavated large bottle shaped silos to store surplus wheat (see Figures 6 and 8). The colony had suffered chronic grain shortages and in an attempt to prevent this reoccurring Governor Gipps proposed storing grain for use during times when the harvest was poor. On Cockatoo he had a supply of free labour to undertake the excavation and the security of the island to ensure the safety of the stored grain. However, the Colonial administration in London saw this as unnecessary interference in the free market and ordered that the grain be released for sale.