| Historical notes: | History
Pre- and Post-Contact Aboriginal Custodianship
The Awabakal people are the traditional custodians of the site of Newcastle (Muloobinba). Their name for what is now Carrington (formerly Bullock Island) was Onebygamba (Onibygambah). Thickly vegetated and low-lying, the island faced the estuary of what the Europeans were to name Throsby's Creek after the first commandant of the Newcastle penal settlement. At high tide much of the island was covered by water. The Awabakal fished, hunted and gathered nearby. (Windross and Ralston, 1897, p.8)
European
Europeans began to settle the island in the 1860s, calling it Onebygamba; Chapman's Island; Bullock Island; and later Carrington. These early settlers little expected that the place would later have great strategic value to the NSW coal industry. Although in 1831 the colonial government had withdrawn from coal loading at Port Hunter, the port of Newcastle, it re-entered the field in the mid-1860s following complaints that the largest mining companies were monopolising the waterfront. Although steam cranes and coal loading staiths were provided, these proved problematic, and the mining companies began to press for better facilities capable of cheaper operation and easy expansion. (Campbell, 2007).
Edward Orpen Moriarty, Engineer-in-Chief of the Harbours and River Navigation Branch of the Department of Public Works (PWD), had previously decided that public sector coal handling facilities should be centralised at Bullock Island. This plan, informed by the advice of long-standing residents of Newcastle, was part of Moriarty's highly ambitious scheme, evolved in 1858, for the transformation of Port Hunter from a swampy estuary to a deep water harbour. (Coltheart, pp.39-42)
A long stone and rubble wall, composed of stone and rubble ballast discharged from visiting ships, was accordingly formed along a mudbank on the eastern side of the island. Along this wall, initially called the Ballast Dyke and later simply 'The Dyke', ground was reclaimed and a wharf was built. (Sydney Mail, 4 September 1880, p.447; Ian Stuart, 1983, p.15).
By 1874 Moriarty and associate Cecil West Darley, the local NSW Public Works Department (PWD) Resident Engineer, had decided that the best way to load coal was with hydraulic cranes erected on masonry bases and powered from a central engine house (Cockbain, 1998, p.173; Gibson, 2009, 2).
The Engine House and hydraulic crane bases were erected by William H. Jennings, who also fitted out the Engine House. Plant and cranes were supplied by Sir W.G. Armstrong and Co. of Elswick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A hydraulic engineer, acting under Moriarty, came out from the UK to supervise their erection, for which Armstrongs had specified the layout. (SMH, 25 February 1878, 3; NMH, 18 October 1878, 2, 28 May 1878, 2, 18 October 1878, 2, 7 November 1877, 2; Maitland Mercury and Hunter River District Advertiser, 11 September 1877, 7; Newcastle Chronicle, 15 April 1876, 4).
The visually striking yellow semi-plastic face bricks of the Engine House were supplied by Joseph Bowtell of the Glebe (now Merewether), who also supplied the red face bricks of the four crane bases; the sandstone, in blocks varying from ton to 9 tons, was transported by sea from Pyrmont. (MM, 11 September 1877, p.7) Cofferdams were used for the laying of the 10 feet 6-inches deep mass concrete building foundations, and were also used for the footings of the accumulators. (MM, 22 January 1876, p.10, 6 June 1876, p.7) The accumulator towers each contained an Armstrong hydraulic accumulator, a large cast iron cylinder within which a 120 ton ram filled with ironworks slag bore down on cylindrical water reservoirs to provide pressurised water. The feed water was supplied via a gravity pipeline from the nearby suburb of Wickham, collected in tanks within the central engine room, and pumped by high-pressure compound steam pumping engines into the accumulators. The engines rested on mass concrete bases surrounded by cast iron floor gratings. Steam was supplied by a boiler house, to which coal was brought along a short railway siding. (Bairstow, 1986, p.59; NMH, 22 November 1876, p. 2, 8 July 1876, p.2, 24 March 1877, p. 2, 12 July 1876, p.3)
The identity of the designer of the Engine House is a mystery. Some have suggested that the building might have been designed in the UK; others consider that it may have been designed by the Colonial Architect's Branch of the PWD under James Barnet, perhaps in association with Edmund Spencer, one of his assistants. (Hunter Design, 1992, pp.8-9) There is, however, no direct evidence for these suggestions; and such plans as might have resolved the quandary may have been lost when, in 1882, fire destroyed the Garden Palace, Sydney. (Doring, p.18) The building's materials are certainly similar to those of the Newcastle Customs House, in which Barnet and Spencer collaborated, and which was completed around the same time by the same contractor, and perhaps by the same workmen. (Bridges and McDonald, 1988, 89; Hunter Design, 1992, p.10).
James Johnstone Barnet (1827-1904) was made acting Colonial Architect in 1862 and appointed Colonial Architect from 1865-90. He was born in Scotland and studied in London under Charles Richardson, RIBA and William Dyce, Professor of Fine Arts at King's College, London. He was strongly influenced by Charles Robert Cockerell, leading classical theorist at the time and by the fine arts, particularly works of painters Claude Lorrain and JRM Turner. He arrived in Sydney in 1854 and worked as a self-employed builder. He served as Edmund Blacket's clerk of works on the foundations of the Randwick (Destitute Childrens') Asylum. Blacket then appointed Barnet as clerk-of-works on the Great Hall at Sydney University. By 1859 he was appointed second clerk of works at the Colonial Architect's Office and in 1861 was Acting Colonial Architect. Thus began a long career. He dominated public architecture in NSW, as the longest-serving Colonial Architect in Australian history. Until he resigned in 1890 his office undertook some 12,000 works, Barnet himself designing almost 1000. They included those edifices so vital to promoting communication, the law and safe sea arrivals in colonial Australia. Altogether there were 169 post and telegraph offices, 130 courthouses, 155 police buildings, 110 lockups and 20 lighthouses, including the present Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head, which replaced the earlier one designed by Francis Greenway. Barnet's vision for Sydney is most clearly seen in the Customs House at Circular Quay, the General Post Office in Martin Place and the Lands Department and Colonial Secretary's Office in Bridge Street. There he applied the classicism he had absorbed in London, with a theatricality which came from his knowledge of art (Le Sueur, 2016, 6).
Yet the two designs are quite distinct, and a highly detailed Parliamentary return, supplied by Barnet, listing all works undertaken by the Colonial Architect's Branch between 1862 and 1881, does not mention the project, although it was one of the great NSW engineering works of its era. ('Colonial Architect's Department', SMH, 20 October 1881, p.3) The building may, instead, be the work of E.O. Moriarty, who along with Darley supervised the entire project, and with Darley designed the engine house of the Walka Water Works. (NMH, 25 November 1876, 2; 2, 21 February 1878; 2, 11 August 1885, 4) If this is so, he may have been assisted by John Whitton, the English-born Engineer-in-Chief of the New South Wales Government Railways (NSWGR), for there are some notable similarities between elements of the Engine House and Whitton's second Sydney (1872) and Albury (1881) railway stations, particularly in the frieze and modillion treatments. This does not discount a possible contribution by Barnet, for he, Moriarty and Whitton all worked in the same building under John Rae, the PWD secretary. (Lee, 2000, 219, 228-229).
At the time of its completion in 1878, the Bullock Island complex, consisting of the first stage of the Engine House, the first four cranes, and the first nests of railway sidings, was an industrial wonder dominating much of the port. A 'magnificent structure of solid handsome masonry, being built of white glistening sandstone blocks, beautifully dressed, from Sydney quarries, relieved by yellow brick masonry neatly pointed, and well and truly laid', the Engine House impressed many inter-colonial and overseas visitors and engineers, to whom it rapidly became a tourist attraction. (NMH, 7 November 1877, 2) The hydraulic accumulators developed the 800psi water pressure for the cranes' peak hoisting task, although the base load was provided by the pumping engines, originally of 100 horsepower, with 18-inch cylinders generating 90 psi. The pressurised water was directed to the cranes along 10-inch diameter iron pipes. These, running beneath The Dyke wharfs, were joined with bolted junctions. 6-inch diameter pipes reticulated to and from the cranes, while holding vats within the Engine House engine room allowed the water to be used again and again. (Cockbain, 1998, 172; NMH, 7 November 1877, 2; MM, 7 February 1878, 5).
Power for each crane was regulated by the opening and closing of cocks by the individual crane operators, each standing on a roofless dais and operating two levers, one for hoisting and one for slewing, without smoke or vibration, and only the noise of the pressurised water flowing throught the pipe runs. (Bairstow, 1986, 59) A contemporary journalist noted that 'These beautiful pieces of mechanismrepresent the last achievements of mechanical science in hydraulic machinery. Theycould be manipulated by a child.' (Australian Town and Country Journal, 29 March 1879, 23) The first four hydraulic cranes were constructed on square brick-faced concrete bases topped with coping stones and resting atop square iron caissons supplied by Davy and Co. of Sydney. This use of square caissons and bases, the rationale for which is unknown, was unusual. These caissons were sunk some 40 feet into the river bed, the resultant spoil being manually removed and replaced by mass concrete, which would remain after the iron had rusted away. (NMH, 24 March 1877, 5; 12 October 1878, 4; 18 April 1888, 6; MM 2 September 1876, 7) Second and third batches of cranes, this time mounted on cylindrical bases, allowed the government to concentrate most coal loading at The Dyke, which from 1881 was lit with gas.
Coal trains were hauled to Bullock Island along a branch line from the Great Northern Railway. Individual wagons were then detached and brought to the cranes by horses. This function was later performed by hydraulic and electric capstans, and later still by motor tractors. The cranes each featured a single chain supporting crossheads from which in turn two or four equal lengths of chain were suspended. 'Hookers-on' then secured these chains to lugs atop the detachable timber, iron or steel coal hoppers or iron-braced timber coal boxes, which would then be 'heaved' off their underframes and slewed over the ship's holds, into which the load was released through hinged bottom doors via a pin struck open by a sledgehammer-wielding 'pin boss'. The empty hoppers would then be slewed back over their underframes, onto which they were then lowered and secured after the pinning shut of their doors. The process took rather less than two minutes. (AT&CJ, 29 March 1879, 23; NMH, 29 September 1916, 6; Sydney Mail, 1 July 1914, 21) The cranes, which revolved through 360 degrees on a heavy central bearing, were simple machines supported by massive iron pedestal and housings, the first four of which were supplied by Mort's Dock and Engineering Co., Balmain (SM, 6 November 1875, 585). Movement was generated by hydraulic rams actuated by the high pressure water from the pipe runs. The crane jibs had no independent movement, so that each coal hopper was raised and lowered by the chain alone. This led up and over a head sheave at the end of the crane jib, then extended down it to another sheave before running around a four-fall chain block, the end of the chain being fixed to the inner section of the crane. (Cockbain, 1998, 174-175).
The construction of the Hydraulic Engine House and cranes, together with the development of The Dyke and the laying of railways to serve the complex, lent to the formerly somnolent Bullock Island an atmosphere of life and energy, stimulating predictions that it would become to Newcastle what the Isle of Dogs, a place of much engineering enterprise, was to London. (NMH, 8 November 1876, 2).
In 1891 contractor E.J. King erected a second boiler room on the western side of the central engine room. This housed Babcock and Wilcox boilers for a third steam pumping engine (NMH, 22 November 1890, 7). In 1891 King completed another addition, called the Auxiliary Engine House (later known as the dynamo room), on the northern elevation. This housed ground-level Westinghouse engines and dynamos supplying electricity for electric lighting, which replaced the original gas lights. (NMH, 22 November 1890, 7; 28 May 1891, 4) Between 1903 and 1907, additional Armstrong hydraulic cranes, in many ways similar to the existing cranes but mounted on rails and moveable for short distances using electric motors, were erected on the eastern side of a newly-dredged facility called The Basin. (NMH, 9 December 1903, 6) At some stage, the Wickham-based water supply was replaced by town water. Between 1915 and 1917, new wharfs on the western side were equipped with six Cowans, Sheldon and Co. moveable electric cranes. These were designed by Percy Allan, PWD district engineer, with contributions by Orlando Brain, NSWGR Chief Electrical Engineer. To support these, the Auxiliary Engine House was reconfigured as a condenser (battery) room, and a freestanding substation was erected to the north, apparently as part of a scheme for the complete replacement of the hydraulic cranes. Electricity was supplied by submarine cable from Newcastle's Zaara Street power house. The substation later supplied power to the Carrington electric trams also, although some evening passengers had difficulty in reading their newspapers when their saloon lights dimmed as the cranes were drawing power. (NMH, 24 March 1916, 4; NSW Department of Commerce, 2005, p.3, 17)
From the 1930s, the stationary and moveable hydraulic cranes were progressively decommissioned, with some supplying parts to the moveable cranes. In the 1950s, the decade in which conveyor belt-based loading technology was first introduced, Crane Base No. 9 was demolished to a level below the low water mark.
The Newstan coal loader came into operation in 1958, its completion assisted by private enterprise. This provided immediate relief to the coal loading pressure. Federal government funding assisted the next phase of the port upgrade. From 1964-67 the Basin Coal Loader replaced the hydraulic cranes and now outdated electric cranes (EJE, 2017, 15).
The last coal was loaded by the moveable hydraulic cranes, the pipe runs to which were by then not watertights, in 1967, although two electric cranes, converted for general cargo, survived until 1988. The internal plant of the Engine House was scrapped, although some relics remain in the form of minor electrical fittings, engine bases, pipe sections, wall ladders and floor gratings, while some elements of the hydraulic ram overrun equipment are retained in the accumulator towers. (Damaris Bairstow, 'Hydraulic Power and Coal Loading', 65). The accumlators had to be cut into pieces to remove them from their towers.
The power house was decommissioned in 1964 (Kelly, 2018).
The building, bereft of the purposes for which it was built, fell into dilapidation and assumed a starkness born of isolation. (Doring, p. 19) During the 1980s, Crane Bases Nos. 7 and 8 were fitted with heavy-duty bollards for ships' hawsers, while a part-concrete catwalk was constructed over Crane Base No. 10. Crane Base No. 7 was subsequently surrounded by the part-concrete catwalk of the temporary Newcastle cruise terminal. In 2007, all Engine House additions, together with the substation, were demolished pursuant to a Development Application only party acted upon.
The Hydraulic Engine House and Crane Bases Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10 are considered to constitute, at both state and national level, the most complete example of a coal loading system predating the introduction of conveyor belt-based loading technology (Stuart, 2016).
The power station has been abandoned since the mid-1990s. It is presently under the control of the Port of Newcastle. The last major capital investment in it was in 2007 when over $400k was spent removing asbestos and restoring the slate roof. There have been calls for over a decade for its reuse, possibly as a restaurant or function centre, to complement the Honeysuckle precinct. A 2018 $1.2m funded proposal will see the building's southern facade to be repaired, and the provision of an interpretive, interactive space immediately in front of the building to give the community a glimpse of its historic role supplying power for the hydraulic cranes at the berth. Current works include improving its weather protecgtion, structural integrity and security. Stage one works, which won't be a complete restoration, will enable the community to access the area. Current works are due to be complete by mid-2019. The current project is jointly funded by a grant of $500,000 as part of Stage 2 of the Port of Newcastle Community Contribution Fund, in addition to a $700k contribution from the Port of Newcastle (Kelly, 2018). |