Goat Island (Port Jackson)

thumb | left | The small ferry Me-Mel is named for Goat Island, but its route between [[Barangaroo ferry wharf|Barangaroo and Blackwattle Bay does not take it by Goat Island.]]

thumb|Goat Island from [[Balmain, New South Wales|Balmain]]

Goat Island (Dharug: Me-Mel) is a heritage-listed island located in Port Jackson, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located northwest of the Sydney central business district, Goat Island is about 300m wide in a north/south direction and 180m long in an east/west direction; and covers an area of . Goat Island lies off the shores of the Sydney suburbs of Balmain and Millers Point, at the junction of Darling Harbour with the main channel of Sydney Harbour.

The island is a former gunpowder storage, arsenal, bacteriology station, shipyard, powder magazine, maintenance facility and accommodation and now interpretation centre and education facility. Over the years Goat Island has served as a quarry, convict stockade, explosives store, police station, fire station, boatyard and film set. Today the island forms part of the Sydney Harbour National Park. The built facilities on the island were designed by Edmund Blacket and Alexander Dawson and built from 1826 to 1994. Goat Island is also known as Memel or Me-Mel, meaning the eye. The property is owned by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

History

Indigenous history

In the Dharug language, Goat Island is also known as Memel or Me-Mel, meaning the eye, by the indigenous Eora people of Port Jackson. Captain David Collins indicated that Bennelong had told him that the island 'was his own property, that it was his father's and that he should give it to By-gone, his particular friend and companion' Bennelong appeared to be 'much attached' to Memel and was often seen there with his wife Barangaroo. How this property transferred from one person to another in the traditional culture was not recorded and why Bennelong should give it to By-gone, was not recorded. Goat Island is the centre of a constellation of green harbour headlands and islands and, as an easy 500 metre paddle from the mainland, was used often by Indigenous people. The island was the birthplace of Bennelong, the Eora elder who served as intermediary between English settlers and Aboriginal populations.

Whilst the use of Goat Island as both a naval arsenal and a convict stockade were discussed during the late 1820s, the first use of the island was in 1831, as a sandstone quarry. This use set the tone for much of the later life of the island, with the first of many bureaucratic disputes between the colony's local civil government and the local military establishment who reported directly to the War Office in London. In this case the Surveyor General, Major Thomas Mitchell, objected to the quarrying on the grounds that what was being quarried away was a valuable point for the purpose of defence, and quarrying soon ceased.

By the early 1830s increasing amounts of gunpowder for public works were in storage in Sydney prompting Governor Bourke to implement Darling's proposal for the construction of an arsenal or magazine on Goat Island. Its convenient location, isolation from the centre of population, ability to be made secure and accessibility for large ships made it an obvious choice. The work was initially supervised by the Commissary, a committee or Board of Works and William Buchanan as Clerk of Works. In 1833 gangs of convicts started work quarrying stone and levelling ground on a site at the south-western side of the island. The powder magazine was completed by January 1839, and is a substantial, stone-built, bomb-proof construction. It was during this original period of construction that the convict Charles Anderson was said to have been kept chained to a rock for two years. A stone cut couch, with fixing points for a platform and the wooden lid said to have provided him with shelter, can still be seen.

thumb|Goat Island, Port Jackson, 1898-1901

Construction began in January 1833 by ironed gangs from the hulk "Phoenix", who began quarrying to level the ground. In 1834, three portable wooden houses surrounded by a stockade were erected on the island to avoid the loss of time involved in the daily ferrying of the convicts from the hulk. The work went slowly and in May 1835 the foundations were finally commenced. Newly arrived Commanding Royal Engineer George Barney took control of the construction in January 1836 and immediately instructed Thomas Bird to prepare plans of the buildings already underway. In his report to the Inspector General of Fortifications the following month he commented that the plan was defective but that work was so far advanced that work on the buildings would be completed by the end of 1836.

The increase in mining and public works in the second half of the 1850s resulted in an increased demand for gunpowder, which again resulted in the inability of the magazines to cope with storage requirements. This necessitated in the hire of the brig Lady Mary as a temporary floating gunpowder magazine in 1856. In June 1859 it was decided to construct another magazine on Goat Island using Colonial Architect Alexander Dawson's 1856 plan. The design was similar to the Colonial magazine, but introduced an iron roof which again raised concern amongst military men. The magazine was completed in December 1859. The land west of the cut was vested in the Governor of NSW. Goat Island was the home of the Board's Fire Brigade during the war and accommodated 26 men and the families of several of the married men. Plans for a community hall were drawn in 1941 and shark-proof swimming baths was erected. Tennis courts had been erected earlier - possibility in 1937. The sub-district office of the NPWS Sydney Harbour Islands is now located on Goat Island.

Description

Goat Island is located in Sydney Harbour, west of the Harbour Bridge between McMahons Point and Balmain. Goat Island is a prominent island in Sydney Harbour. There is little vegetation on the island. Both were presented by radio station Triple J. Goat Island recently reopened to the public, with tours available on weekdays. Goat Island was also included in the 2010 Crave Sydney International Food Festival's Sydney Harbour Island Hopping Tour.

Panic at Rock Island, an Australian telemovie, was filmed on the island in 2010. On 24 March 2011, Foo Fighters performed a secret show on the island to 300 people. On 19 November 2013 Kings of Leon performed on the island in front of 600 people presented by Foxtel's Channel V.

Heritage listing

As at 24 March 2000, the Colonial Magazine is historically significant as probably the oldest surviving magazine built to store merchant's powder in Australia, evidence of the growing need for storage of privately owned gunpowder in the expanding colony of New South Wales. It has historical associations with its designers, Colonial Architects Edmund Blacket and Alexander Dawson, and despite the loss of original structural arrangement retains some ability to demonstrate its former use as a magazine facility for the storage of gunpowder. The building also has some historical significance as part of the shipbuilding establishment on Goat Island since 1925. The building is aesthetically significant mainly for the technical innovation of its design which departed from the military standard typified by the adjacent Queen's Magazine. The Colonial Magazine is also technically significant for the surviving evidence of its construction and use, and for the archaeological evidence likely to be present beneath and around the building.