Spectacle Island - Operational base for the RAN's Heritage Collection by Gregory Blaxell / Spectacle Island viewed from Drummoyne. 
  Spectacle Island is most often thought of as an ordnance depot of the Royal Australian Navy. First reference to the two islands, originally joined by a tidal isthmus, was by Captain John Hunter on his journey up the Parramatta River in February 1788. He named the place Dawes Island. The party camped there on the first night fearing an attack by the local Aborigines that were much in evidence on the mainland shores.
  However by 1820, probably because popular parlance had rejected the original name, the island became known as Spectacle Island because of the obvious resemblance to a pair of spectacles.
  Sydney’s first powder magazine was located at Goat Island. Convicts began building a magazine and barrack complex there in 1833. The magazine was intended for the increasing stores of gunpowder held in Sydney and used for public works. But the island was also the central magazine for powder stocks for the Navy and the military.
  In New South Wales, from 1 January 1836, these responsibilities came under the control of the Royal Engineer and Ordnance Storekeeper. This position had been in existence in Britain since 1597 when the Storekeeper controlled the use, maintenance and storage of ordnance for both military and civil purposes. That administrative model remained in Britain and her colonies until 1855.
Powder Magazine built between 1863-1865 and later vertically extended in brick. Iron rails run to the entrance. These are replaced with wooden rails inside the magazine. / Wagons used for the movement of ordnance. These were found on top of raised concrete structures fitted with iron rails used for storing/preparing gun barrels for maintenance.
  By 1839, the newly-appointed Royal Engineer and Ordnance Storekeeper took control of all colonial stores of gunpowder. At that time also, the Goat Island magazine and the adjoining cooperage were completed.
  The magazine was also known as the Ordnance or Queen’s Magazine and was constructed from sandstone quarried on the island.
  In 1848 the Colonial Secretary, Edward Deas Thomson, mooted the removal of the magazine to Spectacle Island because of the overstocking at Goat Island caused by large stocks of merchant’s powder. There was no action taken by the Ordnance Storekeeper. Goat Island continued as the magazine and the original cooperage was converted into a laboratory where propellant charges were made up for use by naval ships and the garrison artillery.
  By 1857, storage was still a problem and there were suggestions to attach smaller magazines to Fort Macquarie, Fort Denison, Dawes Battery and Kirribilli.
Oblique aerial view of Spectacle Island showing the 50-plus buildings scattered over what was once two islands joined by a tidal isthmus.  Lt-Col George Barney, the Commanding Royal Engineer and by 1859 the Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands for the colony, once again put forward Spectacle Island as the site for the new magazine. Barney was responsible for the construction of Victoria Barracks (1841-1848) and Fort Denison (1855-1857).
  Barney had Surveyor-General Knapp make a contour map of the two islets. Barney’s proposal was finally accepted.
  The first building was the powder magazine and this was erected between 1863 and 1865. The Colonial Architect James Barnet drew up the plans for the first buildings on Spectacle Island.
  On the evening of 5 March 1866, a shipbroker’s office at 17 Bridge Street Sydney was severely damaged by the explosion of two bottles of nitro-glycerine. This reinforced the need to hasten the removal of explosives held in the city. Goat Island was already at capacity and this fact probably reinforced the urgency for developing the more substantial magazine under construction at Spectacle Island.
  Consequently, several buildings followed the construction of the powder magazine. These included a residence, a guardroom, barracks, and a cooperage. A laboratory and labourers’ quarters was added in 1878.
  All these buildings were sited on the eastern islet nearest to Cockatoo Island. They too were designed by James Barnet and built using convict labour. The buildings were constructed in stone either quarried on the islet or on Cockatoo Island.
  They were roofed with slate.
  In 1876, Spectacle Island was designated a public magazine and thereafter, entry was strictly controlled. A causeway, gradually built up by using the detritus from the building sites on the island or from Cockatoo Island, joined the two islets by 1878 when the laboratory was built on the western end of the second islet. Rail tracks were also installed to link the two islets.
  In the 1860s, Garden Island was granted to the Admiralty as the headquarters for the Royal Navy’s Australian Station and by the 1880s, was starting to be fully developed for that role. But munitions were not stored at Garden Island and a decision was made in 1884 that Spectacle Island would become the Royal Navy’s Armament Depot.
The wharf and cranes at Newington Armoury, Silverwater on the Parramatta River.  In 1885, the Colonial government moved its existing store of explosives from Spectacle Island and many of the existing building were modified to meet the specific needs of the Navy.
  While many buildings had been finished by 1888, further work continued. This included the building of a factory on the western islet and the continuing reclamation of the land between the two islets. Fill came from the excavations for the Sutherland Dock on Cockatoo Island or the Balmain Colliery. Onto this reclaimed land, several more buildings were erected. With the reclamation, the size of Spectacle Island almost doubled to two hectares.
  With Federation in 1901 and the passing of the Commonwealth Defence Act in 1904, the Commonwealth took responsibility for defence matters. In 1911, the Royal Australian Navy came into being and two years later, with the arrival of the first Royal Australian Navy fleet, both Garden Island and Spectacle Island were transferred from the Royal Navy to the Royal Australian Navy.
  During periods of war, the Royal Australian Navy, produced munitions on the island. This meant that the island took on the twin roles of being a place of manufacture and an arsenal. During World War II, up to 600 workers laboured there producing ammunition for all allied navies.
The parade ground for members of TS Sydney. Building 29 is the major structure in the background.  In the 1960s, the RAN’s Armament Depot at Spectacle Island was transferred to Newington on the upper reaches of the Parramatta River. Newington had been a powder magazine since 1882 and managed by the Royal Marine Garrison. In 1921, the depot was transferred to the Royal Australian Navy and expanded.
  From the 1960s, concrete lighters transpor ted ammunition from Newington to ships moored at naval buoys near Garden Island. However, these concrete lighters were always moored at Spectacle Island and some remain there to this day. The Royal Australian Navy did not vacate Newington until December 1999. From the time of the removal of the Armament Depot to Newington, Spectacle Island became the home of the Naval Heritage Collection.
Part of an exhibition featured at the Naval Heritage Museum on Garden Island. This display chronicled the invasion into Sydney by Japanese midget submarines on 31 May/1 June 1942.  The island is also the home of the oldest Australian Naval Cadets unit – TS Sydney.
  I visited the island at the invitation of its OIC, Commander Shane Moore, CSM, Director, Naval Heritage Collection. The island is now the repository for the Navy’s formidable and extensive collection of naval artefacts.
  One fact must be made clear.
  Spectacle Island is no longer a display centre. It is a fully functional naval base and as such is not open to the public except for those who work there or those who are invited to visit.
  For Sydney residents, the display of the collection now takes place at the Naval Heritage Centre, located on Garden Island and accessible using the Watsons Bay ferry. It is the responsibility of Spectacle Island to acquire new material, conserve and catalogue existing material and plan exhibitions at locations across Australia.
  But what a collection! Every facet of naval history has a place there. There are weapons and examples of different ordnances and every conceivable naval uniform (including badges and insignia) from Colonial times to the present day.
(a) A pennant commemorating the sinking of the SMS Emden, by HMAS Sydney, 1914. (b) Part of the archival collection in an air-conditioned and humidity-controlled environment. This store, 41/42 was previously a quick fi ring ammunition store and built c.1890s. (c) Mawson’s sled. (d) Enemy anti-tank gun captured by the crew of a RAN ship operating at Tobruk c.1941. (e) Artefacts related to RAN submarines.  There are models, sporting trophies, artefacts from RAN ships and sea battles, flags and pennants, crockery and eating utensils. There is an incredible collection of historic photographs and an on-going photographic record being made of everything in the collection.
  There are paintings of RAN ships.
  There are historic vehicles like the Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson’s sled. There’s the kayak used to attack enemy ships in Singapore Harbour by members of the crew of the Krait.
  And so much more! As a fully operational naval base, the Island has 24/7 security. And Commander Moore asked me to remind those who hire kayaks from Cockatoo Island, that they cannot land on Spectacle Island (which is surrounded by a naval waters exclusion zone) nor is there a coffee lounge, as one over-optimistic paddler assumed. He was, in true naval tradition, politely asked to leave.

* Gregory Blaxell is an historian and author. His latest book is The River: Sydney Cove to Parramatta.