The Shark Point Battery is a small fort, located on the shores of Sydney Harbour in the eastern Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, New South Wales Australia.
The main gun emplacement with the RAN degaussing station in view
History
The land on Shark Point was resumed from its private owners and construction of the battery began in 1871 and was completed in 1874 with an additional barracks being added in 1880. The site was designed under the supervision of colonial architect James Barnet who was responsible for designing several other harbour fortifications during this period. In 1872 three 80-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns were installed.
In 1893 the fort was upgraded to hold a BL 9.2 inch (234 mm) Mk VI breech-loading 'counter bombardment' British Armstrong 'disappearing' gun. The Shark Point Battery was one of three such batteries protecting Sydney Harbour. The other two are the Ben Buckler Gun Battery at Bondi, and the Signal Hill Battery at Watsons Bay. The design of the batteries included a domed metal shield that covered each gun pit was intended to protect the gun from incoming shells. The Shark Point Battery's 9.2 inch gun's serial number was 7317. At some point the gun was removed and the battery converted to hold three 5-inch breech-loading guns.
The Shark Point battery formed part of the Sydney Harbour defences and was originally built at a time of fears of a Russian attack and other concerns such as in the withdrawal of British garrison troops, threats to British dependencies and increasing self reliance in defence matters. The fort worked in conjunction with various other forts located on Sydney Harbour that were also built in or around 1871. These forts included, the Middle Head Fortifications, the Georges Head Battery, the Lower Georges Heights Commanding Position and another small fort on Bradleys Head, known as the 'Bradleys Head Fortification Complex'.
In its last form, the battery consisted of three sandstone gun emplacements or pits with embrasures for the guns to fire through. These pits were connected by open passages and covered passages that led into underground chambers that consisted of a gunpowder magazine, a shell and artillery store and two shell and lamp recesses built of stone. The site had its own living quarters that included amenities for the workers manning the fort. The fort was surrounded by a picket fence with a sandstone base and another barbed wire fence for security. The fort also had its own jetty with connecting roads.
Shark/Steel Point at present consists of a three-gun battery. The passageways, tunnels, magazine store and barrack room are now partially buried. The stone lintel cover of the entry to the rear emplacement was smashed and the tunnel filled with debris, allowing water to seep in causing damage to the interior. The stonework of the lower emplacements and connecting passages are in good condition and there is still one gun emplacement located above ground.
The land on which the fort is located was granted to the state of New South Wales in 1980 and later became the responsibility of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife. A small portion of the land on which the fort is located is used as a degaussing station by the Royal Australian Navy.
A former penal site and defensive facility occupying a small island located north of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, Australia.
History
Prior to European settlement, the island had the Aboriginal name Mat-te-wan-ye (sometimes Mallee’wonya). After the first fleet arrived in 1788, Governor Phillip and his Advocate-General used the name Rock Island. In 1788 a convict named Thomas Hill was sentenced to a week on bread and water in irons there, and the island came to be known as Pinchgut. Once a 15 metre (49 ft) high sandstone rock, the island was flattened as prisoners under the command of Captain George Barney, the civil engineer for the colony, quarried it for sandstone to construct nearby Circular Quay.
By 1796 the government had installed a gibbet on Pinchgut. The first convict to be hanged from the gibbet may have been Francis Morgan. In 1793 the British transported him to New South Wales for life as punishment for a murder. The authorities in NSW executed Morgan for bashing a man to death in Sydney on 18 October 1796.
In 1839, two American warships entered the harbour at night and circled Pinchgut Island. Concern with the threat of foreign attack caused the government to review the harbour's inner defences. Barney, who had earlier reported that Sydney’s defences were inadequate, recommended that the government establish a fort on Pinchgut Island to help protect Sydney Harbour from attack by foreign vessels. Fortification of the island began in 1841 but was not completed. Construction resumed in 1855 because of fear of a Russian naval attack during the Crimean War, and was completed on 14 November 1857. The newly-built fort then took its current name from Sir William Thomas Denison, the Governor of New South Wales from 1855 to 1861.
The fortress features a distinctive Martello tower, the only one ever built in Australia and the last one ever constructed in the British Empire. Construction used 8,000 tonnes of sandstone from nearby Kurraba Point, Neutral Bay. The tower's walls are between 3.3 metres and 6.7 metres thick at the base and 2.7 metres thick at the top. However, developments in artillery rendered the fort largely obsolete by the time it was completed. The tower itself had quarters for a garrison of 24 soldiers and one officer. Fort Denison's armament included three 8-inch (200 mm) muzzle loaders in the tower, two 10-inch (25-cm) guns, one on a 360-degree traverse on the top of the tower and one in a bastion at the other end of the island, and twelve 32-pounder (15-kg) cannons in a battery between the base of the tower and the flanking bastion.
Eventually all the guns were removed, except for the three 8-inch (200 mm) muzzle loading cannons in the gun room in the tower, which were installed before construction was complete. The width of passages within the tower are too narrow to permit these to be removed. However, from the beginning the three cannons were of limited utility, for two reasons:
The embrasures for the cannons were too small to use the guns effectively. By the time the cannon was loaded the ship would have sailed past.
The recoil was too powerful for the small room.
In 1906, a saluting gun was transferred from Dawes Point to Fort Denison (see below).
In 1913 a lighthouse beacon built in Birmingham, England, and shipped to Sydney, replaced the 10-inch (25-cm) gun on the roof of the tower. In 2004 the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, which manages the site, restored the lighthouse beacon, which is still in use. The fort also has a still-functioning foghorn and a tide gauge room, which was established in the mid-1800s.
In May 1942, three Japanese two-man midget-submarines attacked Sydney Harbour. When the cruiser USS Chicago (CA-29) fired on the Japanese, some of its 5-inch (130 mm) shells hit Fort Denison, causing the tower minor damage that one can still see today.
Since 1992, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, which manages the site, has spent around A$2m conserving and upgrading the facilities. Origin Energy too made a significant contribution for the work.
Following publication of a Conservation Plan, further renovation commenced in 1999 and was completed in 2001. The conservation and adaptive re-use of the island was awarded the NSW Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Conservation Award; a ‘Commendation’ in the National RAIA Awards; and a National Trust Heritage Award in 2001.
Increased harbour traffic, coupled with the rising sea levels, has already destroyed the slipway. Furthermore, the porous sandstone drinks in the salt right down to the fort's foundations. In 2007 the government announced a $1.5 million rescue package.
Current use
Fort Denison is now a museum, tourist attraction, Sydney's only island cafe, and a popular location for wedding receptions and corporate events. The tourist facility contains an exhibition of the island's history from Aboriginal times.
Access to Fort Denison for tourists is via a ferry that departs wharf 6 at Circular Quay every 45mins, 7 days a week. The price for the ferry ticket includes guided tours of the island, including the Martello Tower. NSW National Parks & Wildlife Services conducts the tours, and also operates a Harbour Navigational Facility, with tide gauge, navigation channel markers, foghorn and beacon. The Bureau of Meteorology operates a weather facility from the island and publishes observations at half hourly intervals on their website
At 1pm every day, Fort Denison's staff fire a cannon. This practice began in 1906 to enable sailors to set their ship's chronometers correctly. The daily gun continued until World War II when the authorities stopped it for fear of alarming residents. The practice recommenced in 1986.
Famous prank
Further information: Fort Denison incident
In 1900, as the Boer war raged in Africa, the White Star Line ship Medic sailed into Sydney Harbour and dropped anchor in Neutral Bay. One evening, the fourth officer, Charles Lightoller and four midshipmen rowed to Fort Denison and climbed the tower with a plan to fool locals into believing a Boer raiding party was attacking Sydney. They hoisted a makeshift Boer flag on the lightning conductor and fired one of the cannons located at the fort.
The conservative citizens of Sydney frowned upon this activity and after an investigation Lightoller accepted sole responsibility for the incident and was reprimanded. White Star Lines apologised and paid damages to the city.
Charles Lightoller went on to be the second officer of the RMS Titanic and the most senior officer to survive the 1912 sinking of the ship. He was a key witness at both the British and American inquiries into the disaster.
