The New South Wales State Government Dockyard and Engineering Works
that was once located on an island in the Hunter River at Newcastle, is
a virtually forgotten footnote in Australia’s industrial and political
history. 1. [Need to add
text links, next 2. to 2e etc] The establishment in 1913 of the Walsh Island
Dockyard was a significant expression of the McGowen Labor government’s
grand designs to use the political economy to encourage the greater industrialisation
of the state. The genesis of the Dockyard grew out of the necessity of
establishing a replacement facility for government dredge construction
and repair after the transfer of the Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney
to the Commonwealth in 1913. Ultimately its final manifestation as a large
scale industrial complex was in response to the political turmoil, associated
with the government’s failure to establish a state iron and steel industry
and the skilful opportunism of Arthur Griffith, the Minister for Public
Works. In considering the rationale behind the establishment of the Dockyard
it is clear that its function was not only to serve the government in terms
of enhancing its capacity and efficiency in industrial procurement. Rather,
the Dockyard, as a state enterprise, had specific social and political
functions related to the labour movement's selective socialist objectives.
The Dockyard's industrial role was prefaced by an ideological assumption
that state enterprise, along with state sponsored industrial and infrastructure
development, should be directed towards the material and social advancement
of the working class.
The ideological rationale behind organised labours’ plans for the political economy is transparent in the combination of Labor’s statist model of 'colonial socialism', prominent by the late 1890's, with the evolving concept of modernity. In essence, this ideal was reflected in labour's desire to share in the material and social benefits of 'modern' industrial society rather than to face continued exploitation by usurping the political-economic power of the pastoral and mercantile elites. The Labor government wanted to industrialise New South Wales in order to promote the type of dynamic industrial economy they considered necessary to underwrite the social and material progress desired by organised labour. 2. The catalyst behind Labor's drive to industrialise was the desire to develop the state's economy upon a strong industrial base, along side of rural intensification through closer settlement, and to break up the existing industrial monopolies by creating state monopolies, which in turn would provide employment and material security for the working class. 3. This strategy was levelled primarily on an assumption of male wage-based social security, the wage-earners’ welfare state. The state was understood as being the key domain from which to promote employment growth, labour market stability, and high male wages, in order to underpin a reasonable standard of living for the working class. 4. Clearly the social purpose of labourist industrial development was heavily influenced by the socialist notions of equity and social amelioration that infused the labour movement's political consciousness. 5.
It is within this broader context that the establishment of the Walsh Island Dockyard should be understood. The Dockyard was also established during a unique period of convergence between industrialisation and socialist ideology, and as part of the wider context of the international clash in the political economy between industrial capitalism and socialism. In Australia, the path towards revolutionary socialism was rejected in favour of a political strategy of coexistence between state socialism and capitalist enterprise. In New South Wales, Labor's industrial development program reflected the state's special needs and circumstances; being a heavily urbanised society based primarily upon a pastoral export economy which was underdeveloped industrially. 6. By 1909 industrial labour had developed a clear strategy to use the apparatus of political economy to actively assist in the encouragement of state socialist and capitalist industrial development. 7. On October 14, 1910, after two decades of reconstruction and reorganisation within the labour movement in New South Wales a Labor government was elected to govern the state. The Labor Party won an historic, albeit a very narrow, victory claiming forty-six out of the ninety seats in the Legislative Assembly. This triumph raised great expectations within the labour movement especially in the spheres of industrial and social policy. 8. One of Labor Premier J.S.T. McGowen's 9. first duties was to travel to England in November 1910 to secure loans to fund his government's ambitious public works infrastructure program. 10. Labor's program brought together a number of strategies such as state enterprises, industrial relations reform, social and industrial decentralisation, and expanded public works. With these measures it was hoped this program would create employment in the public and private sectors. Moreover, improving the state's industrial infrastructure would help promote the expansion of secondary industries and therefore replace imports. Ultimately it was envisaged that Labor’s public investment schemes would promote the overall systematic industrialisation of the state's economy, in conjunction with the development of agricultural industries. This scheme would then stabilise the labour market and the cost of living, and thus provide the economic foundations to underpin Labor's broad social objectives, and to galvanise political support for the continuance of Labor in government. 11.
Sustained industrial development ensured the growth in importance and power of industrial labour, both socially and politically, a point not lost on their political representatives. It was, after all, politically in the best interests of the Labor government to broaden its constituency base, and the industrialisation of New South Wales was one very effective strategy to accomplish this. Rapid urbanisation had the effect of overwhelming Labor’s original rural worker support base and the growing urban working class began to dominate Labor politics and the social and industrial concerns of the urban constituency became the priority of the Labor Party and its politicians. Despite the high degree of urbanisation, based upon servicing the pastoral export economy, New South Wales did not really begin to industrialise, in terms of heavy industrial and manufacturing capacity, until the first three decades of the twentieth century. Indeed, it is a common misconception, for example, that Newcastle had been, from the mid-nineteenth century, an industrial city. 12. Certainly Newcastle has always been a centre for coal production, and as a result, has experienced a measure of industrial activity, particularly in the iron trades and later in small scale manufacturing. 13. However, Newcastle was primarily an important export node for the coal and primary produce from the Hunter Valley, New England, North-West New South Wales and the Darling Downs in Queensland. It was not until the establishment of the Walsh Island Dockyard, along with the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd’s (BHP) Steelworks, that Newcastle became a truly industrial city that could be relied upon to consistently return Labor candidates to parliament. 14.
In 1910 Newcastle was not yet a solid Labor stronghold and the votes that had returned all four seats (Newcastle, Wickham, Waratah, and Kahibah) to Labor were not considered safe. With Labor rather slim majority, the politically unstable seats in and around Newcastle were of vital importance to the government's long-term survival. This fragility was due to the increasing migration of coal miners and other workers (Labor's primary political constituency in the district) from Newcastle to the new Maitland coalfields as the coastal pits closed after exhausting their reserves of easily winnable coal. 15. Arthur Griffith, 16. Labor Minister for Public Works and the architect of Walsh Island’s establishment, realised this trend would have a significant impact on the region’s political demography undermining Labor’s support from within the Newcastle electorates. Griffith was well versed in the machinations of Novocastrian politics having been the Member for Waratah (in the west of Newcastle) during 1894 to 1903. With this firmly in mind Griffith directed a program of public investment in Newcastle in an attempt to stem the out-flow of votes, tap the popular sentiment for decentralisation, and to strengthen the government’s rather tenuous parliamentary majority. The great burst of industrial activity centred in Newcastle between 1910 and 1915 was due in large part to Griffith consistently advocated the greater industrialisation of Newcastle and, as Minister for Works, he finally had the power and resources to do something about it. 17.
The political process of establishing the Walsh Island Dockyard began with Griffith’s proposal to locate a floating dock and workshops at Newcastle late in 1911 followed by the impending transfer of Cockatoo Island to the Commonwealth. 18. In January 1912, Griffith instructed T.W. Keele and the Cockatoo Island Board to inspect land in Newcastle and to advise him of a suitable site for the location of a floating dock with associated dredge repair, construction, and general engineering works. 19. Keele reported back to Griffith on the 1st of February, 1912, and recommended that excess government work be contracted out to private firms, and the balance be undertaken at the existing Public Works Department (PWD) dredge repair workshops at the Carrington Dyke on Newcastle harbour. 20. Griffith, in accordance with Labor policy, ignored the recommendation to contract government repair work out to private enterprise. 21. Instead he advised Premier James McGowen of the need to enlarge the Carrington workshops so it could cope with the increased workload after Cockatoo Island was transferred to the Commonwealth. The Labor Cabinet subsequently endorsed Griffith's recommendation on the 13th of February, 1912. 22.
It was at this point that other factors beyond Griffith’s control interceded in his plans and the political and economic function of the Newcastle Dockyard changed significantly. One of Labor’s key industry policies was the nationalisation of the state’s iron industry. Between February and May of 1912 a political controversy erupted over BHP’s proposal to establish a privately owned steelworks at Newcastle. The Sydney Labor Council (SLC) had pressured the Labor Party to adopt a policy plank for the establishment of a state iron and steel industry as far back as 1902. From 1907 the SLC had also called for the nationalisation of the Hoskins Lithgow Ironworks due to that company's appalling treatment of its workforce. 23. Once in government, Attorney-General, William Holman, Minister for Works, Arthur Griffith, and Minister for Labour and Industry, George Beeby, were charged with the responsibility for implementing this key industry policy. 24. As Minister for Works, Griffith became especially preoccupied with straightening out the sour contractual and labour relations then experienced between the government, unions and the Hoskins management. For Griffith and the Labor Cabinet, the nationalisation of the iron and steel industry was to be the first major step towards securing their broad industrial and social agenda. 25.
To this end, Premier McGowen appointed F.W. Paul, Manager of the Steel Company of Scotland, as Commissioner to the Royal Commission into the Iron and Steel Industry in New South Wales in 1911. 26. Paul was instructed to investigate the government's contractual relations with the Hoskins Ironworks at Lithgow, to examine the suitability of New South Wales as a host for an integrated iron and steel works, and finally to assess the feasibility of establishing a state owned and operated iron and steel works. 27. Together, these three terms of reference were intended to secure a mandate for the government to establish its own ironworks and to nationalise the existing small scale iron and steel industry. Unfortunately Paul's report, published late in October 1911, did not deliver the exact recommendations the Labor Government had hoped for. While the report tentatively supported Labor's nationalisation policy by being highly critical of the Hoskins operation, its precise recommendations by-passed nationalising the Lithgow Ironworks which was the labour movement's preferred option. 28. Rather, Paul argued that as the government was the largest consumer of iron manufactures in New South Wales it should, therefore, establish its own integrated iron and steel works. 29. Paul's proposed integrated steelworks was in fact to be a much larger project than anything previously envisaged by the Labor Government; and a project of such immense scale they could not possibly afford to go ahead with. Commissioner Paul recommended the establishment of a huge steelworks which he estimated would cost £1,500,000, a sum that represented half of Labor's first term public works budget.
The Labor government was then faced with a serious dilemma. 30. Firstly,
how was the government to reconcile the Hoskins workers at Lithgow, and
their supporters, to the reality that the nationalisation of the Hoskins
works had not been recommended? 31.
Moreover, how was the government to deal with the political backlash from
within the labour movement after it was made clear that such a large steelworks
was clearly beyond the government's political and fiscal means? Finally,
and to further complicate matters, how was the government to receive BHP's
forceful proposal for a privately owned steelworks which was so obviously
in contradiction with Labor's central ideological tenets of the collective-ownership
and anti-monopolistic ideals? 32.
It is clear the Labor government could do very little to appease the
embattled Lithgow workers aside from legislating industrial relations reforms,
which it did with the Industrial Arbitration Act of 1912. However, the
subsequent development of BHP's Steelworks in Newcastle clearly demonstrates
the considerable administrative limitations placed upon Labor’s industry
policy. These administrative constraints resulted from difficulties with
securing sufficient loans from the capital markets in London 33.
and, moreover, the political limitations the government faced at the hands
of a hostile Legislative Council. 34.
Nevertheless, in censuring the Labor Government for its perceived weakness
of political determination to implement party industrial policy at the
1913 State Labor Conference, 35. the
rank and file of the party ignored the obvious difficulties the government
had to overcome. 36. Despite
these political difficulties, and in the knowledge that the Labor Government
could not secure finance for the state steelworks, 37.
Griffith, nevertheless, pressed on with his plans. In March 1912 he presented the State Iron and Steel Works Bill to Parliament. As expected, this Bill was soundly rejected by the Legislative Council who would have nothing to do with such 'socialistic legislation'. 38. Griffith did all he could to pursue the establishment of a state steelworks but once it was clear that this goal was politically and fiscally unattainable he moved to secure a modern iron and steel industry for the state’s industrial base even if this meant it would have to be a privately owned one. He had little choice as Guillaume Delprat, the general manager of BHP, had perceived Griffith’s dilemma and forced the issue. Delprat made it clear to the government they would have to publicly support his project or his company would build its steelworks in another state. The Labor government desperately wanted a steel industry and, devoid of options, had to accept Delprat’s plan. Griffith, on announcing the government’s support for the BHP Steelworks project, claimed he 'deeply regret[ted that the] government was prevented from getting in first with their scheme'. However, he was not prepared to impede 'any large wholesome development of private enterprise'. 39. Clearly, Griffith understood that an integrated iron and steel industry would provide the state with an important economic stimulus and was a further vital step towards the industrialisation of New South Wales with the added bonus of being decentrally located in Newcastle.
In this unique set of circumstances Griffith still sensed a political opportunity that offered the government a chance to expand state industrial enterprise in another direction. 40. As a consequence of the scale of BHP's steelworks project its location would encompass the site of existing coal bunkering facilities, which meant they had to be relocated onto the site of the Carrington Dyke facility. As a result of this, the proposed extension and, indeed, the continued operation of the Carrington workshops came into question. As we have seen the Carrington facility had already been earmarked for major extensions to compensate for the Cockatoo Island Dockyard being almost entirely engaged in naval construction work for the Commonwealth Government by 1912. 41. To this end Griffith announced that the site for the proposed floating dock and workshops in Newcastle would have to be relocated onto 'an island in the river'. 42. Walsh Island itself was originally little more than a mud and sand spit about one mile long, running downstream to the junction of the northern and southern arms of the Hunter River. 43. In 1897 the PWD decided to dump dredged silt from the harbour onto this silty spit and erected a rock retaining wall from the north-eastern corner along the southern bank of the north arm of the Hunter River. Here dredgings were pumped ashore more or less continuously, so that by late 1912 an area of approximately fifteen acres had been reclaimed to a height of eight feet above the high water mark. An area of seventy to eighty acres was available by 1914, with the Dockyard to occupy about thirty acres. 44. The reclamation work continued for twenty years until 1918 when an island of about four hundred acres had been created. The island would ultimately become Walsh Point as part of the much larger Kooragang Island reclamation project undertaken between the 1950s and 1970s. 45.
Griffith’s statement on the 27th of June, 1912, marks a crucial point of historical intersection in the development of both the BHP Steelworks and the State Dockyard at Walsh Island. The establishment of a large state dockyard and associated engineering works in Newcastle was an ace up Griffith's sleeve throughout his tussle with BHP. A combination of several factors, including having to relocate the Carrington dredge repair workshops, the government's agreement to dredge a new channel to service the Steelworks, and the impending sale of Cockatoo Island to the Commonwealth, 46. provided Griffith with the practical, political and fiscal means to establish a large state owned engineering facility by way of consolation for the loss of the state steelworks. The close proximity of the Dockyard and Steelworks also offered mutual advantages as each provided a ready market for the other’s product. Griffith seized the opportunity and planned for a new dockyard of a sufficient scale to replace both the Carrington and Cockatoo Island facilities and to allow for future expansion. Furthermore, he realised a new state dockyard would not only enhance the government's industrial procurement capabilities, especially in providing an alternative source to Hoskins for iron manufactures, but it was also a clear demonstration of Labor's commitment to state enterprise, decentralisation, and industrialisation, so soon in the wake of the Labor Government's failure to establish a state steelworks. 47.
It was also a measure of Griffith’s political cunning and aptitude that he was able to successfully initiate an audacious state enterprise project in the knowledge that any attempt to do so through the parliament was certain to meet its political death in the Legislative Council. Griffith carefully considered his strategy and the political and administrative options open to him. One option was to belatedly include the enterprise through the provisions of the Industrial Undertakings Act of 1912. This Act provided for six state enterprises consisting of a brickworks, lime-works, metal quarries, timber yards, clothing factory and the Cockatoo Island Dockyard. Section 2(g) of the Act also allowed for 'any other industrial undertaking that the Governor may specify'. 48. However, to utilise section 2(g) the Labor Government would have to gain the approval of the Legislative Council for any further specific state enterprises. Griffith, with an eye on the sale of Cockatoo Island to the Commonwealth, may have included Cockatoo in the Act in order to allow him the option of transferring its industrial undertaking status to a replacement dockyard.
However, Griffith did not pursue this option, instead, he astutely avoided a confrontation with the Legislative Council, much to their displeasure, by simply transferring the Carrington workshops' status as an arm of the PWD to the new dockyard at Walsh Island. As a relocation and extension of an existing PWD facility, Griffith could establish the dockyard without having to seek approval from the Legislative Council. The Council’s displeasure at this course of action would have delighted Griffith, as he was a long time critic of the conservative and undemocratic nature of the Legislative Council. 49. The other great advantage in this strategy was that ss the Minister for Works, and therefore effectively the head of the PWD, Griffith could exercise near total personal control over Walsh Island's development. Griffith was also adamant about the practical socialist credentials of the project. He asserted that the establishment of Walsh Island ‘might be socialism, but he knew that it was good, sound common-sense. He believed that it was a wise investment for the public money, and one which would save the general taxpayer a large sum of money’. 50. He was nothing if not a pragmatic idealist.
By May 1912 the scene was set for the establishment of a large new dockyard at Newcastle and Griffith instructed A.E. Cutler, the Superintendent of Cockatoo Island, to inspect a number of sites on the harbour that Griffith thought would be suitable. 51. These sites included the Stockton Ballast on the northern side of Newcastle Harbour, the southern tip of the Carrington Dyke, two sites off Throsby Creek (one near the present site of the Grain Elevator Terminal and the other near ADI Minehunter Workshops and Forgacs Floating Dock), and lastly a low silty mud flat called Walsh Island. Cutler reported in favour of the first Throsby Creek site knowing that this recommendation was subject to the construction of the Throsby shipping basin which would allow access to larger vessels. On 27 June, 1912 Griffith directed Keele and his Board to report on the 'suitability of Walsh Island as a site for a Floating Dock and Government Workshops'. Griffith, preempting the findings of Keele and Cutler, announced on the very same day that the dockyard would, in fact, ‘be’ located on Walsh Island. 52. It would appear Griffith had made up his mind on the Dockyard’s location and only awaited the independent recommendation of his engineers. Unfortunately Cutler reported to Griffith on 4 July, 1912 that he was again in favour of the Throsby Creek site. On 22 July, 1912 Keele also reported back to Griffith and argued that Walsh Island was an unsuitable site for the new dockyard. 53. Clearly then, Cutler, Keele and the Cockatoo Board, were in favour of a site closer to the city and its existing utilities and service infrastructure (rail links, wharfage, and power) and no doubt the extra operating costs in handling materials and labour to and from the island influenced their judgement.
Despite these adverse recommendations Griffith remained unperturbed and insisted on the site at Walsh Island for two reasons: one economic, one political. In the first instance the land on the Throsby Basin was too expensive, too scarce, and wharfage too valuable to tie up with idle vessels awaiting fitting out, servicing or repair. Moreover this location could not accommodate both the floating dock and workshops at the one site due to the lack of available land; as a minimum of thirty acres was required. 54. Furthermore, Griffith's existing harbour improvement plan required the Throsby Basin and Dyke End wharfage areas for the loading of coal and wheat. 55. From a political perspective, Griffith wanted a grand state works close to the Steelworks as a very public display of Labor's political commitment to state enterprise. 56. This was as much a symbolic act as is was a measure of political pork barrelling. Griffith’s continued preference for the Walsh Island site may have influenced Keele’s committee, as a mere ten days after their report rejecting Walsh Island, they suddenly reversed their recommendation. On the 31st of July, 1912, Keele reported that ‘Walsh Island is a suitable site for the workshops and slips... [Moreover], there is a sufficient area not only for present requirements, but having regard to future expansion..’ 57. Furthermore, Keele claimed it was the consensus of opinion within engineering circles that the most suitable site for the new government dockyard, along with the floating dock, was Walsh Island. 58. The backflip of Keele's committee effectively gave Griffith the ‘independent’ recommendation for the combined dockyard, engineering works, and floating dock as he had originally intended. 59.
The State Government Dockyard and Engineering Works, Walsh Island, was officially opened by Arthur Griffith on 27th of November 1914. 60. Preparatory work for the construction of the Walsh Island Dockyard began early in 1913, with over one hundred workers engaged in foundation and other preliminary work. While this work was under way the existing Carrington facility was preparing for the transfer of its plant, buildings and three hundred personnel to Walsh Island. 61. At the time of the foundation stone laying ceremony on Saturday June 14, 1913, the keel of the first vessel to be constructed was being laid in the smallest of the four building berths. 62. By September 1913 all the preparatory work had been completed and structural steel erection was in full swing. The central workshops, housing the light and heavy machine, and boiler shops, consisted of five bays covering a total of 62,500 square feet, and was at the time one of the largest workshops in Australia. The three larger building berths were nearing completion and all work on this stage of construction was expected to be completed by the end of October 1913. 63. When the works were officially opened on 28 November, 1914, the Dockyard had sprawled out over 32 acres. 64.
Griffith appointed A.E Cutler as the Superintendent of Walsh Island
on 30 March, 1914. Cutler announced to the press that Griffith's plans
for Walsh Island 'would stagger them' and that the Minister had 'in mind
schemes for making it a very much bigger concern than Cockatoo'. Griffith
had informed Cutler that the dockyard would engage in ‘extensive engineering
and shipbuilding works, and the manufacturing of cast iron pipes, [and]
also the construction of steel bridges for all rail lines under construction
by the P.W.D.’ 65. In Cutler's
report to the PWD in 1915, he outlined that almost £117,000 had been
expended by mid-1915 on the construction of the Dockyard's facilities.
Due to the construction work the Dockyard had not been fully operational
throughout 1914-15 but Cutler estimated that work carried out had a value
of £100,186-6-7. He claimed that when in full production the Dockyard
would turn over in excess of £300,000 per annum. Employment averaged
1000 throughout the first half of 1915 and, upon completion of a Pipe Foundry
and the provision of more machinery, the number employed was expected to
increase. 66. By 1919 over £520,000
had been invested by the government in plant and equipment, and working
capital of over £250,000 used to finance the Dockyard's operations.
67. Moreover, the future plans
for the Dockyard would require an even larger capital outlay in order to
cope with the increased volume of work associated with the government's
public works infrastructure development program. 68.
Labor's massive public works program, which provided much of Walsh Island's
early work-load, included the duplication of the main trunk rail lines,
the completion of the North Coast Line, and other extensions to the rail
network, rail and road bridges, road works, sewerage and water works, and
harbour and port infrastructure improvements. This extensive program, with
an estimated budget of £10,000,000, contributed to the government
becoming the state's largest employer by 1914.69.
Walsh Island was not only an enterprise which supplied the state with
many of the industrial manufactures it required, and created competition
and replaced imports; it also acted as a repository for, and generator
of, the skilled labour so essential to the state's, and indeed Australia’s,
industrial development. It was this level of commitment of public monies
that would lead to sustained attacks on its operations by conservative
politicians and business interests who were ideologically opposed to such
large projects of state enterprise.
As Walsh Island was established through the political action of a ‘socialist’ Labor government it was to be dogged throughout its relatively short life by political controversy and opposition from conservative interests. The considerable sums spent on the Dockyard attracted much criticism, as did the lack of financial controls and accountability associated with its financing. 70. Moreover, after the bitter conscription split of the Labor Party in 1916-17 and the advent of the Holman/Fuller Nationalist Coalition government the Dockyard's political status deteriorated. Although Holman (who was also a prominent supporter of the establishment of Walsh Island), Fuller, and others within the Coalition government notionally supported state enterprises, a powerful conservative lobby within the government pressured Holman to institute a Royal Commission into the running of the state's public service which included a specific focus on the operations of the Walsh Island Dockyard. 71.
George Mason Allard, an eminent conservative chartered accountant, 72. was appointed Commissioner to the Royal Commission to inquire into the Public Service of New South Wales in 1918. The Commission also had a specific instruction to investigate the establishment of Walsh Island. Allard's report, published late in 1919, was very critical of Arthur Griffith's involvement in the establishment of Walsh Island, and of the secrecy surrounding the Dockyard's financial dealings. The Royal Commission reported that once the Walsh Island site had been recommended and approved by Cabinet, Griffith directed the development of the Dockyard into a 'huge undertaking' much larger than was originally intended. Commissioner Allard described the genesis and development of Walsh Island as 'extraordinary'. The report claimed the Dockyard was 'originally intended merely to meet the requirements of the P.W.D. in regard to dredges and tugs, and in some measure the construction of dredges'. Furthermore, Allard’s report claimed that the Dockyard quickly developed into a huge undertaking that was 'not sanctioned by Parliament under the Public Works Act'. He argued there:
The extent of Walsh Island's operations may have grown even larger if it were not for the considerable restrictions placed on its development by the outbreak of war in August, 1914. The effect of the Great War on Walsh Island's development, productive output, and future viability, was significant. The war forced strict financial constraints to be placed on the State Government by the Commonwealth and Imperial governments. The restrictions on loan funds from London, which were so vital for the continuation of public works, along with material and labour shortages, threatened to force the closure of the Dockyard in August 1914. 79. However, Griffith was quick to announce just after the outbreak of war that Walsh Island would continue operating for the duration of the war because it was seen as a vital industrial asset to the war effort. 80. Throughout the war, Walsh Island struggled with delays in delivery of plant and equipment required to expand production, often leading to work being left incomplete. 81. The irregularity of material supply, especially steel plate, also affected employment, particularly from late 1917 when hundreds of Walsh Island workers were retrenched due to insufficient government orders and material shortages. 82.
The prosecution of the war itself did not provide a great deal of military work, although Walsh Island's comprehensive facilities allowed for the production of various munitions and ordnance. From early 1916 Walsh Island produced 1440 shell casings per day, experimented with the production of two types of machine gun, built a radio controlled torpedo for coastal defence, and fabricated a number of aluminium alloy aircraft engines, airframe parts and components. 83. These restrictions aside, Walsh Island was to prove itself a great asset to the state throughout the war in creating demand for local steel sections, and provided valuable capacity for import replacement, manufacturing a great deal of the state’s structural steel, general engineering, and machine order requirements. Indeed, the war enhanced a trend that began at the turn of the century for the development of a new import-replacing manufacturing industries in NSW and Victoria. Essentially, while the war provided only limited ordnance work, the chaos in Europe did expand the demand in the Australian economy for locally produced manufactures due to the difficulties of importing goods from Australia's traditional European suppliers. However, the restricted flow of industrial imports, on which Australia's industrialisation so heavily depended, limited the degree to which local industries could diversify and expand to meet these new demands. 84. These conditions assisted the process of industrialisation and greater structural diversification of Australia’s economy but were not accompanied by a great increase in production due to these restrictions.
During the early months of 1918 the Nationalist Government had attempted without success to sell the Dockyard to both BHP and the Commonwealth Government. Indeed, various attempts to sell off the Dockyard between 1918 and 1938 ultimately failed. 85. Prime Minister Hughes was incensed that the Holman government would consider selling the Dockyard to BHP, an action that was in direct contravention of their the agreement between NSW and the Commonwealth to construct vessels for the latter by state owned yards only. The withdrawal of BHP’s offer appears to have been prompted by Hughes’ direct intervention. He made it clear that BHP, who had plans to construct their own merchant fleet, would not be allowed to construct their own ships before the Commonwealth had secured the construction of their own vessels. 86. The Dockyard looked certain to close at the end of March 1918. However, it was given a reprieve after the state government signed a contract to build six 6000 ton steel freighters for the Commonwealth on 27 March, 1918. 87. Prime Minister W. M. Hughes ordered forty vessels of various types and tonnages to be built by Australian shipyards as part of the Commonwealth Shipbuilding Scheme. 88. The Scheme was implemented to assist in the creation of the Federal government owned and operated Commonwealth Shipping Line (CSL). The CSL was established by Hughes in order to help alleviate the serious shortage of shipping which was holding up the export of Australia's primary products to the United Kingdom. 89. Again material shortages, and difficulties in securing the Commonwealth’s permission to seek work from the private sector, hampered the revival shipbuilding and the further development of the Dockyard during 1918-19. It was not until the production of the Commonwealth vessels began in 1920 (when employment grew to well over 2200) that the Dockyard's level of employment truly reflected its industrial potential. 90.
The discontinuity in Dockyard operations, due to the dislocations of the war and political antipathy, is clearly evident in the employment trends of the period. The Walsh Island workforce had grown from around three hundred in late 1913, to over nine hundred in the second half of 1915, and fluctuated between one thousand and twelve hundred until late 1917. However, with the gradual decline in political support for the Dockyard from 1917, work was deliberately re-allocated to other government departments and private contractors. 91. Between July 1917, when Walsh Island was announced as a possible site for Commonwealth ship construction, and January 1918, the Dockyard's workforce had been reduced from twelve hundred to just over five hundred. 92. The protracted delays in starting the construction of the Commonwealth steamers contributed significantly to employment in shipbuilding falling to just forty-four workers by May 1918. 93. During June-July 1917 Walsh Island unionists were eventually involved in the negotiations and final agreement between the associated unions and the Commonwealth for the first Australia-wide shipbuilding industry agreement that incorporated a federal award with localised enterprise bargaining and piece work provisions in the engineering trades. 94.
In fact the Dockyard was, at times, very progressive in its labour relations policies with various unions heavily involved in the day to day running of the works. 95. In other areas the Dockyard was at the cutting edge. For example the Dockyard was especially advanced in its development and adoption of new technologies and engineering processes. Early in its development the works adopted the widespread use of electric power, machinery and tools. Consequently the Dockyard was also a leader in the development of new welding technologies in Australia and Walsh Island boilermakers constructed Australia's first all welded vessel in the early 1920's. Moreover, the electrical department at Walsh Island helped develop new types of welding plant, including the 'Cutler Marsden' machine (a continuous wire feed submerged arc process) that was the first of its type in the world. 96. As a shipbuilder the Dockyard produced forty-seven vessels, ranging from small wooden and steel punts and tenders to a 15,000 ton floating dock, between 1913 and 1933. The diversity of the Dockyard’s non-shipbuilding operations were also impressive. The Dockyard workshops could fabricate almost anything, from the most basic iron bolts and castings, to general structural steel fabrication, steel and iron pipes, forgings of all types and complexity, machines and machine tools, entire boilers and multi-cylinder steam engines, aircraft motors and components, electric trains, signal equipment, and even diesel powered buses. 97. The site was indeed large enough for the Dockyard to accommodate its own aerodrome. The Dockyard's comprehensive engineering facilities 98. allowed it to win contracts for engineering work and the fabrication of components (some of which was exported) from private enterprise and other governments which would otherwise have been imported. 99.
The Walsh Island Dockyard was eventually abandoned, dismantled, and demolished between 1938 and 1941, with only limited activity from 1933 onwards. 100. Much of the Dockyard's equipment was sold off during the Great Depression. However, some plant, cranes and electrical equipment, along with ninety per cent of the structural steel work, 101. were eventually transferred to the site of the second State Dockyard at the Dyke End, Carrington in 1940-41. 102. It is somewhat ironic that the bulk of the workshops that exist today at the Dyke End (which was closed in 1987) are the central workshops erected in 1913 and relocated from Walsh Island in 1941. Furthermore they stand on the site of the original Carrington PWD dredge workshops that operated prior to the establishment of Walsh Island which was the site originally favoured for the Dockyard. 103.
Throughout the entire period of the Great War and later though to its demise after the Great Depression the Walsh Island Dockyard was forced to operate with the metaphorical one hand tied behind its back. In the early years of the war this handicap was largely physical (material, labour and financial), while in the later years this physical liability was exacerbated by a lack of political support. Nevertheless, the Dockyard provided a great service to the state and contributed significantly to the initial development of a heavy industrial base in New South Wales, centred in Newcastle. Indeed, the Dockyard, like the BHP Steelworks, was a key industrial enterprise that helped lay the foundations for heavy engineering and manufacturing to take root in New South Wales and saw the Port of Newcastle become the largest manufacturing centre in the country. Labor's broad ideal for industrial development, and the establishment of Walsh Island and other state enterprises, reflected the government's political will to actively involve itself directly in enterprise and infrastructure development. In essence its dual role as a facility to assist in government works procurement and as an asset for the socialistic amelioration of better living and working conditions, contributed significantly to the hostility it attracted from conservative political and business interests. Nevertheless the Labor Government was determined to promote the expansion of the state's industrial economy as part of a strategy of extending the state's involvement in the economy and society more generally. 104. Griffith, who considered himself and the Labor Party ‘sane and commonsense Socialists’, 105. was a gradualist and a model a labourist, who saw the political economy as the arena for labour’s conquest. He argued that the key to Labor’s historic task was the political economic control of the state and the gradual extension of state ownership over the means of production. State enterprise of all types, including Walsh Island, the iron industry, and state fostered industrialisation, was the means with which they would accomplish their task. 106. Arthur Griffith, with the full support of Premier McGowen and William Holman, strove to establish the Dockyard as part of his overall program of initiating state enterprises in New South Wales, for the latter he can be attributed the greatest single responsibility. 107. Clearly, as a component of a much larger experiment in socialist interventionism directed towards the fullest extension of state ownership of the means of production, Walsh Island was a failure. However, it was a success in as much as it did prove to be a key industrial enterprise that contributed significantly to the eventual industrialisation of Newcastle and New South Wales in support of both the private sector and public infrastructure investment, and also as a model for labour relations, wage justice and working conditions. Walsh Island, as an enterprise born of Labor's political will, was a testament to a period in Australia’s political and industrial history when the role of the state, and the political economy, was considered paramount to the promotion of the social and material progress of the working class.
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ENDNOTES
1. This paper is a work in progress and should not be cited or quoted without the consent of the author. The paper is based upon research conducted towards my honours thesis, see David Cameron, Towards the Wage-Earners' Welfare State? - The Establishment of the New South Wales State Government Dockyard and Engineering Works, Walsh Island, Newcastle, 1910-1918: An Industrial, Political and Labour History, BA hons thesis University of Newcastle, 1994.
2. H.V. Evatt, William Holman: Australian Labour Leader (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1979), pp. 177-8.
3. Arthur Griffith, & James Moroney, The Socialist Labor Party versus The Labor Party: Report of Debate (Sydney: People Printery, 1909), pp. 10, 23 & 26. In this debate between Arthur Griffith and James Moroney held at Wallsend, near Newcastle, on May Day, 1909, Griffith clearly outlines Labor's socialist credentials and policies, and argues that they were what the labour movement has called for Labor to pursue when elected to government.
4. F.G. Castles, The Working Class and Welfare: Reflections on the Political Developments of the Welfare State in Australia and New Zealand, 1890-1980 (Wellington: Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp , 86-7. & 103.
5. R. Neil Massey, ‘A Century of Labourism, 1891-1993: An Historical Interpretation’, LH, 66, (May 1994), pp. 50-1.
6. Ibid., pp. 53-4.
7. I. Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labour Movement in Eastern Australia, 1900-1921 (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1979), p. 116.
8. J.Hagan & K.Turner, A History of the Labor Party in New South Wales, 1891-1991 (Sydney, Longman Cheshire, 1991), pp.68-70. & P. Loveday, A.W. Martin, & P. Weller, 'New South Wales', in P.Loveday, A.W.Martin, & R.S.Parker, (eds) The Emergence of the Australian Party System (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1977), pp.241-2.
9. Geoffrey Robinson, A History of the Newcastle Branch of the Boilermakers’ Society of Australia 1877-1977 (Newcastle: Amalgamated Metalworkers & Shipwrights’ Union, 1977). James Sinclair Taylor McGowen (1855-1922) was the Secretary of the Sydney Branch of the Boilermakers’ Society 1874-93 and helped establish the Newcastle Branch in 1877. He was President of the Eight-hour Demonstration Committee and on the executive of the Trades Hall Committee (Sydney) 1888-1891. He was leader of the PLP from 1894-1913 and was expelled along with Holman and Griffith in 1916. MLA for Redfern 1891-1917 and MLC from 1917-1922. He was Premier, 1910-13, Treasurer, 1910-11, & Colonial Secretary, 1911-13, Minister for Labour & Industry, 1913-14.
10. J.C. Docherty, Newcastle: The Making of an Industrial City (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1983), p. 31.
11. B. Dyster & D. Meredith, Australia in the International Economy in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp. 58-9 & 62-3; Massey, ‘Labourism’, pp. 53-4; 'Walsh Island Official Opening', Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners' Advocate, [NMHMA], 28 November, 1914 & Griffith & Moroney, Socialist Labor, pp. 4-12 & 23-7.
12. Docherty, Newcastle, pp. 31 & 35-6.
13. J.W. Turner, Manufacturing in Newcastle, 1801-1900 (Newcastle: Newcastle Public Library, 1980), p. 20. & New South Wales Industrial Gazette [NSWIG], 6, (July-November 1914), pp. 1199 & 1201-2. By 1913 there were 572 factories registered as operating in Newcastle, however, of these only one had over 400 employees (PWD dredge repair shops), and only five with between 150 and 300 employees. Of the 5983 men and women employed at these factories, only 1361 were involved with 'metal works and machinery'.
14. Docherty, Newcastle, pp. 31 & 35-6.
15. Ibid., p. 34.
16. P. Mantle, 'A 'Conscientious Democrat': Aspects of Arthur Griffith's Early Political Career, 1894-1903', unpublished BA (Hons) Thesis, University of Newcastle, 1989, pp. 13-15. Arthur Hill Griffith (1863-1946) was Minister for Public Works from October 1910 to March 1915 & Minister for Public Instruction 1915-16. He was the Member for Waratah between 1894-1903, Sturt 1904-13, & Annandale 1913-17. He was expelled from the ALP after the conscription split of 1916. He later controlled the state aerodrome at Richmond during WWII and laid out the towns of Griffith and Leeton, and was the first chairman of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme.
17. Docherty, Newcastle, pp. 34-6.
18. Griffith, 1 November 1911, New South Wales Parliamentary Debates [NSWPD], (1911), pp. 1467-72.
19. ‘Royal Commission on the Administration of the Public Service in New South Wales’, ‘Third Sectional Report upon the Administration of the Public Works Department’, [’RCPWD’], New South Wales Parliamentary Papers [NSWPP], Joint Volume, 89, 4, (1919), pp. 116-7.
20. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, p. 117. This is the site where the Walsh Island Central Workshops are now located as part of what remains of the former Dyke End State Dockyard.
21. Griffith & Moroney, Socialist Labor, p. 11. This policy stated that 'all government work [is] to be executed in the State, without the intervention of contractors'.
22. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, p. 117.
23. Raymond Markey, In Case of Oppression: The Life and Times of the Labour Council of New South Wales (Sydney: Pluto Press, 1994), p. 144.
24. Evatt, Holman, p. 229.
25. N.R. Wills, Economic Development of the Australian Iron & Steel Industry (Sydney: N.R. Wills, 1947), pp. 64-5.
26. ‘Report of the Royal Commission on the Iron and Steel Industry in New South Wales: Together with a Copy of Commission and Evidence’ [’RCISI’], 31 October 1911, NSWPP, 78, .4, (1911-12), p. 567.
27. Ibid., p. 565; Dyster & Meredith, Australia, p. 95. & Helen Hughes, The Australian Iron & Steel Industry, 1848-1962 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press), 1964, p. 61.
28. A. Trengove, 'What's Good for Australia..!': The Story of B.H.P. (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1975), p. 91; Hughes, Australian Iron, p. 53. & Markey, Oppression, p. 144.
29. ‘RCISI’ 1911, pp. iii-xvi.
30. Trengove, ‘What’s Good’, p. 91. & Hughes, Australian Iron, p. 53.
31. Markey, Oppression, p. 144.
32. Hughes, Australian Iron, p. 55.
33. Massey, ‘Laborism’, p. 54. & Dyster & Meredith, Australia, p. 131.
34. Hughes, Australian Iron, p. 66.
35. Trengove, ‘What’s Good’, p. 99.
36. Markey, Oppression, pp. 161-2.
37. Dyster & Meredith, Australia, p. 34.
38. Hughes, Australian Iron, p. 66.
39. 'Proposed Steelworks', NMHMA, 27 June, 1912.
40. 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 16 June, 1913.
41. 'Walsh Island State Workshops', Sydney Morning Herald [SMH], 28 November, 1914.
42. 'Proposed Steelworks', NMHMA, 27 June, 1912.
43. 'Kooragang Island', NMHMA, 17 June 1950 & J.S. Kerr, Goat Island: An Investigation for the Maritime Services Board of NSW, 2nd Edit., (Sydney: MSB, 1987). The island was named in honour of Henry Deane Walsh (1853-1921) who was District Engineer with the NSW Department of Public Works at Newcastle in the 1880s and early 1890s. He was also a member (and later President) of the Hunter District Water Supply and Sewerage Board from 1892. He became Engineer-in-Chief of the Sydney Harbour Trust in 1901, he was appointed Commissioner of the Trust in 1913 and retired in 1919. Walsh Bay in Sydney Harbour is also named after him.
44. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, ‘Report Relating to the Proposed Floating Dock at the Port of Newcastle’, [’PSCRFD’], ‘Minutes of Evidence, 7 August, 1913', NSWPP, 80, 1, (1913), p. 940.
45. B. Kelly, ‘Kooragang: An Historical Synopsis’, (unpublished BA (Hons) thesis, University of Newcastle, 1978) & ‘Kooragang Island’, NMHMA, 17 June, 1950. A massive reclamation project to construct present day Kooragang Island by joining Mocheto, Dempsey, Spectacle, Ash and Walsh Islands began in the 1950's and was completed in 1977. Today Walsh Island comprises the south-eastern tip of Kooragang Island, an area designated in 1968 as Walsh Point.
46. 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 16 June, 1913 & G.E. Gould, A Dock for Newcastle: The Movement to Establish a Dock in the Port of Newcastle, 1888-1928, BA hons thesis, University of Newcastle, 1977, p. 46. The final figure agreed to was £867,716-9-0, comprising £800,000 for the works and plant, and £67,716-9-0 for naval work completed to February 1913.
47. 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 16 June, 1913.
48. ‘Special Deposits (Industrial Undertakings) Act, No. XXII, 1912', The Statutes of New South Wales (Public and Private) Passed During the Session 1912, (Sydney: NSW Government Printer, 1913), pp. 15-7.
49. Mantle, A Conscientious Democrat, pp. 13-5.
50. 'Walsh Island Works State Workshops', SMH, November 28, 1914.
51. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, p. 117.
52. ‘Proposed Steelworks’, NMHMA, 27 June, 1912.
53. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, p. 117.
54. ‘PSCRFD’, 1913, pp. 933, 934, & 941. J. Davis, Director General of Public Works in giving evidence claimed the Throsby Creek site was not large enough for both docks.
55. 'Harbour Improvements', NMHMA, 20 September, 1913; NSWIG, 4, (October 1913 - February 1914), pp. 495, 737, 952, & 1290. & (March-June 1914), pp. 196, 439, & 824. Employment on harbour works peaked at between 386 and 560 during late 1913 and early 1914.
56. Docherty, Newcastle, p. 35.
57. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, p. 118.
58. ‘PSCRFD’, 1913, p. 941.
59. Griffith, NSWPD, (1911), pp. 1467-8. & 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 16 June, 1913.
60. ‘Walsh Island Official Opening’, NMHMA, 28 November, 1914.
61. 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 7 May, 1913.
62. 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 16 June, 1913. The keel of the Stockton vehicular ferry Mildred was laid on this day with the first rivets driven by Miss Flowers (daughter of Labor MLC Frederick Flowers) and Mrs Mildred Griffith, the wife of Arthur Griffith. The ferry was named in her honour.
63. 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 20 September, 1913 & NSW Government, Walsh Island Dockyard & Engineering Works: Newcastle, New South Wales, Works Brochure (Sydney: NSW Public Works Department, 1929 & 1930).
64. 'Walsh Island Official Opening', NMHMA, 28 November, 1914.
65. 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 30 March, 1914.
66. ‘Report on the Government Dockyard, Newcastle, 30 June, 1915', in Report of the Deptartment of Public Works, 30th June 1915, No.23, (Report 15, December, 1915), p. 82, Bundle 36/258.1, New South Wales Archives Authority [NSWAA], Kingswood. These costs were as follows: Levelling/Asphalting £3,413- 9- 9, Buildings £25,506-15- 2, Machinery £27,154- 9- 0, Plant £26,367-15- 6, Tramways £4,002-13-10, Electric Cranes £17,177-17-11 & Power Plant £13,301- 3-11. This represents a total of £116,927- 5- 1.
67. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, p. 116.
68. 'Walsh Island Official Opening', NMHMA, 28 November 1914. The Dockyard layout at this time consisted of the central workshops, a large iron foundry, 500' (152m) long by 120' (36.5m) wide with a capacity of 100 tons per day. A shipyard gantry (for crane movements across the rear of the building berths) 500' long. A bridgeyard over 1000' (305m) long, and a pattern shop 170' (52m) x 110' (33.5m).The four slips (building berths) consisted of two 260' (79m) x 55' (17m), one 420' (128m) x 66' (20m), and one 420' x 120' (36.5m).
69. NSWIG, 7, December 1914 - June 1915, p. 11. & Evatt, Holman, p. 246.
70. Auditor-General’s Department, ‘Government Dockyard, Walsh Island, 24 November, 1919', in ‘State Industrial Undertakings: Balance Sheets, Trading Accounts, Report of the Auditor-General for the Year Ended 30th June 1919', NSWPP, Joint Volume, 89, 3, (1919), p. 1205.
71. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, pp. 116-36.
72. ‘George Mason Allard’, in B. Nairn & G. Serle, (eds) The Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1891-1939, Vol. 7., (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979), p. 40.
73. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, p. 116.
74. R.G. Parker, Cockatoo Island: A History (Melbourne: Nelson, 1977), pp. 25 & 29. & Kerr, Goat Island, p. 23.
75. ‘Proposed Steelworks’, NMHMA, 27 June, 1912; 'Works Committee: Dock for Newcastle', NMHMA, 15 October, 1912; ‘PSCRFD’, 1913, pp. vi, vii, & 4. & M.G. MacDougall, 'The State Dockyard Newcastle', Port of Sydney Journal, 5, 5, (July-September 1956), pp. 136-7.
76. Griffith, NSWPD, (1911-12), pp. 1467-72. The Newcastle Floating Dock Act, No. 15, was not passed until October 1913. The project was abandoned due to the cost but was revived in 1917 when the Commonwealth and the State government jointly funded the construction of the floating dock under the Government Dockyard Newcastle ( Floating Dock Agreement Ratification) Act, No. 24, 1927. The dock was constructed at Walsh Island between 1928-29.
77. ‘RCPWD’, 1919, p. 118.
78. Evatt, Holman, pp. 377-9; 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 6 June, 1913 & 'Walsh Island', SMH, 14 August, 1919.
79. Dyster & Meredith, Australia, p. 131. & 'Walsh Island To Stay Open', NMHMA, 8 August, 1914.
80. ' Walsh Island To Stay Open', NMHMA, 8 August, 1914.
81. 'Walsh Island Employees', NMHMA, 25 January, 1918.
82. 'Federal Shipbuilding', NMHMA, 30 May, 1918 & 'Walsh Island: Federal Shipbuilding', NMHMA, 1 August, 1918.
83. 'Walsh Island Making Munitions', SMH, 17 February, 1916 & 'Harbour & Walsh Island', NMHMA, 19 June, 1916.
84. Dyster & Meredith, Australia, p. 49.
85. 'Industrial Matters; Walsh Island', NMHMA, 16 January, 1918; 'Walsh Island Offer of Purchase', SMH, 5 December, 1922 (Walsh Island offered to tender for £700,000); 'Proposed Sale of Walsh Island', SMH, 30 January, 1923 (the government negotiated with a large UK engineering firm); 'Talk of Offer for Walsh Island', Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 4 November, 1925 (Report of offer from Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth & Company to purchase which the Labor government considered but declined); 'Walsh Island Heavy Losses', SMH, 7 February, 1933; 'Walsh Island State Ownership to be Ended', SMH, 14 September, 1935 & SMH, 21 February, 1939.
86. Correspondence between Premier W. Holman, H.W. Churchin, Chief Executive Officer Commonwealth Ship Construction, and Prime Minister W. Hughes, January-February 1918, A2, 1918/1652, AA, Canberra; 'Walsh Island Dockyard', NMHMA, 28 January, 1918; ‘Ships’ (editorial) & ‘Mr Holman Complains’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 29 January, 1918; 'Proposed Lease of Walsh Island', SMH, 16 February, 1918; 'Shipbuilding Scheme', NMHMA, 25 February, 1918 & 'Shipbuilding: Walsh Island Plant', SMH, 5 March, 1918.
87. 'Holman & Hughes Sign Contracts', NMHMA, 28 March, 1918 & 'Federal Shipbuilding: Government Contracts', NMHMA, 30 May, 1918.
88. Speech by the Right Hon. W.M. Hughes, P.C., M.P., (Prime Minister) on Commonwealth Shipping and Shipbuilding [from the "Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates", 16th November, 1921], CP103/11, 221, AA, Canberra.
89. Report of the First Commonwealth Shipbuilding Conference held at Parliament House, Melbourne, 12th June, 1917, pp. 1-3, A9288/1, AA, Canberra; W. Farmer Whyte, William Morris Hughes: His Life & Times (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1957), pp. 266-7. & L.F. Fitzardinge, The Little Digger, 1914-1952: William Morris Hughes, A Political Biography, Vol.II, (Melbourne: Angus & Robertson, 1979), pp. 137-40.
90. Public Works Department, ‘Government Dockyard Newcastle’, in Report of the Department of Public Works, (Report No. 14, 16 December, 1920), Bundle 36/258.1, NSWAA, Kingswood & Correspondence relating to Shipbuilding Contracts between A. Poynton, Minister in Charge of Commonwealth Ship construction and R.T. Ball, NSW Minister for Public Works and Railways, January-February 1919, A2, 1919/1204/2, 3&6, AA, Canberra.
91. Evatt, Holman, pp. 377-80 & 'Walsh Island', SMH, 14 August, 1919.
92. 'Walsh Island: Is it a Failure?', SMH, 12 January, 1918.
93. R. McDonell, Build a Fleet, Lose a Fleet (Melbourne: Hawthorn Press, 1976), p. 148.
94. Memorandum of Agreement between the Commonwealth and Shipbuilding Unions, 1917, A9288/1, AA, Canberra, & A Bill for an Act Relating to Shipbuilding 1917-18, A9288/2, AA, Canberra. The Boilermakers’ Society members at Walsh Island and their executive along with other Dockyard unions were initially not invited to these conferences, then rejected the piece work and dilution of labour clauses, but finally voted 58 to 4 in favour of accepting the Agreement. Federated Society of Boilermakers’ and Iron Shipbuilders’ of Australia, [Boilermakers’ Society] Newcastle, Branch No. 4, Minutes of Meetings, (18 December, 1916 - 16 June, 1919), May-July, 1917, pp. 77-102, AB 5598, Auchmuty Library Archives, University of Newcastle.
95. For examples of the nature of worker involvement in the operations of the Dockyard see the Boilermakers’ Society, Minutes of Meetings, 1913-19, AB 5596-98, Auchmuty Library Archives.
96. Correspondence from the NSW Minister for Public Works to William K. Craig, 5 November 1962. (In possession of Mr Ross Craig, Stockton, NSW, author also holds a copy) William Craig was an electrician, leading hand and foreman at Walsh Island and later Superintendent of the Electrical Department at the Dyke End State Dockyard. He was instrumental in the Dockyard's successful development of new welding technologies and associated welding standards.
97. Walsh Island Dockyard, (Works Brochure), 1929 & 1930.
98. Walsh Island Site Plan see appendix. This plan, drafted by the author, is based upon a site diagram published in An Invitation & Program for the Launching Ceremony of the Main Floating Dock Unit (Sydney: Public Works Department, 1929). The layout is that present in 1929. This small diagram noted the various trades and their respective base of operations and other locations. This diagram and a similar, though much less detailed, one shown in the Walsh Island Dockyard & Engineering Works: Newcastle, N.S.W., (Newcastle: P.W.D., 1929 & 1930), a dockyard information brochure, comprise the only overall site plans known to exist today. Both were consulted, along with photographs taken in the early years of the war, in the drafting of this plan.
99. State Government Dockyard, Walsh Island, Result Book, 1915-1918, No. X2246, NSWAA, City. Large projects were completed for BHP (including most of the structural steel and pipework for the Steelworks No. 2 Blast Furnace and open hearth extensions), A. Goninan & Co., Commonwealth Steel, Noyes Brothers (Java), and the Commonwealth, Queensland, and South Australian Railways.
100. 'Walsh Island State Workshops', SMH, 14 September, 1935 & Norm Barney, 'War Thrust City into Prosperous Era', Newcastle Herald, 16 April, 1994.
101. N.S.W. Department of Public Works, The State Dockyard: Its Wartime Establishment & Production; Jan. 1942 - Dec. 1945 (Sydney: P.W.D., 1946), pp. 14 & 22.
102. C.C. Faulkner, 'Progressive State Dockyard: A Fine Record in War and Peace', Australian Coal, Shipping, Steel and the Harbour, (June 1, 1949), p. 35. & 'Walsh Island: Its Rise and Fall', Newcastle Sun, 4 August, 1960.
103. 'Proposed Steel Works', NMHMA, 27 June, 1912 & 'Walsh Island Works', NMHMA, 16 June, 1913. The fate of these workshops in the immediate future is uncertain as the site is now subject to redevelopment and it is unlikely they will be incorporated into the plans for the site despite their significance to our social, political and industrial heritage.
104. Hagan & Turner, A History of Labor, p. 96.
105. Griffith & Moroney, Socialist Labor, p. 4.
106. Ibid., pp. 5-12.
107. Evatt, Holman, p. 377. & Mantle, Conscientious Democrat, p. 7.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Archival Sources, Government Documents & Official Publications:
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Commonwealth Government. Report of the First Shipbuilding Conference held at Parliament House Melbourne, 12th June, 1917, A9288/1, Australian Archives, Canberra.
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Commonwealth Government. Correspondence relating to Commonwealth Shipbuilding Contracts between A. Poynton, Minister in Charge of Commonwealth Ship Construction and R.T. Ball, NSW Minister for Public Works and Railways, January-February 1919, A2, 1919/1204/2, 3 & 6, Australian Archives, Canberra.
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NSW Government. Walsh Island Dockyard & Engineering Works: Newcastle, New South Wales, Works Brochure. (Sydney: NSW PWD, 1929 & 1930).
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Hagan, J.S. & Turner, K. A History of the Labor Party in New South Wales, 1891-1991. (Sydney: Longman Cheshire, 1991).
Hughes, Helen. The Australian Iron and Steel Industry, 1848-1962. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1964).
Kerr, J.S. Goat Island: An Investigation for the Maritime Services Board of N.S.W. (Sydney: Maritime Services Board of N.S.W., 1987).
Loveday, P., Martin, A.W., & Weller, P. ‘New South Wales', in Loveday, P., Martin, A.W., & Parker, R.S., eds., The Emergence of the Australian Party System. (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1977).
Markey, Raymond. In Case of Oppression: The Life and Times of the Labour Council of New South Wales. (Sydney: Pluto Press, 1994).
McDonell, R. Build a Fleet, Lose a Fleet. (Melbourne: Hawthorn Press, 1976).
Nairn, N.B. & Serle, G. The Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1891-1939, Vol. VII. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979).
Parker, R.G. Cockatoo Island: A History. (Melbourne: Nelson, 1977).
Robinson, Geoffrey. A History of the Newcastle Branch of the Boilermakers' Society of Australia, 1877-1977. (Newcastle: Amalgamated Metalworkers & Shipwrights' Union, 1977).
Trengove, A. 'What's Good for Australia.!': The Story of B.H.P. (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1975).
Turner, Ian. Industrial Labour and Politics: The Labour Movement in Eastern Australia, 1900-1921. (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1979).
Turner, J.W. Manufacturing in Newcastle, 1801-1900: History Monograph No. 8. (Newcastle: Newcastle City Library, 1980).
Wills, N.R. Economic Development of the Australian Iron and Steel Industry. (Sydney: N.R. Wills, 1947).
Journals/Newspaper Articles:
Barney, Norm. 'War Thrust City into Prosperous Era', Newcastle Herald, 16 April, 1994
Faulkner, C.C. 'Progressive State Dockyard: A Fine Record in War & Peace', Australian Coal Shipping, Steel and Harbour, 66, (1949).
MacDougall, M.G. 'The State Dockyard Newcastle', Port of Sydney Journal, 5, 5, (1956), pp. 136-7.
Massey, Neil R. 'A Century of Labourism, 1891-1993: An Historical Interpretation', Labour History, 66, (May 1994), pp. 45-55.
Theses:
Cameron, David. Towards the Wage-Earners' Welfare State? - The Establishment of the New South Wales State Government Dockyard and Engineering Works, Walsh Island, Newcastle, 1910-1918: An Industrial, Political and Labour History. BA (Hons), University of Newcastle, 1994.
Gould, G.E. A Dock for Newcastle: The Movement to Establish a Dock in the Port of Newcastle 1888-1928. BA Hons, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, 1977.
Kelly, B. Kooragang: An Historical Synopsis. BA Hons, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, 1978.
Mantle, P. A 'Conscientious Democrat': Aspects of Arthur Griffith's Early Political Career, 1894-1903. BA Hons, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, 1989.
Newspapers:
Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 1918-1925.
Sydney Morning Herald 1914-1939.
Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate 1912-1919.
Newcastle Herald 1994
Newcastle Sun 1960.
If you have any comments or queries about this paper please contact me: David Cameron