The New South Wales State Government Dockyard and Engineering Works at Walsh Island, Newcastle, was officially opened by Arthur Griffith, Minister for Public Works, (October 1910 - March 1915) on 27 November, 1914. The Walsh Island Dockyard was established as part of the McGowen Labor Government's programme for industrialisation, nationalisation, and development of state enterprises. The Dockyard was established, partially, as a replacement for the Cockatoo Island Dockyard which was sold to the Commonwealth Government in February 1913. The Labor Government believed the establishment of a large integrated dockyard and engineering works in Newcastle would promote continued electoral support from within the labour movement, their electoral constituency more generally, and help shore up Labor's political position in specific electorates in and around Newcastle. Moreover, the Dockyard contributed to the Labor Government's general drive to industrialise the state as the primary means with which to underwrite the material and social advancement of organised labour.1.
The Walsh Island Dockyard was operated by the Public Works Department (PWD) from 1913 until 1938, with only limited activity from 1933 until it was eventually abandoned, dismantled, and demolished between 1938 and 1941. All conservative government attempts to sell the Dockyard between 1918 and 1938 failed. 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, was eventually transferred to the site of second State Dockyard at the Dyke End, Carrington in 1940-41. It is ironic that the bulk of the workshops left undemolished at the Dyke End Dockyard (which was closed in 1987) are the central workshops relocated from Walsh Island in 1941, and that they stand on the site of the original Carrington PWD dredge workshops that operated prior to the establishment of Walsh Island.2.
By 1909 industrial labour had a clear political strategy to use the state as an active agent in promoting state socialist industrial development. On October 14, 1910, the culmination of two decades of reconstruction and reorganisation within the labour movement in New South Wales saw the realisation of the Labor Party elected to govern the state. The Labor Party had won an historic victory, albeit a very narrow one, claiming forty-six out of the ninety seats in the Legislative Assembly. The triumph of the first state Labor Government in New South Wales vindicated the previous two decades of organisational effort and struggle by organised labour, and raised great expectations within the labour movement especially in the spheres of industrial and social policy.3.
One of Labor Premier J.S.T. McGowen's first duties was to travel to England in November 1910 to secure loans to fund his government's ambitious public works infrastructure programme. The labour movement had also called on the Labor Government to develop state enterprises to combat capitalist monopolies with a view to controlling the cost of living and raising living standards for working people and their families. In support of these ideals the Labor Government greatly expanded the state's public works programme in order to help facilitate the industrialisation of New South Wales. 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. The Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd's Newcastle Steelworks (and associated industries) and Walsh Island Dockyard were significant components of this process. The basic rationale behind Labor's drive to industrialise was the desire to develop the state's economy upon a strong industrial base 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.4.
Newcastle was deliberately targeted by the Labor Government, particularly under the direction of Arthur Griffith, to form the nucleus of an important regional industrial complex. Labor's massive public works programme, which provided much of Walsh Island's early work-load, included the duplication of the main rail lines, 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. This extensive programme, with an estimated budget expenditure of £10,000,000, contributed to the government being the state's largest employer in 1914.5.
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; but it also acted as a repository for, and generator of, the skilled labour so essential to the state's industrial development. Moreover, the Dockyard's comprehensive engineering facilities [See Fig. 1] allowed it to win contracts for engineering work and components from private enterprise and other governments which otherwise would have been imported. Large projects were completed for BHP; (including most of the structural steel and pipework for the Newcastle Steelworks blast and open hearth furnaces); A. Goninan & Co.; Commonwealth Steel; Noyes Bros. (Java); and the Commonwealth, Queensland, and South Australian Railways.6.
The establishment of the Walsh Island Dockyard began when the Minister for Public Works, Arthur Griffith, instructed the Board of Management of the Cockatoo Island Dockyard in January, 1912, to inspect land in Newcastle and to advise him of a suitable site to carry out government dredge repair, construction, and general engineering work then being undertaken at Cockatoo Island. The Cockatoo Island Board, chaired by T.W. Keele, reported back to Griffith on 1 February, 1912, and recommended that excess government work be contracted out to private firms, and the balance be undertaken by the existing PWD dredge repair workshops at the Carrington Dyke in Newcastle. Furthermore, the board advised Griffith that in order for the Carrington workshops to carry out the increased work-load 'extensive alterations would be required, some of which were already in contemplation'. Griffith, in accordance with specific Labor policy, ignored the recommendation to contract government repair work out to private enterprise. However, he did advise Premier McGowen of the need to enlarge the Carrington workshops in order for the government to honour its commitments to the Commonwealth Government's naval shipbuilding programme. The Labor Cabinet endorsed Griffith's recommendation on 13 February, 1912.8.
However, Griffith insisted on Walsh Island for two reasons: one economic, one political. First, land at the Throsby Basin was too expensive and too scarce, and wharfage too valuable to tie up with idle vessels. Nor could both a floating dock and dockyard workshops be accommodated at the one site by Throsby Creek due to the lack of available land (a minimum of thirty acres was required). Moreover, in practical terms, Griffith's harbour improvement scheme required the Throsby Basin and Dyke End wharfage areas for the loading of coal and wheat. Second, Griffith wanted a grand state works close to the Steelworks as a very public display of Labor's political commitment to state enterprise, in an effort to douse some of the hostility and resentment directed towards the government after its failure to establish a state steelworks. The Labor Government, and Griffith in particular, had attracted heated criticism from within the labour movement for allowing one of the movement's most despised industrial enemies to gain an effective monopoly in steelmaking. This perceived failure and open support for BHP exacerbated the considerable animosity the labour movement felt towards BHP resulting from the bitter Broken Hill miners' strike and lock-out of 1908-1909.9.
However, on 31 July 1912, a mere ten days after their final report recommending Throsby Basin, Keele's committee suddenly reversed its recommendation. 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; besides Walsh Island permits of connection with the mainland.[sic]
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. Effectively, Keele's committee gave Griffith the recommendation for a combined dockyard and engineering works with repair facilities and a floating dock at Walsh Island, as Griffith had originally proposed.9.
Walsh Island offered a site large enough to accommodate the Dockyard and continued reclamation work allowed for its expansion as the need arose. Originally, the island was 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. 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. This reclamation work was continued so that an area of seventy to eighty acres was available by 1914, with the Dockyard to occupy about thirty acres. The reclamation work that began in 1897 continued for twenty years until 1918, eventually building up an island of about four hundred acres, which ultimately formed part of the much larger Kooragang Island reclamation project.11. [See Fig.'s 2 & 3]
Preparatory work for the construction of the Walsh Island Dockyard began early in 1913, with one hundred and thirteen 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. 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 three building berths. Between June and 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. When the works were officially opened on 28 November, 1914, the Dockyard sprawled out over 32 acres.12.
A.E Cutler, the Superintendent of Cockatoo Island, was appointed by Griffith as 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.13.
In Cutler's report to the PWD in 1915, he outlined that almost £117,000 had been spent to 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 should 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 double. 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 programme. By July, 1916, £346,000 had been expended on plant and equipment, and another £150,000 was budgeted to complete the construction programme. Moreover, £175,000 had been paid in wages between 1913 and June 1916, along with £206,000 to purchase stores and production materials. By 1919 over £520,000 was invested by the government in plant and equipment, and working capital of over £250,000 used to finance the Dockyard's operations.14.
Because Walsh Island was established by the political action of a Labor Government it was to be dogged throughout its years of operations by political controversy and opposition from conservative political and business interests. The considerable sums spent on the Dockyard attracted much criticism, as did the lack of financial controls and accountability associated with its financing. Moreover, after the bitter conscription debate split the Labor Party in 1916-17 the Holman/Fuller Nationalist Coalition Government was given an electoral mandate in early 1917, and from there on the Dockyard's political status deteriorated. Although Holman, Fuller, and others within the Coalition Government 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, including the operations of the Walsh Island Dockyard.15.
George Mason Allard, an eminent conservative chartered accountant, was appointed Commissioner to the Royal Commission to inquire into the Public Service of New South Wales in 1918. Allard's report on the Public Works Department 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 Mason Allard Royal Commission report states 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 originally intended. Commissioner Allard described the genesis and development of Walsh Island as 'extraordinary.' He 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 states that the Dockyard quickly developed into a huge undertaking that was 'not sanctioned by Parliament under the Public Works Act'. He argued there was no doubt that the original conception... was only to erect such buildings and obtain such plant as would permit of this dredge repair work being done, and that [the] subsequent development [of this] huge establishment [had] been more or less in the nature of a series of afterthoughts;... being made at the will of the Minister.16.
Certainly, by 1919, when the report of the Royal Commission was published, the Dockyard and associated engineering works was a massive establishment much larger than the Cockatoo operations were in 1912. However, Allard's claim that the Walsh Island Dockyard was only ever intended to engage in dredge and punt repair work is incorrect, as this was only a fraction of the work previously done at Cockatoo Island. Griffith's intention to establish a large dockyard and comprehensive engineering works as a replacement for the entire Cockatoo operation was public knowledge as early as October 1912. Indeed, the very purpose of Keele and Cutler's respective visits to Newcastle was to inspect and recommend a suitable site to construct a dockyard as a replacement for Cockatoo Island. The Labor Cabinet accepted Keele's recommendation of Walsh Island with this in mind, and the Cockatoo Island Board duly approved Cutler's draft plans for a large dockyard and engineering works as a replacement for Cockatoo in November 1912.17.
The original conception and subsequent additions to the Dockyard, rather than being 'a series of afterthoughts' on Griffith's part, were in line with Labor's vision for an extensive and decentralised base of government engineering operations to which he and William Holman had given a great deal of thought. However, in fairness to Allard's report, it is clear that Griffith not only wanted to establish a dockyard to replace Cockatoo and the Carrington facility, but also he wanted to establish an engineering enterprise on an even larger scale. Griffith achieved this goal by 1915 and the scope and scale of the Dockyard's operations reflected its importance as an enterprise component of Labor's political programme to enhance the material and social progress of organised labour.18.
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 First World 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. The severe restrictions on the availability of 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. 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 vital to the domestic war effort. Material and labour shortages played a major role in hampering the Dockyard's continuity of operations, they restricted gross output, disrupted expansion, and created instability in employment. 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. 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.19.
With loan funds restricted, the Labor Government's public works programme had to be scaled back and this, in turn, restricted the Dockyard's greatest potential source of work. Moreover, the prosecution of the war itself did not provide a great deal of direct 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 (one being the belt fed water-cooled Vickers-Maxim Gun); built a radio controlled torpedo for coastal defence; and a number of aluminium alloy aircraft engines, airframe parts and components.20.
Restrictions aside, Walsh Island was to prove itself a great asset to the state throughout the war, creating demand for local steel plate and sections, and manufacturing a great deal of New South Wales' structural steel, general engineering, and machine orders that would have usually been sourced overseas. The combination of BHP's local steel production and imports from America, kept the Dockyard afloat. Indeed, the war enhanced a trend that began at the turn of the century for the development of a new 'import-replacing domestic manufacturing industry'. 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 and materials due to the restricted supply of imported manufactures, machine tools and materials 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.21.
Due largely to these wartime constraints, employment at the Dockyard never reached its full potential between 1914 and 1918. 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. [See Fig. 4] 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. Many attempts to sell the Dockyard were made by successive conservative state governments; however, all these attempts failed. 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. By May 1918, employment had bottomed out at just forty-four workers. During the early months of 1918 the Nationalist Government had attempted to sell the Dockyard to both BHP and the Commonwealth Government.22.
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. Prime Minister W. M. Hughes ordered forty of these vessels to be built by Australian shipyards as part of the Commonwealth Shipbuilding Scheme. The Scheme was implemented to create the Federal Government owned Commonwealth Shipping Line (CSL). The CSL was established by Hughes in order to alleviate the serious shortage of shipping (due to war losses and the British shipping cartels' lax efforts in servicing Australia) which was holding up the export of Australia's primary products to the United Kingdom. Again material shortages hampered the construction of these ships during 1918-19, and it was not until 1920 (when employment grew to well over 2200) that the Dockyard's level of employment truly reflected its industrial potential.23.
Throughout the entire period of the Great War 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 regressive conservative political attention. Nevertheless, the Dockyard provided great service to the state and contributed significantly to the initial development of a heavy industrial base in New South Wales, centred in Newcastle. 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. 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. Premier William Holman clearly delineated this goal in a speech just prior to the war in June 1914. The government, he claimed, [would] not only make its own bricks and bread, but ultimately, iron and steel to supply rails, bridges, and locomotives necessary for the industrial development of the state.24.
Walsh Island, as an enterprise born of Labor's political will, was seen as a key component with which the government might achieve this goal. Indeed, the most important role played by Walsh Island was in terms of its contribution to the state's infrastructure development programme. This in turn made it possible for heavy engineering and manufacturing to take root in New South Wales, especially in and around the Port of Newcastle.
Endnotes:
1. 'Walsh Island: Official Opening', Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners' Advocate, (N.M.H.M.A), 28 November, 1914; & Royal Commission on the Administration of the Public Service in New South Wales, Third Sectional Report upon the Administration of the Public Works Department, (R.C.P.W.D.), New South Wales Parliamentary Papers, (N.S.W.P.P.), Joint Volume, Session, 1919, n.89, v.4, p. 116; & 'Walsh Island Works', N.M.H.M.A., 16 June, 1913; & Docherty, p. 34.
2. 'Walsh Island State Workshops', Sydney Morning Herald, (S.M.H.), 14 September, 1935; & Norm Barney, 'War Thrust City into Prosperous Era', N.M.H.M.A., 16 April, 1994; 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; 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; & 'Proposed Steel Works', N.M.H.M.A., 27 June, 1912; & 'Walsh Island Works', N.M.H.M.A., 16 June, 1913.
3. I. Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labour Movement in Eastern Australia, 1900-1921, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1979, p. 116; J.Hagan & K.Turner, A History of the Labor Party inNew South Wales, 1891-9991, Sydney, Longman Cheshire, 1991, pp.68-70; & P. Loveday, A.W. Martin, & P. Weller, 'New South Wales', P.Loveday, A.W.Martin, & R.S.Parker, (eds) The Emergence of the Australian Party System, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1977, pp.241-242.
4. Docherty, p. 31 & 34-35; Griffith, A. & Moroney, J., The Socialist Labor Party versus The Labor Party: Report of Debate, Sydney, People Printery, 1909, pp. 4-12 & 23-27. In this debate between Arthur Griffith and Jas Moroney held at Wallsend near Newcastle on May Day, 1909, Griffith clearly outlines Labor's socialist policies and argues that they are what the labour movement has called for Labor to pursue when elected to government. H.V. Evatt, William Holman: Australian Labour Leader, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1979, pp. 177-178.
5.B. Dyster & D. Meredith, Australia in the International Economy: In the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 95; & New South Wales Industrial Gazette, (N.S.W.I.G.), v.7, December 1914 - June 1915, p. 11; & Evatt, p. 246.
6. Walsh Island Site Plan. This plan drafted by the writer is based upon a site diagram printed within a copy of An Invitation & Programme for the Launching Ceremony of the Main Floating Dock Unit, Sydney, P.W.D., 1929. The layout is that present at the time of the launching 20 December, 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 and 1930, dockyard information brochure, comprise the only overall site plans in existence. Both were consulted, along with photographs taken in the early years of the war, in the drafting of this plan. State Government Dockyard, Walsh Island, Result Book, 1915-1918, New South Wales Archives Authority, (N.S.W.A.A.), City, No. X2246.
7. R.C.P.W.D., 1919, pp. 116-117. & Griffith, p. 11. This policy stated that 'all government work [is] to be executed in the State, without the intervention of contractors'.
8. 'Proposed Steel Works', N.M.H.M.A., 27 June, 1912 & R.C.P.W.D., 1919, p. 117.
9. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Report Relating to the Proposed Floating Dock at the Port of Newcastle, (P.S.C.R.F.D), Minutes of Evidence, 7 August, 1913, N.S.W.P.P., Session, 1913, n.80, v.1, 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'. 'Harbour Improvements', N.M.H.M.A., 20 September, 1913; N.S.W.I.G., v.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. Docherty, p. 35; Evatt, pp. 229-231. & I. Turner, pp. 40-41.
10. R.C.P.W.D., 1919, p. 118; P.S.C.R.F.D., 1913, p. 941; & A. Griffith, 1 November, 1911, Hansard, (N.S.W.), pp. 1467-1468; & 'Walsh Island Works', N.M.H.M.A., 16 June, 1913.
11. P.S.C.R.F.D., 1913, p. 940. & B. Kelly, 'Kooragang: An Historical Synopsis', unpublished BA (Hons) thesis, University of Newcastle, 1978. A massive reclamation project to construct present day Kooragang Island by joining Mocheto, Dempsey, Spectacle, Ash and Walsh Islands was undertaken from the 1950's and completed in 1977. Today Walsh Island comprises the south-eastern tip of Kooragang Island, an area designated in 1968 as Walsh Point. N.M.H.M.A., 17 June, 1950.
12. 'Walsh Island Works', N.M.H.M.A., 7 May, 1913; 'Walsh Island Works', N.M.H.M.A., 16 June, 1913; 'Walsh Island Works', N.M.H.M.A., 20 September, 1913; & Walsh Island Dockyard, (Works Brochure), Newcastle, 1929; 'Walsh Island Official Opening', N.M.H.M.A., 28 November, 1914; & See photographs in "Walsh Island Views" on Walsh Island Homepage.
13.'Walsh Island Works', N.M.H.M.A., 30 March, 1914.
14. Report on the Government Dockyard, Newcastle, 30 June 1915, Report of the Dept. of Public Works, 30th June 1915, No. 23 - Report 15, December 1915, p. 82, N.S.W.A.A., Kingswood, (Bundle 36/258.1). These costs were as follows: (in £'s) 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, Cranes 17,177-17-11, Power Plant 13,301- 3-11: TOTAL £116,927- 5- 1. 'Walsh Island Official Opening', N.M.H.M.A., 28 November 1914. The works 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). R. McDonell, Build a Fleet, Lose a Fleet, Melbourne, Hawthorn Press, 1976, p. 163. R.C.P.W.D., 1919, p. 116.
15. Evatt, pp. 315-322; & I. Turner, pp. 118-119.
16. B. Nairn & G. Serle, (eds) The Australian Dictionary of Biography, v.7, 1891-1939, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1979, p. 40. & R.C.P.W.D., 1919, p. 116.
17. R.G. Parker, Cockatoo Island: A History, Melbourne, Nelson, 1977, pp. 25 & 29; & J.S. Kerr, Goat Island: An Investigation for the Maritime Services Board of N.S.W., Sydney, Maritime Services Board, 1987, p. 23; 'Works Committee: Dock for Newcastle', N.M.H.M.A., 15 October, 1912; P.S.C.R.F.D., 1913, pp. vi, vii, & 4; & M.G. MacDougall, 'The State Dockyard Newcastle', Port of Sydney Journal, v.5, n.5, July-September 1956, pp. 136-137. & R.C.P.W.D., 1919, p. 118.
18. Evatt, pp. 377-379; 'Walsh Island Works', N.M.H.M.A., 6 June, 1913; & 'Walsh Island', S.M.H., 14 August, 1919.
19. Dyster & Meredith, p. 131; & 'Walsh Island To Stay Open', N.M.H.M.A., 8 August, 1914; 'Walsh Island Employees', N.M.H.M.A., 25 January, 1918; & Federal Shipbuilding', N.M.H.M.A., 30 May, 1918; & 'Walsh Island: Federal Shipbuilding', N.M.H.M.A., 1 August, 1918.
20. Evatt, p. 326. & 'Walsh Island Making Munitions', S.M.H., 17 February, 1916; & 'Harbour & Walsh Island', N.M.H.M.A., 19 June, 1916.
21. 'Walsh Island Making Munitions', S.M.H., 17 February, 1916. & Dyster & Merideth, p. 49.
22. Evatt, pp. 377-380; & 'Walsh Island', S.M.H., 14 August, 1919; 'Industrial Matters; Walsh Island', N.M.H.M.A., 16 January, 1918; 'Walsh Island Offer of Purchase', S.M.H., 5 December, 1922, Walsh Island offered to tender for £700,000; 'Proposed Sale of Walsh Island', S.M.H., 30 January, 1923, the government negotiated with a large UK engineering firm; 'Talk of Offer for Walsh Island', Daily Telegraph, 4 November, 1925. Report of offer from Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. The Labor government considered the offer but declined to sell. 'Walsh Island Heavy Losses', S.M.H., 7 February, 1933; 'Walsh Island State Ownership to be Ended', S.M.H., 14 September, 1935; & S.M.H., 21 February, 1939, all note attempts to dispose of the dockyard..'Walsh Island: Is it a Failure?', S.M.H., 12 January, 1918; McDonell, p. 148; 'Walsh Island Dockyard', N.M.H.M.A., 28 January, 1918; 'Proposed Lease of Walsh Island', S.M.H., 16 February, 1918; 'Shipbuilding Scheme', N.M.H.M.A., 25 February, 1918; & 'Shipbuilding: Walsh Island Plant', S.M.H., 5 March, 1918.
23. 'Holman & Hughes Sign Contracts', N.M.H.M.A., 28 March, 1918; & 'Federal Shipbuilding: Government Contracts', N.M.H.M.A., 30 May, 1918; W. Farmer Whyte, William Morris Hughes: His Life & Times, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1957, pp. 266-267; & L.F. Fitzardinge, The Little Digger, 1914-1952: William Morris Hughes, A Political Biography, v.II, Melbourne, Angus & Robertson, 1979, pp. 137-140. & Public Works Department, Government Dockyard Newcastle, Report of the Department of Public Works, n. 14 Report, 16 December, 1920, N.S.W.A.A., Kingswood, Bundle 36/258.1.
24. Hagan & Turner, p. 96. & Evatt, p. 259.
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