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You are here: Home / Naval Heritage Sites / Cockatoo Island

Cockatoo Island

· Jun 28, 2017 ·

The first Naval Dockyard of the Royal Australian Navy

Cockatoo Island is the largest Island in Sydney Harbour and is located at the junction of the Parramatta and Lane Cove Rivers, about 3.7 km west of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It has a unique place in the history of Australia, starting with early European occupation as a penal settlement then operating as a shipbuilding, ship repair and general engineering establishment for 134 years. Today, Cockatoo Island is a UNESCO world-heritage listed site in the custody of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, a self-funding agency created by the Australian Government to protect and improve public access to former defence and Commonwealth sites around Sydney Harbour.

Aerial view of Cockatoo Island, with a view towards Watsons Bay

Download Plan

The following outline of the history of Cockatoo Island is based, with permission, on a report Cockatoo Island Sydney — A Thematic Presentation by James Semple Kerr and John Jeremy which was prepared for the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust in 2003.

View of labour yard showing stone quarry and stone dressed

Early History – The Penal Era

The northern shipyard under construction in late 1912

The Dockyard Era

Black and white photo of workers in the dockyard, 1914

The Commonwealth Naval Dockyard

Shipbuilding

HMAS Melbourne under repair

Ship Repair

Australia’s first submarines, AE1 and AE2, together in the Fitzroy Dock in June 1914

Submarines

A heavy machine tool manufactured on Cockatoo Island during the 1930s

General Engineering

The passenger aircraft Codock being prepared for its first flight

Other Activities

The shipwright launching crew for HMAS Vampire, 1956

Dockyard People

Cockatoo Island Today

HMAS Tobruk, General Arrangement, Profile (As Fitted) 1950

Dockyard Records

Dockyard Timeline

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Additional reading for Cockatoo Island

  • I Name this Ship….
  • HMS Australia and the William Droudge Mystery
  • Occasional Paper 28: Cockatoo Island – An Historical Account
  • Cockatoo Island - An Historical Account
  • Cockatoo Dockyard and the American Fleet Cruisers
  • First of the Line - HMAS Albatross, first aircraft carrier
  • Spectacle Island Command 1894 - 1900

World & National Heritage Sites

  • Cockatoo Island
  • HMAS Sydney II and the HSK Kormoran Shipwreck Sites
  • HMVS Cerberus

Commonwealth Heritage Sites

  • Chowder Bay Naval Facilities
  • Royal Australian Naval Transmitting Station ACT
  • Royal Australian Naval College ACT
  • Garden Island WA
  • Naval Offices QLD
  • HMAS Cerberus
  • Admiralty House, Garden and Fortifications
  • Beecroft Peninsula NSW
  • Spectacle Island Explosives Complex NSW
  • HMAS Penguin
  • HMAS Watson

The NHSA acknowledges support provided by the Australian Department of Environment and Energy which made these pages possible.
Greater detail on building history, the natural and Indigenous significance to these sites is available by accessing the National Heritage List.

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