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

Cockatoo IslandGeneral Engineering

· Sep 18, 2017 ·

The scope of general engineering work undertaken at Cockatoo Island was very wide, and it encompassed the entire history of the dockyard from 1857 to 1991.

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

In addition to work on the island, Cockatoo Dockyard work teams carried out repair tasks from Broken Hill to the Pacific Ocean in passenger ships on passage between ports.

The manufacture and repair of steam turbines was a major task of the dockyard throughout most of the twentieth century. In 1897, Charles Parsons astonished and frustrated the officers of the Royal Navy when he demonstrated his turbine machinery in Turbinia at the Spithead Review. The new technology was rapidly adopted at sea by both the Royal Navy and the merchant service. In 1904, the first ocean-going steam-turbine powered merchant steamer, Loongana, was completed in Scotland for the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand. Cockatoo rebuilt her turbines during a major repair in 1917.

Loongana alongside the Cruiser Wharf at Cockatoo Island in the 1930s
Loongana alongside the Cruiser Wharf at Cockatoo Island in the 1930s

Cockatoo Dockyard’s work with steam turbines began in 1910, with the assembly of the turbines for the destroyer Warrego. The turbines for her sister ships and Brisbane were also reassembled on the island, but the turbines for the cruiser Adelaide were built on the island. Cockatoo Dockyard subsequently built most of the steam turbines installed in Australian built warships, the last being those for HMA ships Torrens and Swan in the mid-1960s.

A wide range of turbine rotors under repair in the Turbine Shop on Cockatoo Island in the 1980s
A wide range of turbine rotors under repair in the Turbine Shop on Cockatoo Island in the 1980s

The repair of steam turbines for power stations and other industries became a major part of the dockyard’s commercial work, with sets as large as 660 MW being repaired on the island.

The dockyard also built many boilers for ships and other applications. The first Australian designed and built water-tube boiler was built on the island in 1910 for the torpedo boat Countess of Hopetoun. Many more were to follow. During World War II, Cockatoo delivered 171 ship’s boilers, all but twelve of the boilers for all warships built in Australia during the war. At one time they were being delivered at the rate of two per week. The last boilers built at Cockatoo Island were those for the Type 12 frigates Stuart and Derwent built at Cockatoo and Williamstown Dockyard in the early 1960s.

The boilers for the cargo ships Fordsdale and Ferndale underconstruction in the Boiler Shop in the early 1920s
The boilers for the cargo ships Fordsdale and Ferndale underconstruction in the Boiler Shop in the early 1920s

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Cockatoo Island

  • Early History — The Penal Era
  • The Dockyard Era
  • The Commonwealth Naval Dockyard
  • Shipbuilding
  • Ship Repair
  • Submarines
  • General Engineering
  • Other Activities
  • Dockyard People
  • Cockatoo Island Today
  • Dockyard Timeline
  • Dockyard Records

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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