Sydney Cove West Archaeological Precinct is a heritage-listed precinct that contains The Rocks police station, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, car park, parks, shops and roads located at 112–156 George Street, in the inner city Sydney suburb of The Rocks in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. The precinct previously contained a commissariat store, Maritime Services Board offices, dockyard and Department of Labour & Industry offices. Buildings in the precinct were developed in various stages since 1797 to date, with heritage-listed buildings dating from 1797 to 1939. The precinct is also known as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Maritime Services Board, Colonial Government naval dockyard, Commissariat Stores, Colonial Hospital, Kings and Queens Wharf and First Fleet Park. The property is owned by Property NSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 August 2011.
History Sydney Cove is located in the country of the Cadigal people of the Eora nation. The absence of an archaeological record for the Cadigal (even allowing for large-scale city development) has led Karskens to believe that Sydney Cove was likely to be border country for the Eora nation and therefore possibly was not inhabited prior to European settlement.
From 1788 to 1799 In 1788 the establishment of the penal settlement at Sydney Cove occurred in the precinct. Early maps and views of the site indicate that alluvial mud flats extended from the mouth of the Tank Stream (at the head of the Sydney Cove) along the western shoreline of the cove approximately far as the present day Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), formerly the 1952 Maritime Services Board building. It is likely that the First Fleet disembarked on the western side of Sydney Cove, along a foreshore of small sandy beaches and rocky outcrops that extended north from the present day MCA building. For its first forty years the primary function of the colony of New South Wales was a penal settlement. Initially the settlement was provisioned entirely by the Commissariat. The topography of Sydney Cove determined the command structure of the settlement following the arrival of the First Fleet on 26 January 1788. The civil authorities settled to the east of the Tank Stream and the military authorities to the west. The pattern of settlement also determined the control of access to ships, stores and the waterfront.
In 1792, Governor Arthur Phillip defined the boundaries of settlement: east of the Tank Stream were the residences of the Governor and civil authorities; west of the Tank Stream were the military barracks, parade ground and hospital. The convicts came to occupy the sandstone ridges (The Rocks) above Sydney Cove's western foreshores. Earliest plans of Sydney show no permanent occupation of the western side of Sydney Cove, other than the colony's first hospital (built 1788 along George Street) and the Hospital Wharf (constructed on the west side of Sydney Cove, close to the hospital). This was the first public wharf in the colony. The 1802 Hospital Wharf was timber framed with rubble infill and probably replaced an earlier wharf that was built by 1791. Governor Phillip's instructions prohibited the construction by private individuals of vessels capable of making contact with established ports within the region, or of trading within the area subject to the East India Company's monopoly. Earliest shipbuilding in the Colony was therefore initially a government activity. Phillip ordered that boats being built by private individuals were to be limited to fourteen feet () in length, to prevent escape attempts by convicts.
The Government Wharf was the first wharf built at Sydney Cove, in 1788–90 on the eastern side, close to the present day Customs House. The Government Wharf survived until around the 1840s when Sydney Cove was infilled to create Circular Quay). In 1791 convicts of the Third Fleet were disembarked at the Hospital Wharf. Small boats only unloaded at the Hospital Wharf. Cargoes were unloaded from ships in stream into smaller vessels. By 1793 privately owned passage boats ran between Sydney Cove and Parramatta. Before 1797, shipbuilding was carried out only on the eastern side of Sydney Cove, around the Government Wharf.
In 1797 Governor Hunter established the Government Dockyard on western side of Sydney Cove, north of the Hospital Wharf. Construction of the dockyard workshops, storehouse, boat sheds, sawyers' sheds, saw pits, watch house and a room for the clerk, all enclosed by a paling fence commenced the same year. 1797 returns show a dockyard workforce of 16 convicts. These were shipwrights, caulkers, boat builders, labourers and watchmen who repaired and refitted colonial and Royal Navy vessels and built small boats for the colony's settlements. The dockyard workforce increased to 27 convicts in 1799 and peaked briefly at 35 in 1800 before falling back to 27. In 1803 the convict workforce increased again to 42, rising to 49 in 1804 when the dockyard was especially busy. Isaac Nichols (an emancipated convict, later assistant to the Naval Officer, publican, trader and postmaster) built his first house, close to the Hospital Wharf.
From 1800 to 1809 In 1800 Governor King ordered all liquor to be unloaded at Hospital Wharf and no goods to be landed before 6am or after 3pm. In 1800 the stone house for Master Builder completed in the north of the dockyard. Dockyard completed. By 1805, dockyard workforce of around 40. It included apprentices, but few trained shipwrights. From 1805, land granted and leased along the banks of the Tank Stream to its mouth on Sydney Cove. Grants near Hospital Wharf included Isaac Nichols (1791), Mary Reibey (1809), Thomas Jameson & Daniel McKay. Emancipists Isaac Nichols and Mary Reibey were among the first to build residences and commercial premises on the Tank Stream/western Sydney Cove land grants.
Land grants on the down slope allotments included the alluvial mudflats with a condition that the land be developed (making these the first sanctioned program of land reclamation in the colony). Due to reclamation and silting up of the Tank Stream, the extent of navigable water had receded by . In 1806 a report to Governor Bligh noted the dockyard was in need of repairs and additional buildings. Repairs and improvements were carried out by 1807. Isaac Nichols built a second, larger residence, facing George Street, between George Street and Hospital Wharf, that was used as Australia's first post office. Nichols also built a large, T-shaped three-storey warehouse building close to his new residence.
From 1810 to 1820 The first Market place, where storeholders and traders sold goods, was located on the western side of Sydney Cove between High (George) Street North and the Hospital Wharf (in present-day First Fleet Park). It was marked on Surveyor Meehan's 1807 map as a triangular public space at the junction of George Street and Hospital Wharf. In 1811 Governor Macquarie relocated the Market place to further south along George Street at the site of the present day Queen Victoria Building, where it was served by a new wharf in Cockle Bay. Mary Reibey built a residence identical to Isaac Nichols' residence and adjacent to his house. This was occupied by Michael Hayes, Irish patriot transported in 1800 for taking part in 1798 rebellion. By 1812 Hayes was a successful small trader. In 1809 the design and construction of the Commissariat Stores by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Foveaux (the military administrator of the colony of NSW 1808–10, following the deposition of Governor Bligh).
In 1810 the completion of the first (4-storey, waterfront) Commissariat Stores building by Governor Macquarie, by convict labour, with associated sandstone quay, steps and seawall. The Commissariat Stores was one of the largest buildings constructed in the colony to date. Survey of the dockyard noted the need for more building repair, some buildings beyond repair, the completion of repairs to buildings and the addition of the new Blacksmiths Shop. In 1812, construction of a provision store, granary and office for the Commissariat Stores on [Lower] George Street to the west of the 1809 Commissariat Store building. Later the 1812 building became known as the Ordnance Stores. Both the 1809 and the 1812 Commissariat Stores buildings were constructed by convict labour.
The colony's farmers sold their produce to the Commissariat Stores. From 1812, produce of the Parramatta and Hawkesbury farms was transported by boat down the Parramatta and Hawkesbury Rivers, unloaded at the wharf and stored in the Commissariat. Surpluses were stored to regulate food supply and as a hedge against famine in drought years. The Commissariat Stories provided secure and vermin-proof storage of government provisions such as food (grain and vegetables grown in the colony), clothing, shoes, blankets, imported tools and equipment. These were distributed to the military and convicts "on stores" from 1788 to the end of the convict era in the 1840s. The Commissary Stores Receipts and Bills of Exchange were used as the colony's only currency until Governor Macquarie introduced regular circulating coinage in 1816.
In 1812–1813, Governor Macquarie ordered the removal and replacement of the old Hospital Wharf with a new upgraded wharf renamed the Kings Wharf. Stone steps were built to access the wharf from George Street. In 1837, on the accession of Queen Victoria, the wharf was renamed the Queens Wharf. In 1816 completion of the stone Coxswains Barracks (later known as Cadman's Cottage) to the north of the dockyard. This probably involved the demolition of an earlier building used by the boat crews and coxswains. While Cadman's Cottage was part of the Macquarie-era dockyard establishment, it is outside the curtilage of the Sydney Cove West Archaeological Precinct.
Following the end of over two decades of war with France, Britain greatly increased the number of convicts transported to the colony of NSW. The colony's convict population more than doubled during the second half of Governor Macquarie's administration. Governor Macquarie considerably enlarged and improved the dockyard. Macquarie's improvements included the construction of: four repairing docks (three of which were probably capable of dry-dock usage); new wharfs and quays; a sail room; workshops; boathouses; offices for the Master Builder and Master Attendant; a high stone wall around dockyard.
From 1821 to 1855 In 1821 Commissioner Bigge supported Macquarie's improvements to the dockyard and recommended they be completed as soon as possible. Francis Greenway noted that the Macquarie-era building works at the dockyards were carried out partly by convict and partly by contract labour. In the 1822 Macquarie's report to the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Earl Bathurst (on his return to England) details his works at the dockyard:Historical Records of Australia, 1, 10, 685
This last item was the Coxswains Barracks - later known as Cadman's Cottage - part of the Macquarie-era dockyard establishment. The Government Coxswain supervised shipping from Sydney Cove; rostered boat crews who procured and shipped stores, timber, grass and shells for lime, and provided crews for the Governor's and naval officer's boats). The barracks probably served as office and quarters for some of the boat crews before it later came to be used as family accommodation for the coxswains.