Goat Island (Dharug: Me-Mel) is a heritage-listed island located in Port Jackson, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located northwest of the Sydney central business district, Goat Island is about 300m wide in a north–south direction and 180m long in an east–west direction; and covers an area of 5.4 hectares (13 acres). Goat Island lies off the shores of the Sydney suburbs of Balmain and Millers Point, at the junction of Darling Harbour with the main channel of Sydney Harbour. The island is a former gunpowder storage, arsenal, bacteriology station, shipyard, powder magazine, maintenance facility and accommodation and now interpretation centre and education facility. Over the years Goat Island has served as a quarry, convict stockade, explosives store, police station, fire station, boatyard and film set. Today the island forms part of the Sydney Harbour National Park. The built facilities on the island were designed by Edmund Blacket and Alexander Dawson and built from 1826 to 1994. Goat Island is also known as Memel or Me-Mel, meaning the eye. The property is owned by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History
Indigenous history In the Dharug language, Goat Island is also known as Memel or Me-Mel, meaning the eye, by the indigenous Eora people of Port Jackson. Captain David Collins indicated that Bennelong had told him that the island 'was his own property, that it was his father's and that he should give it to By-gone, his particular friend and companion' Bennelong appeared to be 'much attached' to Memel and was often seen there with his wife Barangaroo. How this property transferred from one person to another in the traditional culture was not recorded and why Bennelong should give it to By-gone, was not recorded. Goat Island is the centre of a constellation of green harbour headlands and islands and, as an easy 500 metre paddle from the mainland, was used often by Indigenous people. The island was the birthplace of Bennelong, the Eora elder who served as intermediary between English settlers and Aboriginal populations.
Colonial history Confusingly, some early maps of Sydney Harbour show the current Goat Island with the name Cockatoo Island, whilst the current Cockatoo Island is named Banks Island. However, by the late 1820s the naming of the two islands had stabilised at the current situation. Whilst the use of Goat Island as both a naval arsenal and a convict stockade were discussed during the late 1820s, the first use of the island was in 1831, as a sandstone quarry. This use set the tone for much of the later life of the island, with the first of many bureaucratic disputes between the colony's local civil government and the local military establishment who reported directly to the War Office in London. In this case the Surveyor General, Major Thomas Mitchell, objected to the quarrying on the grounds that what was being quarried away was a valuable point for the purpose of defence, and quarrying soon ceased. By the early 1830s increasing amounts of gunpowder for public works were in storage in Sydney prompting Governor Bourke to implement Darling's proposal for the construction of an arsenal or magazine on Goat Island. Its convenient location, isolation from the centre of population, ability to be made secure and accessibility for large ships made it an obvious choice. The work was initially supervised by the Commissary, a committee or Board of Works and William Buchanan as Clerk of Works. In 1833 gangs of convicts started work quarrying stone and levelling ground on a site at the south-western side of the island. The powder magazine was completed by January 1839, and is a substantial, stone-built, bomb-proof construction. It was during this original period of construction that the convict Charles Anderson was said to have been kept chained to a rock for two years. A stone cut couch, with fixing points for a platform and the wooden lid said to have provided him with shelter, can still be seen.
Construction began in January 1833 by ironed gangs from the hulk "Phoenix", who began quarrying to level the ground. In 1834, three portable wooden houses surrounded by a stockade were erected on the island to avoid the loss of time involved in the daily ferrying of the convicts from the hulk. The work went slowly and in May 1835 the foundations were finally commenced. Newly arrived Commanding Royal Engineer George Barney took control of the construction in January 1836 and immediately instructed Thomas Bird to prepare plans of the buildings already underway. In his report to the Inspector General of Fortifications the following month he commented that the plan was defective but that work was so far advanced that work on the buildings would be completed by the end of 1836. In August 1836 the Legislative Council passed an Act for better regulating the keeping and carriage of gunpowder. Among other things it made the Officers of Ordnance responsible for the custody of gunpowder. Work was completed in January 1839. During construction, the magazine, cooperage, barrack and convict accommodation, wharf, stone walls, well or tank, garden, water channels, wet ditch and blacksmith's shop had been erected. Most of these structures are still extant. In October 1835 the Committee on Police and Gaols recommended that the water police be relocated from Longnose Point to Goat Island. This was finally agreed to in January 1837 when Barney proposed the use of convict labour to construct a wet ditch across a small segment of Goat Island. Colonial Architect Mortimer William Lewis prepared a design for the proposed Water Police station which went to tender in June 1838. The station was constructed at the north-eastern tip of the island and at the opposite end from the magazine. For defensive reasons, and to provide a clear boundary between the domain of the police, part of the colonial civil government, and that of the military magazine, a water level ditch was cut to separate the north-eastern tip of the island from the bulk of the island. This 'cut' can still be seen today.
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