The Cockatoo Docks & Engineering Company was a ship building and maintenance company which operated the

Cockatoo Island Dockyard The Cockatoo Island Dockyard was a major dockyard in Sydney, Australia, based on Cockatoo Island. The dockyard was established in 1857 to maintain Royal Navy warships. It later built and repaired military and battle ships, and played a key role ...

on Cockatoo Island in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, Australia between 1933 and 1992.

History

The Cockatoo Docks & Engineering Company commenced trading on 1 March 1933 taking a 21-year lease over the dockyard on Cockatoo Island from the

Federal Government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

. Having held a minority shareholding since 1937, in 1947

Vickers-Armstrongs Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

became the majority shareholder. In February 1954, the lease was renewed for a further 20 years and 8 months, and again from 1 January 1972 for 21 years. In February 1984,

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...

merged its Australian interests were with the

Commonwealth Steel Company Commonwealth Steel Company was an American steel company based in Granite City, Illinois, and founded in 1901 "by some of the young men who had helped establish the American Steel Foundry".''Granite City – A Pictorial History'' (G. Bradley Publish ...

to form Comsteel Vickers, Vickers and

BHP BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...

each owning 38%, with the remaining 24% held by smaller investors. On 4 June 1986, the company was purchased by

Australian National Industries Australian National Industries was an Australian heavy engineering company with diverse range of holdings. History In 1911 John McGrath began to sell motor vehicles. It operated the first public garage in New South Wales. The company held motor ...

(ANI). As part of a review of Australia's ship building capabilities, the Federal Government decided in 1987 the lease would not be renewed. Although consideration was given to terminating the lease early, in the end it ran its course until 31 December 1992, although the only work performed in the last 18 months was decommissioning the dockyard. A lengthy legal action over various costs and liabilities between the government and ANI was settled in May 1997.

Ships built

Frank Norton - Norton-96311 - Fitting Out H

* 1933 * Customs patrol vessel ''Vigilant'', later 1938, first

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

ship built in Australia * sloops 1935, 1936, 1939, 1940 * destroyers 1940, 1942, 1944 *

Net-class boom defence vessel The Net class were a class of boom defence vessels of the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy during World War II. Ships Of the eleven ships of the class ten were built in shipyards in northern England and Scotland, while the eleventh was built i ...

1938 *

Bar-class boom defence vessel The Bar class were a class of boom defence vessels of the Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy and South African Navy during World War II. Ships Royal Navy * HMS ''Barbain'' (Z01) * HMS ''Barbarian'' (Z18) * HMS ''Barbastel'' (Z276) * HMS ''Bar ...

s 1939, 1940, 1941 * s 1940, 1940, 1941, 1941, 1941, 1942 * A-class cargo steamships ''River Clarence'' 1943 and ''River Hunter'' 1945 * * destroyers 1952, 1956 * destroyer escorts 1959, 1961, 1968 * 1964 * Destroyer tender 1966 * 1984

Other work

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the dockyard was the main ship repair facility in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, with more than 250 ships repaired. The

Cunard Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermu ...

liners and were converted into troop ships at Cockatoo Island. In the eight months between August 1942 and March 1943, Cockatoo repaired four

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

cruisers: , , and . Many ships of the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the principal naval force of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (CN) Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM, RAN. CN is also jointly responsible to the Minister of ...

(RAN) were repaired. From the early 1960s, the dockyard refitted RAN vessels including s (5), s (14) and s (43).

History

Ships built

Other work

References

Further reading