Tas That Was ― Battery Point

Battery Point is named after the battery of guns (Mulgrave Battery) that was established on the point in 1818.

It is filled with historic sandstone and weatherboard buildings, all of which are nestled tightly into tiny streets and laneways.

Early history

Battery Point was once the home of the Mouheneene Band of the South East tribe.

The colony’s first chaplain, Reverend Robert Knopwood, was granted thirty acres of land on the area’s northern slope by Lieutenant-Governor David Collins in 1804. He built a cottage and started farming. All his land was subdivided from 1824, however. Merchants bought parallel blocks that stretched south from the waterfront and built large mansions and warehouses. They were later forced to give up their water frontages. Seamen and shipwrights also built cottages in the area. Reverend Knopwood’s remaining land was sold in 1829, and was acquired by Lieutenant-Governor Arthur in 1831. It was subsequently occupied by a public servant named Roderic O’Connor. Knopwood’s cottage, ‘Cottage Green’, was demolished in 1836 after another house – also named Cottage Green – had been built nearby.

In 1818, Governor Lachlan Macquarie of New South Wales granted Lieutenant-Governor William Sorell the southern half of Battery Point. This block of land passed to a merchant and settler named Robert Kermode in 1824. Kermode sold eight acres of it to then-Surveyor-General George Frankland. Between 1854 and 1874, Kermode subdivided the block, opening it up to residential development.

In 1830, a new wharf was built where Salamanca Place now is. The wharf soon became the centre of whaling in Van Diemen’s Land. Other maritime industries were also major employers at Battery Point.

Several metal foundries were also established in the area, as was a steam laundry, a bark mill, and possibly a glue factory. The Anglo-American Guano Company started producing fertiliser in Battery Point from 1861.

In 1831, Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur gave a block of land at Battery Point to his nephew, John Montagu, the Colonial Secretary of Van Diemen’s Land between 1834 and 1842. Montagu built a house called ‘Stowell’ on the block and lived in it between 1832 and 1839.

Battery Point’s first pub, the Whaler’s Return, was built in 1834. In 1839, Kelly’s Steps were constructed. St George’s Church was erected in 1837. The last of the stone warehouses along Salamanca Place was constructed during the 1840s. In 1843, the Prince of Wales Hotel was licensed, as was the Shipwright Arms.

The large Prince of Wales battery was built in 1845. Mulgrave Battery was subsequently dismantled.

In 1849, St George’s Parochial School was founded. It was renamed the Battery Point School in 1853. Even though three-hundred-and-sixty children were enrolled at the school in 1869, conditions there were said to be awful. A new Battery Point School was opened in 1885. It was replaced by the Albeura Street School in 1913.

Battery Point kept being subdivided until 1930, its population increasing each time.

Later history

The Queen Alexandra Maternity Hospital for Women opened in Battery Point in 1908, serving the whole of Hobart. It was substantially enlarged during the 1930s, and again in the 1950s. It closed in 1980.

In 1918, Stowell, John Montagu’s old home, was converted to a private hospital, which closed in 1945 due to financial difficulties. The house was subsequently purchased by the federal government for use by the CSIRO. Stowell was sold again during the 1990s and was turned into a series of private residences.

Some industries in Battery Point went downhill during the first decades of the twentieth century. This was due to changes in tariffs, the passage of the Commonwealth Navigation Act of 1912, and the Great Depression. Many of them ended up ceasing.

Battery Point was viewed as quite run down in the 1930s. Its population reached its lowest level for many years in 1954.

A Lady Gowrie Child Centre was set up in the area in 1940. Around seventy children attended it every day.

A radical scheme of urban renewal for Hobart known as the ‘Cook Plan’ was unveiled in 1948. It called for a lot of Battery Point’s old buildings to be replaced with more ‘modern’ buildings. The Hobart City Council ended up choosing not to implement it because of the cost that would have been involved.

In the mid-1900s, the Blue House (now Irish Murphy’s) gained a huge reputation among seamen as a brothel.

Despite protests from the Battery Point Progress Association (BPPA), environmentally insensitive changes to the suburb occurred, such as the construction of wheat silos in Salamanca Place in 1962.

In 1966, the Hobart City Council released an area transportation study, which would have radically changed Battery Point if implemented. The Battery Point Society, a more radical group than the BPPA, was formed to oppose it. In order to ease opposition, the Hobart City Council appointed Clarke Gazzard & Co to prepare a planning scheme, which was adopted in 1967 and implemented (with revisions) in 1972. Many old buildings were demolished, including the Prince of Wales Hotel, which was replaced by a modern brick building. A new planning scheme was introduced in 1979.

Several old buildings were gentrified and recycled during the 1970s and ‘80s. Several warehouses in Salamanca Place were converted to the Salamanca Arts Centre in the mid-1970s. Many other buildings were turned into restaurants, cafés, and art galleries.

Today

Today, Battery Point is one of Hobart’s most visited tourist attractions.

It had a population of 1,997 people at the 2016 Census.

Fun fact

Hollywood actor Errol Flynn (1909–1959) was born in Battery Point at the Queen Alexandra Hospital.

Photo gallery

Bibliography

• ‘About Salamanca Place’ (Salamanca History).
• ‘Battery Point’ (2016 Census QuickStats).
• ‘Battery Point’ (On The Convict Trail).
• ‘Battery Point’ (Tasmania).
• In Bobby’s Footsteps: Battery Point Walk.
• ‘Stowell’ (On The Convict Trail).

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Tas That Was is a column that includes:

• anecdotes of life in Tasmania in the past;
• historical photographs of locations in Tasmania; and/or
• documentaries about locations in Tasmania.

If you have an anecdote or photograph you’d like to share with us, please send it to submit@tasmaniantimes.com.