The Navy, the Dockyard and Devonport: A History
The association between Devonport and the Navy began on 21 February 1840, when Lieutenant Governor William Hobson, a Royal Navy Officer, arrived on board HMS HERALD, establishing Auckland as the New Zealand colony's then capital. By 1841 Hobson had established a permanent naval presence at Devonport, the Waitemata Harbour becoming a regular anchorage for RN warships.
Lieutenant Snow, a member of Hobson's Staff, was given charge of all things naval, and took up residence in a raupo whare on the foreshore at Torpedo Bay. Tragedy struck in 1847: Snow and his family were found murdered in the burnt remains of their home.
In spite of this early setback the naval presence at Devonport grew, consisting at first of the all important flagstaff, a boatshed, store and magazine.
By 1864 a blacksmith shop, boat slip and a two-storied barrack block had been added, ensuring that the naval base was there to stay. The barrack block caused some acrimony with the RN Admiralty, who decided to decline approval for construction. However, with the unavoidable time lapses with sea-mail, Commodore Wiseman had seen to it that the construction of the building had been completed by the time the decision in the negative arrived in New Zealand. Fait accompli.
In 1891 after negotiations between central and local government, the Navy exchanged the original site at Torpedo Bay for a swamp area adjacent to the Harbour Board's newly opened dry dock. By 1909, after construction of a wharf had commenced the Admiralty officially declared the area a Royal Navy naval base. This period saw the development of the newly christened Calliope Wharf and some basic maintenance facilities. Among these was a set of sheer legs, which were used for lifting heavy weights on and off ships in the era before cranes were introduced. The legs, due to their size, were a significant landmark until they were dismantled in 1934. With the arrival of HMS PHILOMEL as a depot and training ship in 1921, further facilities were added, including fuel storage tanks, a rifle range and sports facilities.
And as the Navy developed so to did the workshops attached to the dry dock -with the first refit of a cruiser undertaken in 1931. A new agreement was reached between the Auckland Harbour Board, the New Zealand Government and the Admiralty in 1936, whereby land, workshops, wharves, jetties and seabed belonging to the Auckland Harbour Board were transferred to the Crown, while ownership of the dry dock remained with the Auckland Harbour Board. Admiralty rights also remained intact.
The Auckland Harbour Board undertook to modernise certain dock equipment including the reconstruction of the wharves and the lengthening of the dock so it would take a Leander class cruiser. These improvements, in conjunction with the construction of new workshops and storehouses and the development of specialised equipment, carried out by the Navy meant that two cruisers, two RN sloops and a number of minor war vessels - small ships - could be refitted in preparation for the outbreak of war. Although the newly modernised dockyard was capable of conducting complete surveys, refits and maintenance, it was not suitable for repairing major battle damage inflicted on ships.
Post war, HMNZS PHILOMEL and the dockyard itself continued to expand, with the addition of such facilities as a gymnasium, which is now the chapel, and the base hospital built in 1941 - named the Royal New Zealand Navy Hospital (RNZNH).
In the new century "the Navy" has continued to modernise and has expanded well beyond those early days of HMS PHILOMEL when the base consisted of a handful of boat sheds on the shoreline looking across the water to the city of Auckland.
The museum has a collection of oral histories relating to:
Devonport Naval Base
Photos 1910 - today
Figurehead Past Collection