Sydney Opera House conservation plan

–3–Early defence works and visitors, 1788–1802Bennelong Point became the site of the first defensive work commencedin the colony. In April 1788 Phillip appointed marine officer and parttimeastronomer, William Dawes, to act as artillery and engineer officer(Collins, I, 20) and he was requested to construct a small redoubt on theeast point. David Collins notes that, in July, Dawes’ labour force wasmade up of recently active thieves of whose guilt there was ‘littledoubt, though no positive proof’ (ibid, 28). The work was finished bythe end of the year and on new year’s day 1789 two guns were placedin position (Harvey, 2.0). The redoubt would have been just sufficientlyback from the northern tip of the point to attain a modest elevationand some command of the surrounding water.Before the work was completed Phillip was obliged to send HMSSupply on an urgent quest for flour and, in order to increase its capacity,he removed eight of its guns. These were landed on the west (Dawes’)point and a small breast work thrown up round them (Collins, I, 33). Bothbatteries fell into decay and the Bennelong Point battery was abandonedby 1791 (Harvey, 2.0). In December 1798, the ship’s company ofthe Supply under Lieutenant Kent completed a half-moon battery ‘onthe east point (fig.2), where stood the house built by Governor Phillipfor Bennillong’ (Collins, II, 97-98, 100). It was armed with some of the gunsfrom the Supply.In October 1800, Governor Philip Gidley King’s newly-appointed engineerofficer, Edward Abbott, reported that the ‘Bennelong Point or EastBattery… consists of 4 [6-pounder] guns and 6 embrasures formed ofwattle, casks, and earth, in a total state of decay’ (HRNSW, IV, 198). Noattempt was made to repair or reconstruct the work and instead thepoint was to become a de facto hospitality area for visiting survey andexpedition vessels.Nicholas Baudin’s French expedition spent five months in Sydney fromJune to November 1802 and it was on the tip of Bennelong Point,south of the battery site, that King permitted Baudin to establish hisshore tents ‘to facilitate the work of the astronomers’. Matthew Flinders’tents erected from the Investigator were already nearby (Bonnemains, 57;HRNSW, IV, 948). One of Baudin’s artists, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, lefta fine collection of reasonably accurate pencil sketches of Sydney andBennelong Point (Bonnemains, 101–106). The Baudin visit was marked bythe nice balance of courtesy, hospitality and suspicion which subsistedbetween the English officials and the French visitors.If, as Collins suggests, Bennelong chose the site of his house, why wasit in such an exposed location on the tip of the point, overlooked byheadlands and ridges and visible from the waters of the harbour inthree directions? In the absence of records of the local people’s attitudeto the point, it seems likely that Bennelong chose to give maximumvisibility to the very solid evidence of the esteem in which he was heldby the European visitors. The value of such a highly visible symbol ofwhite benevolent intentions would not have escaped Phillip. Perhapshe guided Bennelong in his choice. Whatever the reason, the topographicalcharacteristics which made it attractive to Bennelong also