Commissariat Stores in the Australian Colonies

 

Commissariat Store
Sydney (1870)

Providing food, transport and other necessities for the original military and penal establishment, its responsibilities also extended to provisioning naval vessels and support of the expedition to New Albion by Captain Vancouver, then later the two Maori Wars.

For the first three decades the high cost of produce on the market also made access to controlled prices from the Commissariat Store a prize for both civil and military families, and a bonus for employers of convict labour.

Government Printing Office Collection State Library of New South Wales

 

 

Commissariat Store
Darlington 1825-50

 

The stone building replaced the original 1821 wooden structure on Maria Island. The first period of use 1821-32 serviced convicts convicted in the Colony of substantial crimes which were not serious enough to get them to Macquarie Harbour; both were supplanted by Port Arthur.

The second period from 1842 was a probation station under the new reformation scheme in concert with Port Arthur and Norfolk Island. The station was closed in 1850.

Robert Neill
Maria Island Settlement, 1831
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania

 

 

 

Commissariat Stores
Victoria 1838-49

After failure of an initial pair of trading and sovereignty stations at Melville Island 1824-8 and Raffles Bay 1828-9, a strategic trading station was re-established in 1838 at Victoria on Port Essington to become a rival emporium to Singapore for the South East Asian market.

It failed in its initial objective to draw the annual trade of the itinerant Macassarese fishing fleet, withered and was closed in 1849.

Government Printing Office Collection, State Library of New South Wales

 

 

 

Commissariat Store and Queens Wharf
William Street Brisbane (ca 1870)

 

The original temporary stores at Red Cliff 1824 and Brisbane 1825 have disappeared. In 1827 this permanent store was built and is the only early colonial building to survive.

Subsequently used as a bond store, immigration depot and government stores, a third storey was added in l9l3.

It was restored in the 1980s and is now the premises and museum of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland.

Royal Historical Society of Queensland

 

 

 

Commissariat Stores
Cliff Street
Fremantle 1852-78

The first store and offices were built in l85l-52, supervised by Royal Engineer Lt Wray. A supplementary New Store was built in l856 and an extension to the main building added 1860-61. Subsequent wings and modifications were required by its use as a customs house and government stores.
The buildings were restored in 1977 and are now used as a maritime museum.

West Australian Museum

 

 

Commissariat Store
Kings Way
Norfolk Island 1835-56

The original stores built for the 1788 penal colony were demolished on its abandonment in 1814. The later building constructed in 1835, with underground grain silos behind, is the finest on the Island. It was used in support o{ the expanded convict establishment of the l840s until its final run down a decade later and handover of the Island to the Bounty descendants.

It is now used as a church.

Photo: J.H. Clunies-Ross