Morts Dock, Balmain

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and Captain Thomas Rowntree formed the Waterview Bay Dry Dock Company (later Mort's Dock & Engineering Company) in 1853 and built Australia's first dry dock and patent slip, fronting Waterview Bay, later named Mort Bay. The dock was operational by 1855 and the company soon became the largest private employer in the colony, a cornerstone of the union movement and the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party.

Management of the whole facility was taken over by J.P. Franki in 1867 and there was a move to more general engineering which included building of locomotives, ships and machinery, ironwork for bridges, building components for mining and resource development and the manufacture of welded steel pipe for the Sydney Water Board.

By 1917 Mort’s Dock had built 39 steamships, 7 Manly ferries, pumping engines for the Waverley and Crown Street reservoirs and the ironwork for the Sydney GPO. In the interwar period an iron foundry was constructed, a slipway and floating dock purchased, and it had a virtual monopoly on local industry.

Between 1940 and 1945 - during World War II, Mort's Dock constructed 14 of the 60 Bathurst class Corvettes built in Australia, 4 of the 12 River Class frigates, and a 1000-ton capacity floating dock.

With the introduction of container shipping the company fell into liquidation in 1959. The site was purchased by ANL in 1960, its buildings were demolished, and the dock filled in for new wharves in 1965, to create a container facility. The backfill preserved the dry dock and other in situ remains, providing a high archaeological potential and fabric integrity.

The first container ship berthed there in 1969, but the site was redundant ten years later, with the container port moving to Botany Bay.