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The Hobart coastal defences are a network of now defunct coastal batteries, some of which are inter-linked with tunnels, that were designed and built by British colonial authorities in the nineteenth century to protect the city of Hobart, Tasmania, from attack by enemy warships. During the nineteenth century, the port of Hobart Town was a vital re-supply stop for international shipping and trade, and therefore a major freight hub for the British Empire. As such, it was considered vital that the colony be protected. In all, between 1804 and 1942 there were 12 permanent defensive positions constructed in the Hobart region.〔Potter (2006).〕 Prior to Australian Federation, the island of Tasmania was a colony of the British Empire, and as such was often at war with Britain's enemies and European rivals, such as France and later Russia. The British had already established the colony of Sydney at Port Jackson in New South Wales in 1788, but soon began to consider the island of Tasmania as the potential site of a useful second colony. It was an island, cut off from the mainland of Australia and isolated geographically, making it ideal for a penal colony, and was rich in timber, a resource useful to the Royal Navy.〔Robson (1983).〕 In 1803, the British authorities decided to colonise Tasmania, and to establish a permanent settlement on the island that was at the time known as Van Diemen's Land, primarily to prevent the French from doing so. During this period tensions between Great Britain and France remained high. The two nations had been fighting the French Revolutionary Wars with each other through much of the 1790s, and would soon be engaging each other again in the Napoleonic Wars.〔French Revolution (1824).〕 The first British settlement in Van Diemen's Land had begun on 8 September 1803, at Risdon Cove on the Derwent River's eastern shore. However, the arrival of Lieutenant-Governor David Collins on 16 February 1804, saw him make the decision to relocate the settlement to Sullivan's Cove on the western shore of the Derwent River. Within days of the settlement's establishment, Collins had decided the new colony would need protection should the French send warships up the river to threaten the fledgling colony.〔Robson (1983).〕 A crude earthwork redoubt was dug into an elevated position near the centre of Sullivan's Cove, in the area that is now Franklin Square, and two ships cannons were placed inside. For the next seven years, this muddy emplacement would serve as the only defensive position of what was growing to become Hobart Town.〔Heritage Tasmania (2006).〕 When Governor Lachlan Macquarie toured the Hobart Town settlement in 1811, he was alarmed at the poor state of the defences and the general disorganisation of the colony. Along with planning for a new grid pattern of streets to be laid out, and new administrative and other buildings to be built, he commissioned the building of Anglesea Barracks, which opened in 1814, and is now the oldest continually occupied barracks in Australia. Macquarie also suggested the construction of more permanent fortifications.〔Robson (1983).〕 Following his advice, a new location comprising an area of was selected at the eastern end of Battery Point on the southern side of Sullivan's Cove, and construction began on what was to become the first of a series of new defensive installations. ==Mulgrave Battery== By 1818, the new battery had been completed on a location in Battery Point near the present Castray Esplanade, and was named Mulgrave Battery in honour of Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave, who was at that time Master-General of the Ordnance. The battery had six guns which projected forward through earthwork embrasures. At first, these were ships guns, but in 1824 they were replaced with 32 pounders.〔Dollery (1967), pp. 149–150.〕 Now Hobart Town had two firing positions protecting either side of the entrance to Sullivans Cove. Upon its completion, the Mulgrave Battery soon attracted heavy criticism from those who had to serve there. Members of the Royal Artillery felt it was inadequate, and one critic is even said to have described the battery as "a poor pitiful mud fort."〔 Engineers reported that the gun carriages were a danger to men firing the guns, and so new timber was sent from Macquarie Harbour in 1829 to make them safer; however, records showed that only one gun had been upgraded by 1831. The same year, the galleries were improved with large 15 metre long sections of timber, heavy bolts, braces and bars.〔Engineering Heritage Committee, Tasmania Division (2004).〕 As the colony began to grow larger, more British units were sent to serve in the settlement of Hobart Town. Amongst one of these contingents was a commander of the Royal Engineers named Captain Roger Kelsall, who arrived in Hobart in 1835 to take over HM Ordnance Department.〔Spratt (1992), p. 97.〕 When he arrived, he assessed these two fortifications, and wrote in his report that he felt the colony was virtually undefended.〔 He devised an ambitious plan to fortify the whole inner harbour of the Derwent River with a network of heavily armed and fortified batteries located at Macquarie Point, Battery Point and Bellerive Bluff on the eastern shore. He envisaged the forts all having an interlocking firing arc, which would cover the entire approach to Sullivan's Cove, making it impossible for ships to enter the docks or attack the town unchallenged. The scale of the plan was enormous for such a small colony, the population being approximately 20,000 in the 1830s.〔Bourke, ''et al.'' (2006).〕 This meant that the cost was too prohibitive, considering that at that period the British Empire enjoyed relative peace with the exception of border conflicts in India. Nevertheless, despite funding problems, work using convict labour began in 1840. Mulgrave Battery was enhanced and expanded, and a new site was located slightly further up the hillside on Battery Point, behind the location of the Mulgrave Battery, where construction also commenced in 1840.〔Dollery (1967), pp. 150–151.〕 A semaphore station, built in 1829, and signal mast were constructed above Mulgrave Battery, allowing communication with ships entering the mouth of the river, and through a relay system of masts, all the way to Port Arthur penitentiary on the Tasman Peninsula.〔Barnard (2012), p. 39.〕 The modern Hobart suburb of Battery Point takes its name from the Mulgrave Battery. The original guardhouse, built in 1818 which had been located nearby is the oldest building in Battery Point, and one of the oldest buildings still standing in Tasmania.〔Chapman & Chapman 1996, p. 80.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hobart coastal defences」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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