Bradleys Head Battery, Sydney

Bradleys Head Battery is a coastal fortification on the inner north shore of Sydney harbour, initially constructed 1840-42 by convicts on the order of Governor Gipps.

Bradleys Head and its commanding position on the inner North shore of Port Jackson (Sydney)

Unlike most of the Sydney fortifications, it’s origins are unrelated to the Russian Invasion scare prompted by the Crimean war. It is the result a different scare that happened in 1839, when the colony’s residents awoke to find two American warships (sloop of war Peacock and sloop of war Vincennes) quietly sitting at anchor having entered the harbour undetected.

In his later autobiography, the American Commander then Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, US Navy, (later Rear Admiral) said:

"If [we had been] enemies, it would have been in our power before daylight to have fired all the Shipping and store houses, laid the town under contribution and departed unhurt."

As a result, immediate improvements were made to the defence of the colony, which at this point had been reliant on at this point were Fort Phillip, Dawes point and Bennelong batteries.

Bradleys Head’s original construction was a cannon embrasure and a firing wall, using sandstone blocks to reinforce the naturally rocky outcropping. 24 pounder ML guns were installed, with commanding fields of fire down the entrance to the harbour.

The departure of the last British regular soldiers in 1870 saw another expansion of Sydney’s fortifications which included new batteries on North and South Head.  Bradley’s Head battery was expanded with three additional embrasures added , equipped with 68 pounders, and a rifleman’s gallery, all connected by tunnels and served by underground magazines, plus a barracks.

SBML 68-pounder gun and emplacement constructed 1871

With the addition of longer ranged breach loading weapons arrayed along the harbour entrance, the utility of the inner harbour defences was significantly reduced. Bradley’s Head ceased operation in 1903, was non-operational by WW1, and dismantled after WW2. In 1961 all coastal batteries were declared obsolete and the site was handed to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife for conservation.

Postcript:

In 1934 the masthead of the Royal Australian Navy Light Cruiser HMAS SYDNEY was erected at the end of Bradleys Head, having been saved from the breaker’s, to serve as a memorial for that ship and the country’s first naval battle (and Victory) at sea, over the SMS EMDEN in 1915.

The memorial was later expanded in the 1960s with memorials for other RAN ships lost during WW2, including HMA Ships SYDNEY (II), PERTH and CANBERRA.

This is now the premier monument of the Royal Australian Navy, and all warships salute this memorial when entering or leaving Sydney.

**The point is named after named after Lieutenant William Bradley, RN, second-in-command of the First Fleet and First Lieutenant of the Fleet’s flagship, HMS Sirius, which entered Sydney Cove in 1788 to begin British settlement in Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradleys_Head_Fortification_Complex

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Bradleys_Head_Fortification_Complex