HMVS Cerberus, Black Rock, VIC | Photographs: |     | | List: | Register of the National Estate | | Class: | Historic | | Legal Status: | Registered (25/03/1986) | | Place ID: | 5787 | | Place File No: | 2/17/047/0003 | | Statement of Significance: | The HMVS Cerberus was the first British breastwork monitor turret ship ever built. Constructed in 1870, for the Royal Victorian Colonial Navy, the Cerberus served Victoria, and later the Commonwealth of Australia until 1924, when it was sold for scrap and subsequently scuttled as a breakwater in Half Moon Bay, Black Rock, Victoria. It survives in Half Moon Bay, near Black Rock, in a dilapidated condition, consisting primarily of the hull, deck, partial superstructure and fore and aft turrets, still containing their twin 10-inch muzzle loading guns.
The HMVS Cerberus was one of only three vessels of its exact type ever built, and is the only surviving example of this type in the world to have survived. It is a crucial link between the period of timber line-of-battle ships and the more modern battleships that were to emerge in the latter part of the 19th Century. Cerberus is also the only substantially intact surviving warship of any of Australia`s pre-Federation colonial navies. It was also one of the first ships, and is now the oldest surviving warship, to have served in the Royal Australian Navy (Criterion B.2).
The construction of the Cerberus in 1870 reflects a period in Australia`s history when the colonies were thought vulnerable to coastal invasion. This perception of vulnerability, exacerbated by the unhindered appearances of foreign warships, was especially felt in Melbourne, from which a significant amount of Victoria`s goldfields wealth was exported. The Cerberus was constructed under a deal between the Victorian government and the British Admiralty, and was purpose-built for the defence of a harbour such as Port Phillip Bay. The Cerberus was the most powerful ship in the Victorian Navy and, although never required to engage in combat, afforded Victorians a greater sense of security and self-reliance (Criterion A.4; Historic Themes: 7.7 Defending Australia [providing for the common defence, preparing to face invasion]; 4.6 Remembering significant phases in the development of settlements, towns and cities).
With the federation of the Australian colonies on 1 January 1901, the Cerberus, as with all colonial defence resources, was placed at the disposal of the Commonwealth government. It became part of the Royal Australian Navy at its inauguration in 1911. The ownership history of the Cerberus therefore illustrates the development of Australia`s defensive needs, including the desire of the colonial governments to produce a coordinated defence of the continent, which was one of the major considerations in the move towards Federation (Criterion A.4; Historic Theme: 7.4 Federating Australia).
The HMVS Cerberus, as the only survivor of its type in the world, illustrates a particular type or phase in the development of naval technology. Its design, by prominent naval architect E. J. Reed of the British Admiralty, is widely regarded by maritime historians as a complete break with established tradition, which had been manifest in sail-powered timber vessels, towards iron clad steam turret ships, the forerunners of the modern battleship. It incorporated developments in metallurgy, steam power, gun turrets and use of low freeboard. The design for the Cerberus was the first in the world to incorporate the combination of a central superstructure with fore and aft gun turrets, mounted on the deck. It was also the first British warship to dispense completely with sail power and to incorporate the shallow draft, a feature which gave it the ability to reduce the amount of target space for enemy fire (Criterion F.1).
In recent decades, particularly since the late 1960s, the Cerberus has become an important symbol, for maritime and military historians, heritage conservationists and the Victorian public, of the maritime, military, social and cultural history of Victoria, and the nation as a whole. This is demonstrated in the fact that public appeals for the conservation of the ship have received widespread public support, as well as expressions of encouragement from all tiers of government. However, the prohibitive costs of conserving the ship, which have grown rapidly over the past fifteen years, have prevented adequate funds being raised to carry out these works (Criterion G1). | | Official Values: Not Available | | Description: | HISTORY
By the 1860s, the colony of Victoria had become Australia`s wealthiest, and the city of Melbourne had developed into one of the most important commercial ports in the Southern Hemisphere. Much of this wealth was derived from Victoria`s booming goldfields. Other industries, however, such as wool and manufacturing, also contributed to making Melbourne a highly lucrative outpost of the British Empire. Because of Melbourne`s prosperity, the security of Port Phillip`s shipping became a prominent concern.
Much of this anxiety was driven by paranoia about the possibility of a Russian invasion of Melbourne, both to hijack Victoria`s wealth and to spite Britain for defeats in the Crimean war. Prior to federation, each Australian colony was responsible for its own land defences, supplemented by regiments of Imperial troops and naval patrols, which were based in Sydney and visited other colonies infrequently. Victorians regarded the possibility of invasion from the sea as a real threat, due to the potential ease of foreign ships to sail into Port Phillip Bay unhindered and land an invasion force at any number of locations around and within Melbourne. One of the defensive strategies adopted by the colonial government to counter this was the installation of forts and batteries, armed with cannons, around the Bay, at locations such as Queenscliff, Williamstown, St Kilda and Sandridge. The efficiency of these forts, however, was greatly inhibited by inadequacy of supplies and personnel, as well as their static nature and slow response times.
Melbourne`s vulnerability under this system was emphasised by the friendly but unheralded arrivals in 1862 and 1863 of Russian warships. At this time, it was thought that Melbourne`s defence might best be achieved from the water. The HMCSS Victoria, which was Victoria`s first naval vessel was a steam sloop that served Victoria well, especially in the Taranaki Wars in New Zealand (1861-62). However, the Victoria lacked the heavy armaments that would prove a deterrent to potential invaders and was most useful as a militia transport vessel. Subsequently, the Victorian Government established a select committee to investigate the Colony`s defensive capabilities, which recommended that two ironclad gunboats be purchased from the British Admiralty at a cost of 60,000 pounds each.
While the Victorian Government procrastinated on this recommendation, another foreign arrival reinforced the urgency of the colony`s defensive needs. In 1865, towards the end of the American Civil War, Melbourne was visited by a Confederate commercial raider, the CSS Shenandoah, which had been harassing Union supply ships in Pacific waters. While the Victorian parliament had issued a formal decree of neutrality in the American conflict, Melbourne`s defences appeared powerless to prevent the Shenandoah docking in search of repairs and new crew members. While the Shenandoah posed no direct threat to Melbourne, the ease with which it breezed into Port Phillip unhindered once again confirmed Melbourne`s vulnerability.
Finally, in response to this perceived helplessness, the British Parliament passed the Colonial Naval Defence Act (1865), which gave the colonies the power to make laws to provide for their own naval defence. The colonies were to be permitted to maintain their own warships, on the condition that they were placed at Her Majesty`s disposal in times of crisis and war. In 1866, the Victorian treasurer, George Verdon, visited London in a bid to secure two ships for the Royal Victorian Colonial Navy. The first of these ships was the HMS Nelson, a line-of-battle ship laid down in 1814 and a veteran of numerous conflicts. By the late 1860s, ships of the Nelson`s ilk were becoming surplus to the Royal Navy`s needs, and it was passed to the Victorian government on permanent loan.
The other vessel procured during Verdon`s London trip was to be the Cerberus. The Admiralty offered to Victoria the construction of an `armour plated monitor or turret ship...capable of carrying 22-ton guns`. The new concept of turret ships, like a floating fortress, was believed to be ideal for harbour defence. The Admiralty offered the sale of this ship for 125,000 pounds, of which 100,000 would be met by the British government, and the remainder by Victoria. By the time the Cerberus had been laid down, put together, crewed, provisioned and sailed to Melbourne, it had cost Victoria over 40,000 pounds.
For their money, the Victorian government received what was, at the time, the culmination of a range of new technologies in warship design. The Cerberus was the first British naval ship in which sail power was dispensed with and which utilised steam only, it was the first ship to have a central superstructure, with gun turrets above deck both fore and aft. It was also the first British warship to use low freeboard and the first to have iron breastwork protection. All these things combined, Cerberus has been posthumously designated one of the key prototypes in the chain of development for the modern battleship, something of a link between timber sailing ships and iron plated steamers.
During the Crimean conflict, the British had experimented with the use of iron plate protection on its line-of-battle ships. This had proved relatively successful for defensive purposes. However, the use of iron plating was still largely restricted to the modification of existing timber warships, rather than the construction of completely new vessels.
Also in the Crimean war, an enterprising officer of the Royal Navy, Captain Cowper-Coles, experimented with a gun turret system on a floating raft. Until the 1860s, naval warfare had generally been conducted at close range, with lines of cannons housed below deck, often on several tiers, firing from openings in the side of the vessel. This had proved cumbersome in seaborne conflict and also presented restrictions in the bombardment of land-based fortifications. Cowper-Coles` experiments with gun turrets soon developed into the concept of the turret ship.
Nonetheless, the restrictions of naval architecture at the time prevented the turret concept from immediately taking hold. Principally, the concept of a rotating turret above deck was problematic, given the potential for inflicting significant damage on one`s own masts and sailing rig. While many naval vessels had been converted to steam power throughout the 1860s, sail power had not yet been superseded, with respect to the fuel economy of wind over coal power, especially in the context of long ocean voyages. Nonetheless, the concept of the turret ship remained prominent with the relative success of the awkward but innovative American ironclad, the USS Monitor, used by Union forces in the American Civil War. The Monitor, as well as its Confederate nemesis, the CSS Virginia, also utilised a ground-breaking concept of the shallow draft, whereby a large proportion of the vessel`s structure was submerged, thereby reducing the amount of surface area for enemy guns to aim at. The success of the Monitor appears to have guided warship design, with `Monitor` class ships appearing among the more influential of the world`s navies, in terms of the use of shallow drafting, gun turrets and iron cladding. However, the need to maintain sailing rigs, especially for ocean faring, remained a significant problem. For defending harbours, like Port Phillip, however, many regarded the Monitor concept as ideal.
The design for the Cerberus, therefore, incorporated many of the concepts of the Monitor class, as well as a number of new elements, such as the central superstructure and the two-turret system. The British Admiralty, highly impressed with the concept, had one of its most highly regarded architects, E. J. Reed, produce a final design for the `breastwork monitor or turret ship` that had been offered to the Victorian navy. A contract was put to tender and awarded to Messrs Palmer and their shipyard on the Tyne. The Cerberus was laid down in September 1867, and completed in September 1870. Within a few months of the Cerberus being laid down, the Admiralty commenced construction of two other identical breastwork monitors for the Indian government, the Magdala and the Abyssinia, for defence of the harbours at Bombay and Madras. The Magdala and Abyssinia were completed one and two months after Cerberus respectively, making the Cerberus the first of its class to be built. Today it is the only survivor.
The Cerberus was a flat-bottomed craft with a shallow-draft, approximately 225 feet long. It was built with specially designed tanks that allowed it to be lowered into the water by taking on up to 500 tons of water, so that the deck was covered in water, leaving only the armoured breastwork, superstructure and the turrets above the surface as a target. This design reflected the concept that, in a conflict situation, the ship could cruise into position, submerge and fire at will, whilst rendering it difficult to be hit itself. Within the breastwork, vital functions, such as the storage of ammunition, turning mechanisms for the turrets and alleyways to allow for movement of the crew, were well protected.
Cerberus was powered by 2-cylinder horizontal double-acting engines and twin screws, each 12 feet in diameter with four blades. Steam was generated by four square coal-fired boilers, giving the ship a speed capability of up to nine and a half knots.
The ship`s armaments, by 1860s standards, were highly powerful. The two armoured turrets, fore and aft, each contained two 10-inch calibre muzzle loading rifled guns. Each gun weighed 18 tons. The turrets gave the guns an approximately 270 degree turning circle, with the 400-pound projectiles fired by the guns theoretically capable of a range of some four nautical miles. One potential drawback in this system, however, was the slow reloading time for the ship`s muzzle loading weapons. By the turn of the Century and the advent of breach loading weapons, the Cerberus` arsenal was rapidly reaching obsolescence. In order to keep apace with technological developments, the Cerberus was periodically fitted with new armaments, such as Gatling and Nordenfeldt machine guns, especially in response to the advent of the torpedo boat.
At its full complement, the Cerberus was to have a crew of between 150 and 160 men, a majority of these to operate the turrets and supply the boilers.
On its completion in 1870, the Cerberus was fitted with a temporary sailing rig to facilitate its long voyage to Australia. The vessel`s departure was delayed by disputes between the Victorian government and the British Admiralty about what flag it was to fly, as well as the sudden death of Captain Norman, who was to bring Cerberus home to Victoria. Norman was replaced by Captain Panter, who set about procuring supplies and a crew. It was particularly difficult to find a civilian crew willing to risk a voyage on the Cerberus, especially after a masted Royal Navy monitor, the HMS Captain, had sunk just weeks before departure, with most of its crew drowning. Eventually finding a crew, Cerberus departed in October 1870, only making it as far as Portsmouth before its crew began to desert. After losing and hiring more crew in Malta, the Cerberus eventually arrived in Australia, one of the first ships to do so via the newly opened Suez Canal.
The arrival of the Cerberus in Port Phillip on 9 April 1871 created great interest among Melbournians, with many coming out to witness the arrival. Many newspapers marvelled at the impressive appearance of the ship, although others were less convinced. The Australian Illustrated News of 22 April 1871 likened the Cerberus to `an elongated gasometer...sent to sea on an experimental cruise.`
Cerberus commenced its duties guarding Port Phillip almost immediately, as the flagship of the Victorian navy. Throughout its 53 years of service, the ship was never required to fire a shell in conflict. Nonetheless, its role as a deterrent for invaders or marauders, especially in the 1870s and 1880s was accomplished by its mere presence in Victorian waters. Most of its active service involved the conduct of military exercises with coastal forts and other naval vessels.
In 1901, when the Australian colonies federated, responsibility for defence was assumed by the Commonwealth government. While the Royal Australian Navy was not formally established until 1911, each of the previous colonies had placed their former fleets at the Commonwealth`s disposal. Thus the HMVS Cerberus became the HMAS Cerberus, although it remained stationed at Melbourne. By 1911, the condition of the vessel had declined and, regarded as obsolete and too expensive to update, it was decommissioned from active service.
When WWI broke out in 1914 the Cerberus` career was revived as a port guard ship for Port Phillip Bay, a floating base for patrol vessels and naval dock guards. Later in the war it was utilised as a storage facility for ammunition and explosives. Following World War I a fleet of excess `J` Class submarines was donated to the Commonwealth by the Royal Navy. A base for these vessels was established at Geelong from 1921 to 1924. The Cerberus was re-named HMAS Platypus II, and towed into Corio Bay to act as a depot ship for the subs. However, when the submarines were decommissioned in 1924, no further role could be found for the Platypus II, and the former flagship of the Victorian Navy was offered for sale as scrap.
The successful bid, of 409 pounds, was made by the Melbourne Salvage Co. in April 1924. The vessel was towed from Geelong to Williamstown and dismantling commenced, with the removal of valuable fittings and metals, along with the boilers, engines and parts of the superstructure. In 1926, it was decided that it was not cost-efficient to break the Cerberus up any further and the remaining hulk was offered for sale. This was purchased for 150 pounds by the Black Rock Sailing Club, with the help of the Sandringham City Council, as an artificial breakwater for Half Moon Bay at Black Rock.
On 2 September 1926, Cerberus was towed out to a sandbank in the Bay, and scuttled in 15 feet of water, where it has remained ever since. While its main role has been as a breakwater, it`s prominence in the Bay has also seen it grow in stature as a regional landmark, utilised as a marker for yacht races and as a diving platform in summer. The vessel`s condition has continuously deteriorated and become dangerous, resulting in the declaration of an exclusion zone around the area in 1996. However, people still visit the wreck illicitly.
Towards the end of the 1960s, awareness was revived about the significance of the Cerberus and calls to raise and conserve the vessel began to gather momentum. In 1969 the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) formed a survey and identification committee to investigate the Cerberus` conservation requirements and the possibility of re-floating it as a naval museum. These investigations found, however, that the structural integrity of the ship had deteriorated to a point whereby the frame could not support the weight of the two turrets in the event of a re-float. When the fragile condition of the vessel was made public, support for its conservation grew and, partly as a result of an entreaty from the Duke of Edinburgh, the Cerberus Preservation Trust, later the Maritime Preservation Trust of Australasia, was formed.
A public appeal for conservation funds by the Maritime Preservation Trust in 1972 failed to meet its required target of $500,000. Since that time, several proposals have been presented, by various bodies, for refloating or conserving the Cerberus in situ. Proposals and appeals to save the Cerberus continue into the year 2001, and they still receive very strong community support, although the financial goals set for these projects have proven difficult to achieve.
More recent conservation plans for the ship have recommended it be left in situ, in deference to both its cultural significance as a breakwater and its fragile condition. Many believe, however, that re-floating or raising the Cerberus above the high water line is the only way to ensure its survival. Such suggestions were given greater credence when, in particularly rough seas, the underside of the hull collapsed twice, in 1993 and 1994. A 1995 Conservation Plan by the Maritime Unit of Heritage Victoria suggested that, given the current mean thickness of the hull of 3.77mm and the general mean rate of deterioration of 0.122mm per year, the structure of the Cerberus would be unlikely to survive more than 5-10 years. Considering this prediction, the Cerberus is evidently on borrowed time in terms of its conservation potential.
DESCRIPTION
The Cerberus, in its present state, consists of the collapsed hull, parts of the central superstructure, including the conning tower, most of the timber decking, and the two gun turrets, complete with 10-inch guns. The hull rests on the sandbank, with its buckled inner support structures barely holding the significant weight of the turrets. The vessel is heavily rusted, and has been defaced with graffiti, much of which features anti-war slogans. For safety reasons, openings around the ship, like the turrets and funnel, have been covered with steel mesh.
While most of the Cerberus` fittings were removed and recycled in the 1924-1926 period, some of the more prominent features of the ship, from its days of active service, are still in existence. The anchor was removed from the wreck in 1964 and now sits at the entrance of the Sandringham Yacht Club. The original ship`s bell was removed in the late 19th Century and kept at the Williamstown dockyard until it closed down, upon which it was transferred to the HMAS Cerberus naval training base, where it still survives. | | History: Not Available | | Condition and Integrity: | The hull and superstructure of the vessel survive as a breakwater. The iron breastwork plates, engines, boilers, light superstructure, anchor and other items have been removed. Condition is fair to deteriorated, integrity intact except for the removal and sale of items. (1986)
Since the collapses of the hull in 1993 and 1994, the frame of the Cerberus has been deteriorating rapidly. Heritage Victoria`s 1995 Conservation Plan for the vessel indicated a steady rate of deterioration of the hull, suggesting that, for the short term, its current condition cannot be guaranteed as remaining stable, and that a serious adverse outcome may be expected within the next few years. The timber deck is also declining in condition, showing evidence of teredo worm activity. Before the 1993 and 1994 collapses the deck was above the waterline, but is now submerged at the bow and subject to tidal submersion at the stern. This is also likely to have an adverse effect upon the decking. (July 2000). | | Location: | | Halfmoon Bay breakwater, just off Black Rock. | | Bibliography: | Effenberger, S. 1995. HMVS Cerberus Archive Directory. Prepared for Heritage Victoria. NEGP Report.
Nicholls, Bob. 1994. "The Three-Headed Monster", in Effenberger 1995.
Strachan, S. 1995. "Cerberus Preliminary Conservation Plan". For Bayside City Council on behalf of Heritage Victoria Cerberus Project Team. NEGP Report.
Herd, RJ. 1986. HMVS Cerberus: Battleship to Breakwater. City of Sandringam.
Molesworth, S. 1996. HMVS Cerberus: a project fro Victoria. In Trust News Victoria Vol 25 No 1.
Bayside City Council. 1996. HMVS Cerberus: the Resurrection. An Australian National Heritage Project. Conservation submission.
Various newspaper clippings on AHC file.
Defending Victoria Web Site: http://users.netconnect.com.au/~ianmac/index.html
Evans-Wilson, p. 1971 Dees Not Words: The Victorian Navy. Melbourne, Hawthorne Press.
Padfield, P. 1963. The Battleship Era. London, Pan.
Parkes, Oscar. 1975. British Battleships. London, Seely Service |
Report Produced: Wed Jan 31 23:14:29 2007 |
