ARTILLERY REGISTER |
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| Historical Specifics: | The Scratchley/Jervois report of 1876 recommended the establishment of permanent fortification at Newcastle. By 1882 Fort Scratchley was complete and three 9 inch RML and four 80 pounder RML guns installed. Three 80 pounders (Nos 87, 89 and 97) were installed in the Casemate battery. They were replaced by 1.5 inch Nordenfelt guns in 1898. The fourth 80 pounder (No 85) was placed in the Western barbette. It was eventually removed in 1907.
In 1903 the Newcastle Council asked that the three 80 pounder guns at Fort Scratchley be provided to them as part of the distribution of obsolescent smooth bore guns. This request was refused with the Army stating the guns would be sent to South Head Sydney as they were relatively unused compared with the ‘worn’ guns at South Head. This move may not have occurred as at some time the 80 pounder guns were taken to the Newcastle State Dockyard, encased in plate steel and used as a counterweight. Over time the existence of these gun barrels was forgotten and when eventually rediscovered when the counterweight was dismantled they were refurbished by the Public Works Department in December 1991 and returned to the Fort. The muzzle of all four guns were defaced by drilling a larger bore and some were also grind down. The guns in the Casemate were mounted on Carriage, Garrison, Sliding, Medium Wood No 21 with Slide, RML, Traversing Wood, Casemate No 14. The gun enbarbette was mounted on Garrison Iron RML 80/68 Pdr 5’6” Parapet Mark I Barbette. All markings on the guns are very difficult to decipher. This gun was originally manufactured as a 68 pounder SBML gun by the Royal Gun Factory in 1860 and converted to 80 pounder RML in 1872. The Armstrong RML guns introduced in the late 1850s to replace the smooth bore muzzle loading guns were to prove very unpopular as the result of a number of accidents caused failure in the new breech. The muzzle loading gun was preferredhowever it was now accepted that the rifled gun firing a conical shell was the best way to defeat the new armoured ships now entering service. There was neither the production capacity nor the funds to replace all existing SBML guns immediately but in 1863 Captain Palliser introduced a method of lining smooth bore cast iron guns with coiled wrought iron rifled tubes. This provided an inexpensive means of converting medium calibre smooth bore muzzle loading guns to rifled muzzle loading guns. The 68 pounder smooth bore were converted to 80 pounder rifled muzzle loading. In 1872, with the departure of the Imperial troops NSW was presented with 25 converted 80 pounders. Although they are known as RML guns at the time of their conversion they were known as Muzzle Loading Rifled (MLR) to differentiate them from guns manufactured as RML. |
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