History & Culture

The history of Jack’s Magazine is only a small blip when you consider the deep Aboriginal history of the area. The area’s Traditional Owner’s, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, likely occupied the Maribyrnong region for thousands of years.

Throughout this time, local Aboriginal groups performed regular burning that enhanced the diversity of species by reducing vegetation density and encouraging new growth. In return, the land and waterway provided an important source of flora and fauna in which they could depend for seasonal food and shelter.

With settlement came dramatic impacts on the landscape. An example of this can be seen on the ridge at the top of the hill. As you look at the hill in Jack’s Magazine you can see one of the few places in the region that is relatively the same as it was in 1878. This is quite rare along the Maribyrnong River and even in Victoria more broadly.

AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR

Gunpowder from across the world!

Gunpowder played an important role in the expansion of Victoria. It was used for mining gold, propelling bullets and the construction (and deconstruction) of buildings. All this gunpowder needed to be stored somewhere and that’s why the Customs Department built Jack’s Magazine.

Jack’s Magazine had a direct link to the far reaches of the globe, as gunpowder was imported from England, Germany and the US. The ships carrying the gunpowder would be berthed in Port Phillip Bay, where the gunpowder would be loaded onto a smaller ship, transported up the river, and unloaded at the end of the canal onto tramways that dispersed the barrels to the two magazine buildings inside.

WORKING AT JACK'S

Occupation health & safety

Coming to work each day at Jack’s Magazine would have been a unique experience. Firstly, you would have to change out of your regular clothes and into cotton overalls without any pockets or metal buttons. This was for your own safety, because even something as mundane as static electricity could have dire consequences when dealing with gunpowder.

To help keep the risk to a minimum, there would only be about four workers onsite at any one time. This would keep the loss of life to a minimum if there ever was an incident. Either through luck or good design, there was never a recorded explosion at Jack’s Magazine.

The storage of valuable and dangerous materials, the site’s isolation, sprawling size and the small number of employees onsite, made Jack’s Magazine an appealing target for criminals, drunks and prowlers. In the 1880s, the Military Commandant made a request for reinforcement at the complex, after an assailant attacked a guard in the middle of the night outside the site’s entrance.

THE WORLD AT WAR

Time has moved slowly within the walls. Most of what you can see has remained relatively unchanged since opening in 1878. However, as the munitions industry changed, so did the day-to-day operations within Jack’s Magazine.

As gunpowder was replaced by less volatile propellants like cordite (a smokeless and slow burning explosive), Jack’s Magazine became used as a storage facility for raw materials. With these changes came the addition of several brick buildings. 

Small Arms Ammunition Store

During the WWI and WWII periods, Jack’s Magazine became associated with the explosives manufacturing industry that earned the region the nickname “Australia’s arsenal”.

GRIT AND INGENUITY!

“Wanted, masons, labours crane men, bluestone cutters and carpenters” – The Argus, 1874 

Do you know what it takes to build a facility like Jack’s Magazine? A lot of hard work! Jack’s Magazine consists of a bluestone wall made up of approximately 25,000 bricks and blast mounds of around 140,000 cubic meters of soil and small rock. This is almost the same number of blocks used to build the Washington Monument in the USA. Jack’s Magazine is considered the largest magazine ever built in Victoria. All of these materials were quarried, moved, erected and finished without the aid of modern mechanical machinery.

The construction of Jack’s Magazine was completed in under three years by about two hundred men along with twenty horses. Many of the labourers would have lived onsite during construction with the builder providing food and accommodation for about half the work force. It would have been tough and dirty work; however, the result is a fabulous structure.  

DESIGNING JACK’S

Day to day operations. 

A special part of Jack’s Magazine is its design. All the original buildings were specifically designed for the purpose of storing gunpowder, or for a supporting function. Each of the two magazine buildings were designed to hold 200 tonnes of gunpowder, with the minimum amount of handling possible. Similarly, the blast Commandant warned that if the complex did go up, that the explosion would reach Melbourne’s GPO.

Within the wall are the two powder magazines (1875-76), examining room and cooperage (1875-76), guard room and clothes room (1875-76), fuse room (1909), small arms ammunition store (1916) three cordite store magazines (1921), tunnels, remnant tramways and bluestone channelling. Design of the complex was undertaken under the supervision of famous engineer and architect William Wardell who was the Inspector General of the Public Works Department at the time. Some of the buildings in Melbourne attributed to William Wardell include St Patricks Cathedral and Government House. 

LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!

“A grave public danger ...” - The Age, 1893

No one wants to live next to a Magazine! Can you imagine if the 400 tonnes of gunpowder stored here exploded? As a storage facility for explosive materials, the location of magazines are often the cause of debate and controversy. Early magazines in Melbourne were no different.

Melbourne’s first Magazine was established in the 1830s in the area then know by Europeans as Batman’s Hill (near today’s Southern Cross Station). By the 1850s, safety concerns forced the relocation of the magazine to Lyons Street in Footscray. After further public outcry, the current location of the Magazine was settled on. Its location on what was then called the Saltwater River, not only provided a route for gunpowder transportation from Port Phillip Bay but was seen as being sufficiently distant from where people lived yet close enough to Melbourne for access. However, as the area continued to expand, familiar concerns were once again raised with Footscray being described as a ‘menaced municipality’ for its proximity to the magazines.

Wally Jack served as Depot Foreman and Keeper from World War I until 1943, and the site became popularly known as Jack’s Magazine after him.