A court case ensued after the government tried to acquire land straddling Wakehurst Parkway

History feature: How a northern beaches landowner took the State Government to court to fight for fairer compensation after a controversial land grab for military use.

Bantry Bay in 1972

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It’s not uncommon for a government to resume land for what it considers vital infrastructure, for the owners to argue that the compensation is inadequate and for the parties to end up in court.

That’s what happened in March 1908, when the owners of land straddling what is now Wakehurst Parkway argued they were being offered insufficient compensation after half their land was resumed by the State Government for the Bantry Bay explosives magazine.

Bantry Bay in the early 1900s

Since 1839, explosives for civil and for military use had been stored on Goat Island but a new magazine for the manufacture and storage of explosives for military use was built on Spectacle Island in 1865.

By 1882 the colonial government had acquired two powder hulks that were moored in Middle Harbour near Seaforth for the storage of explosives for civil use, sometimes called merchant’s powder, while in 1897 construction began on a magazine for explosives for military use at Newington.

The lighter Jessie being loaded with explosives at Bantry Bay. Courtesy Department of Mines

By 1906, more than 350 tons of explosives were being stored on the powder hulks in Middle Harbour and a committee comprising Professor Liversidge of Sydney University, Lieutenant A. H. Tremayne, inspector of warlike stores at Spectacle Island, and Vivian Williams, chief of the Explosives Department, made a thorough investigation and reported that a safe shore magazine should be established in Bantry Bay.

The receiving shed at Bantry Bay in 1982

The government agreed and more than 700 acres (283ha) was allocated for the magazine complex, of which six parcels of land comprising nearly 250 acres (101ha) were compulsorily acquired from their owners.

Most of the land owners accepted the compensation they were offered but the trustees of the owners of 130 acres (53ha) straddling what was then still called Frenchs Forest Rd weren’t satisfied.

Bantry Bay looking north

The land had been owned by Richard Hayes and Septimus Stephen but both men had died several years beforehand and their estates were now being managed by the men’s trustees, which included one of each man’s sons.

Bantry Bay looking south

The government only resumed the land belonging to Hayes and Stephen on the western side of Frenchs Forest Rd and went down to the waterfront but didn’t want the land on the eastern side.

The trustees argued that the compensation for the resumed land was inadequate and that there was no compensation being offered for what they said would be the devaluation of the land on the eastern side of Frenchs Forest Rd due to its proximity to an explosives complex.

Magazines at Bantry Bay

The government had offered the trustees £2813 for the land on the western side of Frenchs Forest Rd but the trustees wanted £12,920 to cover the value of the resumed land and the devaluation of the land that wasn’t being resumed.

Over nine days in the Banco Court in March 1908, before the chief justice and a jury of four, the arguments were laid out and the jury even visited the site on March 23 to see the site for themselves.

The magazines at Bantry Bay from the eastern shore

Eventually the jury awarded the trustees £4180.

It appears the trustees were satisfied with this compromise but the government wasn’t and successfully sought leave to appeal.

The appeal was heard before the Supreme Court in May 1908.

The government argued that there was no devaluation to the land not being resumed because it was separated from the land that was being resumed by Frenchs Forest Rd and it asked for the compensation to be paid to the trustees to be reduced.

Magazine No 9 at Bantry Bay

But by a majority, the court dismissed the appeal and ordered the government to pay the trustees’ legal costs.

Work on the magazine began in 1910 and was completed in 1915.

The complex closed in May 1974 and the land was incorporated into Davidson Park State Recreation Area, which in 1992 was incorporated into Garigal National Park.