Mort's Dock & Engineering Co

Mort's Dock is a former dry dock, slipway, and shipyard in Balmain, New South Wales, Australia. It was the first dry dock in Australia, opening for business in 1855 and closing more than a century later in 1959.

Mort's Dock was the brainchild of industrialist Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and former steamship captain T.S. Rountree (or Rowntree). Steam ships had first appeared in Sydney Harbour in 1853 but no repair or maintenance facilities existed to cater for the new vessels. In 1854, Mort and Rountree purchased an area of land at Waterview Bay on the northern side of the Balmain peninsula and excavated a dry dock measuring 123 by 15 metres (404 by 49 ft).

The dock opened in March 1855, a year before the Royal Navy's Fitzroy Dock at Cockatoo Island. The first vessel serviced at the new Mort's Dock was the SS Hunter, a coastal mail steamer running between Sydney and Newcastle.

Despite being the only commercial repair facility for steamers, the dock was not as profitable as expected and by 1861 Mort and Rountree had leased the majority of the surrounding land for cargo storage, minor engineering and an iron and brass foundry. In 1867, Mort's Dock became principally an engineering facility; including the construction of steam locomotives, ship machinery, mining equipment and steel pipe for the Sydney Water Board. The Mort's Dock and Engineering Company was formed in 1872, but Thomas Mort himself withdrew from active participation immediately afterward, and management devolved to dock manager James Franki. James Peter Franki continued to manage the dock for 50 years finally retiring in 1922. Ship construction and repairs continued at the dry dock and immediate surrounds, and in 1901 the company opened a second dry dock and slipway at Woolwich to cater for demand for commercial vessels and ferries.

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