Let me start by saying the obvious – what follows are not personal memories but approximate constructs based on photographs, writings and anecdotal evidence. Even our own memories are contingent and subject to distortion and change in the re-collection. I leave it to readers to decide whether what follows is what Dockyard Creek was really like in the 19th century or is merely the result of a writer’s flight of fancy.

I think we should now sit back, assume the role of Dr Who, enter his famous telephone box and travel back in time to 19th century Dockyard Creek when the old Porta delle Galere/Galley Port or Galley Creek takes on the patently British appellation dockyard – the yard where ships dock. Dockyard takes years to be absorbed in the vernacular but it never replaces tarzna, from darsena, arsenal, where ships are built and repaired.

I cannot help thinking how nicely packaged the 19th century is for Dockyard Creek memories even if its history harks back to the first islanders/colonisers. In Birgu – A Maltese Maritime City, Dominic Fenech cites an interview with the late prime minister Dom Mintoff, during which he asked him about the decision to erect Freedom Monument, marking the end of the military base, in front of St Lawrence collegiate church. His reply: Birgu (Vittoriosa) was chosen because it was the city occupied by foreign forces to turn Malta into an abject island fortress until our times. It was also the city from where the last foreign contingent was made to depart.

The British arrive at the Grand Harbour in 1800 and find a small, albeit complete, galley port nestled in the conurbation of Vittoriosa, Cospicua and Senglea. Like so much about Malta, the facilities come as a gift, some say, a poisoned chalice, due to the size of the population. For four decades they do very little in Galley Creek beyond expropriating property, taking over wharves and ensuring protection from the sun by erecting colonnaded shelters and covering the palaces of the galley captains with awnings and trellises.

The first years start, literally, with a bang when, in 1806 the inner part of the creek is flattened by a huge explosion at the powder magazine in Vittoriosa. To complaints about the death and destruction (this is Malta’s largest accident of all time, its miniature Tianjin) the Maltese are told, (it will not be the last time they will hear it), that they have to grin and bear it; it is the downside of the prosperity brought about by military spending.

Decades later the area, known as L-Imġarraf (the devastated) remains a shambles. In 1813, at the height of a terrible visitation of the plague, there is the dis­appointment of a failed attempt to build a dry dock between Vittoriosa and Cospicua and the realisation that Malta stone is not so solid after all and is heavily fissured in places.

It is 1837 and Edward Cree, a visiting naval surgeon, is serving on the receiving ship HMS Ceylon, the predecessor of HMS Hibernia. Receiving ships are floating barracks, usually obsolete hulks that have seen better days. Ceylon had the dubious privilege of having changed hands in battle with the French on a number of occasions.

Cree crosses by dgħajsa to Valletta (no doubt calling the boat in the time honoured appellation ‘dyso’), for art lessons from Signor Schranz whose style ‘is rather smooth and tame but there is no better in Malta’. However, it is likely that he visits Schranz because of his niece Clementina. Cree has an appreciative and roving eye for the ladies, including the Maltese, “despite the sombre black costumes one sees occasionally a pretty face under the hood or faldetta, and a pretty foot or ankle under the skirt”. Mrs Kay, the surgeon’s wife, is “a lively little woman”, and Mrs Le Grand “has a pretty Grecian face”.

In 1813, at the height of a terrible visitation of the plague, there is the disappointment of a failed attempt to build a dry dock between Vittoriosa and Cospicua

In Dockyard Creek: “A military band can be heard in the distance and Maltese music in some of the boats.” Cree speaks highly of the dgħajsas and has iced lemonades and sweet meats in Valletta. After attending the sick at Bighi Naval Hospital he relaxes: “On the balconies in the quiet warm evenings listening to the songs and music in Maltese boats or the military bands from the opposite side; watches the lights in Valletta reflected in the dark still water, with the boats leaving lines of phosphorescent light in their trail”.

Musicians on Maltese boats in the Grand Harbour in 1837? Isn’t this a forgotten custom and way of life? Echoes of Venice and singing gondoliers!

Cree goes to: “Isola (Senglea) to witness the feast of Sta Vittoria. The streets are illuminated – a priestly procession with banners and images of saints & c.; crowds of fat old padres and friars, and lots of black-eyed and black-hooded Maltese girls generally attended by their duennas who are not always too watchful. The whole accompanied by a deafening clanging of church bells, fireworks; a great crowd but orderly, and the band of the Malta Fencibles finishes with God Save the Queen, and bonfires on the quay”.

The following day, in the evening, he and his friends: “Take the dinghy and row about the harbour. Bridge, [a colleague] takes his guitar and serenades the ladies living in the dockyard and round the creek, some of whom come out on their balconies, but darkness prevents our being recognised”.

The British may be enamoured of the harbour and Dockyard Creek. Not so the French, who visit only to reflect on the prize they have lost. The Illustrated London News of October 23, 1847, cites a despatch from the correspondent of the Morning Post: “The harbour presents an animated appearance, from the presence of a considerable naval force, the liberal expenditure of the officers and crews of which gives a briskness to trade. The tableau gives the French, whose steamers continually hover about the coast, a pretty correct idea of the naval presence of the Mistress of the Sea”.

In truth, visitors wax lyrical about the desirable parts of the harbour; they conveniently forget the mud and smells of Cospicua at the head of the creek and the inaccessible, life-threatening marshes of Marsa.

Steam is still in its infancy and ships continue to be made of wood until forests run out of available timber. Then, almost in the middle of the century, the Admiralty starts ringing in the changes; it builds a steam bakery and factory and a dry dock. Later, the old wooden sheer legs at Sheer Bastion, the Maċina (from the Italian macchina), is replaced with an iron structure. This was where the Order careened and masted its galleys and ships of the line.

However, the most important event in Dockyard Creek is the new dry dock. When HMS Antelope is docked there on September 9, 1848, it is the first time a Royal Navy warship is refitted in the Mediterranean. It has been a long journey. Work on the dock starts in 1841 and the first pile for the coffer dam is driven in 1843 under the superintendence of Sir John Louis.

The foundation stone is laid on June 28, 1844. This is the formal ceremony, because the first stone on the bedrock is laid earlier in May. On both occasions the host is Rear Admiral Sir Lucius Curtis, admiral superintendent of HM Dockyard Malta. Sir Lucius is a jolly old chap; his conduct, characterised by the lavish party that he throws for the formal ceremony: “Presents a striking contrast to his predecessor Rear Admiral Sir John Louis, whose haughty coldness rendered him perhaps the least regretted officer that ever left the shores of Malta.”

Among the guests are visiting French naval officers. It does no harm to show your eternal rivals what you are doing. In fact: “The New Dock at Malta is a subject of much discussion in French circles; and we believe is referred to by the Prince de Joinville in his pamphlet on the comparative merits of the French and English navies.” Actually the prince has made more than a passing reference to the dock. He likes the works (let the British spend the money on our behalf) because he believes they will eventually devolve to France when they retake Malta. Clearly France still believes this to be possible.

As for the British, once they have been forced to return to Spain their first love in the Mediterranean, Port Mahon in Minorca, there is no way they will give up Malta. And doesn’t France have the great naval base of Toulon anyway, just days sailing from Malta?

The ceremony is a fitting tribute to the architect, William Scamp, who has just been appointed chief assistant to the director of works at the Admiralty in England. The year marks the triumph of his four-year stint in Malta. His St Paul Anglican Cathedral in Valletta, which he rescued from certain destruction and restored British pride, is ready, as is his new naval bakery at Vittoriosa.

The new dock and ancillary buildings epitomise his imprint on local architecture, which he carries out without significant shocks to the vernacular. Such is his stature during these four years in Malta that his office, housed in the former palace of the captain general of the galleys on the Vittoriosa Marina Grande, continues to be called Scamp’s Palace for decades after his departure.

In choosing Scamp for the job the government has certainly made a wise decision because: “There are difficulties in the way of such a work as this, out of England, which only those who have to carry it on among natives, with whose language, habits and workmanship one may be in great measure unacquainted.”

The work is ready by May 1847 but the dock cannot be used because the caisson that keeps it dry when the water is pumped out cannot be fitted in place

Scamp has had similar experiences at the Valletta site: “Experience on other works has convinced me of the necessity of adapting the work to the capabilities of the people here, and to avoid as much as possible creating difficulties that the people of this island are incapable of carrying into effect.” In one of the preliminary drawings for the dock there is this note: “This end of Dockyard Creek is the receptical for an immense accumulation of silting soil from the city of Burmola sic [Cospicua]. This becomes offensive during the summer months.” In the Order’s time the inner part of the creek was a store for ships’ timber and it had to be dredged regularly to avoid silting up.

It is to Scamp’s credit that the problem was resolved. Consider the engineering effort: “The area between the coffer dam and the solid masonry that comprises the work, presents an excavation of nearly 15,000 tons of mud: the base of the coffer dam now rests for support on the sea wall as high as that is built but an immense mass of timbers still exists to support the upper part of the dam, which has to sustain a pressure of about 35,000 tons of sea water outside.”

On inauguration day the guests are led down to the depths, 42 feet below the water mark, or datum, to witness the laying of the foundation stone. The Rev Dr George Tomlinson, Lord Bishop of Gibraltar, in canonicals, recites the prayers:

“Except the Lord build the house their labour is but lost that build it; Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. The sea is his and He made it, and His hands prepared the dry land. Almighty and everlasting God, Lord of all power and might, in whose hands are the destinies of people and nations, we beseech Thee mercifully to look upon us with Thy favour, and to bless this our undertaking. From Thee alone cometh prosperity; with Thee alone it remaineth to give success; Prosper Thou the work of our hands upon us. O prosper Thou our handy work.

“Give skill to the architect and strength to the workmen, protect them from accidents and dangers; and grant that when this work shall be brought to perfection under Thy blessing, it may effectually serve to the advantage of our navy, the promotion of the public good, and to the honour of our Sovereign the Queen. And give us grace, we beseech Thee, that in every instance of national prosperity and success we may be enabled to discern and to acknowledge the working of thy mighty hand; that so, being in safety under Thy protection, we may continually give thanks unto Thy Holy name.”

That part of the prayer for the prevention of accidents is particularly relevant because Scamp lost three of his Maltese workmen on September 29, 1842, when a cornice collapsed in West Street, Valletta, during the building of the Protestant cathedral. The families of the dead men were awarded ex gratia payments of 15 pounds. There are no known references to accidents, fatal or otherwise that occurred during the building of the bakery and the dry dock.

In a dry dock, ships no longer require careening to be cleaned of marine growth, tilted first to port and then to starboard; they now rest, upright to have their hull graved, cleaned, in a graving dock. It is a coming of age and a necessity, as it is difficult and dangerous to careen a heavy iron or steel vessel. Dry docking is now safe and easy to do. At Malta’s first dry dock, Walter Elliot takes over after the departure of Scamp to England in 1845. The work is ready by May 1847 but the dock cannot be used because the caisson that keeps it dry when the water is pumped out cannot be fitted in place. The dimensions have been sent out to the manufacturers in England but when it arrives in a knocked down state for assembly (with rivets), it does not fit in place to keep the dock watertight.

The dock caisson manufactured for Dock No.1 is a bath tub-like vessel with a raised section running longitudinally along its centre line. The caisson is flooded and sinks to the bottom where the raised section fits, glove-like, into a groove in the dock wall (still visible at either end of the new steel bridge at the mouth of the dock) and sill. When the dock is pumped out the exterior water pressure keeps the caisson in place. A new identical copy was built at the dockyard after World War II. Sadly, it appears this has since been broken up and No.1 can never be used as a dry dock again. It is now correct to refer to No.1 as a permanent wet dock.

(To be concluded)