KINGS PARK BOTTLE GUNS

The Kings Park guns, familiarly known as “bottle guns”, bore the official designation of RML (Rifled Muzzle Loading), 7 inch (calibre) 6.5 ton, Mk 1 guns. They fired a 50.8 kg shell to a range of about 3650 metres.The popular name bottle gun is based on their appearance. Dating from 1866, the two guns were manufactured by the Royal Ordnance Factory in England. The design was pioneered by Sir William Armstrong and involved a wrought-iron (later mild steel) tube surrounded by a number of wrought-iron strengthening coils shrunk over the inner tube to keep it under compression. The heavier of the two was placed on a steel mounting for coastal defence and the other had a timber carriage, having originally served onboard HMS Dreadnought a wooden first-rate battleship, launched 1857 and scrapped in 1875. Even before the guns arrived onboard the SS Suffolk in 1881, they were considered obsolete. They were landed on the beach near Fremantle where they lay undisturbed for a number of years, as colonial financial constraints prevented their being adapted for service use. Finally, they were taken to the Western Australian defence facility at Karrakatta. It had originally been thought that the guns could be served by a volunteer militia, designated Fremantle Naval Artillery Volunteers, which had been raised in 1879 by Lieutenant GA Forsyth. This unit was restricted to ex-Royal Navy personnel and had a strength of 23, rising briefly to 38 in 1884. Exhibits in the Army Museum’s Pre 1914 Gallery trace the evolution of this Fremantle unit in its coastal and field configurations through weapons, uniforms, and photographs. In November 1905 the guns were moved to Kings Park, Perth, and mounted at Mount Eliza, overlooking Perth Water. However, in 1932, following the landscaping of the State War Memorial concourse, the guns were sold for scrap and dismantled. The mountings were removed but the guns survived and were buried between the State War Memorial and the first rotunda. They remained buried until 1966 when after several unsuccessful attempts; they were located in their buried locations using a magnetometer. After excavation, restoration and mounting on timber replica carriages was then undertaken. Successful completion was heralded by the firing of blank charges in a ceremony on 23 February 1969. In October 2003, after further horticultural developments at Kings Park, the guns were subsequently relocated to HMAS Stirling. They were displayed at the entrance to Garden Island. Both weapons have since been sympathetically restored by Navy and occupy prominent positions at the entrance to Fleet Base West Unfortunately, under current security regulations public access is limited.