Pictured above is the wheelbarrow and shovel used at the ceremony for the ‘cutting of the first sod’ of the South Dock on the 26th February 1852. The wheelbarrow was of polished mahogany, enriched with carved foliage and bearing the Coats of Arms of the Marquis of Worcester, the Borough of Swansea, and the Swansea Dock Company.  Its wheel was engraved with the motto "Per Ardua" (Through Adversity) and the spokes consisted of carved plumes of feathers. The shovel was of burnished steel with a handle of polished mahogany.

 Around 70,000 to 80,000 persons were assembled in Burrows Square to witness the Marquis cutting the first sod of the new dock and depositing it into the ceremonial wheel-barrow, whereupon it was conveyed by the vice-chairman of the Swansea Dock Company, Captain Morgan, towards the seaward margin of the proposed new works. This wheelbarrow is currently on exhibition at the Swansea Museum in Victoria Road, Swansea.

 Financial complications set in during construction of the South Dock, however, and the Swansea Dock Company found itself unable to complete the project. The company was bought out by the Swansea Harbour Trust, who finished the work and officially opened the dock on the 23rd September 1859. The opening ceremony was performed by Miss Emily Charlotte Talbot, daughter of the Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan, Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.

 The South Dock handled commercial shipping for well over a century, and was famous for its thriving fishmarket and for the export of coal – at one time there were ten coal-shipping appliances in the main dock area. Other cargoes included iron ore, timber, sand & gravel, and potatoes. Sadly, a general decline in trade lead to the closure of the South Dock in 1971 but, within a few years, it had been acquired by the City Council and was being developed as the Marina we see today. 

 The original entrance to the South Dock was through a single pair of lock gates leading from the river into the outer half-tide basin. The passage between the basin and the inner South Dock formed a further lock entrance, this being fitted with three pairs of lock gates. Some time in the 1890’s, the original swingbridge across this passage was replaced with a more substantial swingbridge which can be seen in later photographs.

 In 1903 a new lock entrance from the river into the half-tide basin was completed, along with a new impounding station on the north side of the lock head. The half-tide basin became a fully-impounded part of the South Dock, and the new entrance, fitted with two pairs of lock gates, meant that the old lock gates in the connecting passageway could be dispensed with.