Throughout their time in use, they have been used in various capacities by several governmental organisations, until 1979 when they began to hold the Western Australian Maritime Museum's shipwreck galleries, which they continue to do to date.

Before the construction of the Commissariat Buildings, all materials bound for the convict establishment were either unloaded to be stored in the temporary prison in Fremantle, or taken upstream to a Perth warehouse.

[1] The buildings were designed by the clerk of works James Manning and were constructed in several stages over a period of 50 years, beginning in 1852, under the supervision of Captain Edmund Henderson, Royal Engineer and Comptroller General of Convicts in Western Australia.

While the Commissariat Buildings remained under governmental control from 1908–1923, it is not known what they were used for, until 1923 when the Government Stores Department occupied a part of it, which it would continue to do until it moved location in 1977.

[11] The Commissariat Buildings, designed to be utilitarian by architect James Manning in a Victorian-Georgian and Victorian Regency style were built over 50 years, with construction beginning in 1852.