The first tramline in the city, running from Newcastle to Wallsend opened in 1887. Only two other lines opened in the next decade, but tramway fervour increased when Edward William O’Sullivan became NSW Minister for Public Works in 1899. O’Sullivan was a passionate supporter of public transport. He was the visionary in the construction of the ornate Central Railway Station in Sydney, and instigated many other rail and tram projects in NSW.

In Newcastle by 1901, Merewether, Adamstown and Mayfield had been added to the tram network, and many other suburbs clamoured to be the next tram destination. Lambton residents wanted a tram between their town and Mayfield. However the Mayor of Waratah, N. B. Creer, was highly critical, declaring that the proposed route

“comprises a variety of pitfalls and the land might subside at any time”

and that the income from passengers

“would not pay for grease for the rolling stock”

Creer’s preference was for Waratah to be connected by a line from Hamilton via Georgetown. The Minister agreed, and O’Sullivan promised that construction would start by 1903. However, drought and a downturn in the London money markets dried up funds, and government spending was reined in. O’Sullivan lost office in 1904 and the Waratah via Georgetown tramline was put on hold. The line eventually opened in 1915, the final extension of the tram network constructed in Newcastle.

In 1918, the Lambton to Mayfield route was again advocated, to provide transport for workers in the western parts of the city to the newly opened steelworks. But it was never to be. In the 1920s the rise of motorised bus services led to a decline in tram patronage, and from 1930 tramlines in Newcastle began to close. The last tram service in Newcastle ran on 11 June 1950 on the Waratah line.

In 2019, light rail services return to the city, and the opening of the Newcastle to Wickham line raises the same question asked in 1901, “Where to next?”

The article above was first published in the January 2019 edition of The Local.

Additional Information

• Trolley Wire Magazine, October 1982, with an article on “The Initial Boom Period of the Newcastle Tramways”
• Edward William O’Sullivan
  • NSW Parliament
  • Plaque at Central Station, Sydney
  • Australian Dictionary of Biography

Timeline of tram operations in Newcastle, 1887-1950

Newspaper articles

The intersection of Elder and Grainger streets was at one time the hotel hub of Lambton, with three of its four corners hosting a licenced establishment. In 1865 John Stoker opened the Gold Miners’ Arms on the north east corner, and in 1868 Michael Doyle opened the Rose, Thistle & Shamrock Inn on the south east corner.

In 1888 the Commercial Hotel opened on the south west corner in a newly erected building. The name was familiar to locals as there had been a previous but unrelated hotel of the same name on the northern side of Elder St for a brief period around 1880. The new Commercial Hotel building was commissioned by Mr G Buckley, designed by local architects Bennett and Yeomans, and constructed by Mr J Frogley. The newspaper at the time reported that

“The building is of brick, containing fifteen rooms, with large cellar 20 x 16, bathroom and water tank, wardrobe, large yard, stables and out-offices. The main building contains a large hall, used by the Masonic Order, 36 x 18, with ante-room attached; billiard-room, 26 x 26, high and lofty, fitted with fire-place, large-sized table, and eleven ventilators, making it cosy in winter and cool in the summer.”

The first publican was Mr W Brown, followed by John Sample in 1889. Another notable publican was George Smith, who held the license of the Commercial Hotel from 1901 to 1912, before becoming publican of the Northumberland Hotel at the other end of Elder St from 1913 to 1920.

After 84 years of trading as the Commercial Hotel, in 1972 it was renamed the Snake Gully Hotel. In 1979 it became the Hotel Amos, then reverted to Snake Gully Hotel in 1982. In 2002 it was renamed Bar 121, and then renamed to Snake Gully Hotel again in 2016.  The hotel closed in August 2018 bringing to an end over 150 years of continuous hotel operations at the Elder/Grainger St intersection.

The article above was first published in the December 2018 edition of The Local.

The First “Commercial Hotel” in Lambton

Several books, including one I collaborated on (Lambton, A nineteenth century mining town, 2nd edition) state that the Commercial Hotel on the south west corner of Elder/Grainger Streets dates from 1880. This is incorrect. While researching this article I discovered that the Commercial Hotel of 1880 was a different hotel, somewhere on the north side of Elder St. The Commercial Hotel that opened in 1888 on the southern side of Elder St was described at the time as a newly erected hotel.

Mr R Ward operated the first Commercial Hotel until 1882, when he advertised the sale of the property.

Note that the location is described as being …

“erected upon a quarter of an acre of land, fronting Elder-street, and running through to De-Vitre-street, thus having two frontages to the principal streets.”

In August 1882 the Newcastle Morning Herald reported that …

“Messrs. W. Lightfoot and Son have removed to Lambton, and commenced business in the premises in Elder-street, lately known as the Commercial Hotel, as grocers, drapers, ironmongers, dealers in colonial produce, etc.”

A few years later, in January 1885, the property was again advertised for sale, split into two allotments.

The first allotment is described as having a frontage to Elder St of 33 feet. Note however that the second allotment has a frontage to Elder St of 18 feet but a frontage to De Vitre St of 35 feet. The difference in frontages can only occur if the block is either wedge shaped, or has an irregular shape. Loading up lot boundaries from the NSW Globe KML (from NSW Governement Spatial Services) into Google Earth shows that there are no wedge shaped blocks on the north side of Elder St, but there is an irregular set of lots where

• the total area is 0.25 acres (matching the area described in the 1882 sale)
• the western lot has a frontage to Elder St of 33 feet, and the eastern lot a frontage of 18 feet (matching the details of the 1885 sale)

There are no other lots that match the details of the 1882 and 1885 sale advertisements, so I am reasonably confident that this is where the first Commercial Hotel in Lambton was situated. The site is at address 102-104 Elder St, where Raine & Horne Real Estate was formerly located, and Williams Artisan Bread & Espresso is currently located.

Additional Information

The University of Newcastle Cultural Collections has another Ralph Snowball photograph of the Commercial Hotel, captioned “George Smith’s Commercial Hotel, Lambton NSW, 11 August 1891”. The date cannot be right as George Smith did not become licensee of the Commercial Hotel until late 1900 or early 1901.

Licensees (to 1921)

• First Commercial Hotel, on north side of Elder St
  • ?? (1879)
    
  • Richard Ward (1880 – 1882)
    
• Second Commercial Hotel, on south side of Elder St
  • William Brown (1888 – Jul 1889)
    
  • John Sample (Jul 1889 – 1893)
    
  • Joseph Oldham (1894 – 1895)
    
  • John W. Buckley (1895 – 1896)
    
  • Ann Jane Buckley (1897 – 1898)
    
  • Thomas Liddle (1898 – Mar 1889)
    
  • David Clement Harvey (Mar 1889 – 1900)
    
  • William Rutherford (Feb 1900, Oct 1900)
    
  • George Smith (Jan 1901 – 1912)
    
  • Thomas Byrne (1913)
    
  • Michael Ambrose Lowry (1914 – 1916)
    
  • James Thompson (1917)
    
  • Patrick Joseph Waldron ( – Nov 1918)
  • John Peel (Nov 1918 – Feb 1919)
  • Emma Ashman (Feb 1919 – Jul 1919)
  • James M Britt (Jul 1919 – ?)
    
  • Walter James Barrington (Sep 1919 – Dec 1920)
    
  • Stephen Shipley (Dec 1920 – 1921)
    

Licensees after 1921 (incomplete list)

• George Fuller (1923)
• Edward Henry Naughton (1933)
• Frederick Hector (1940)
• Louise May Egan (1943, 1946)
  

Name changes

The Australian National University archives has a photograph of a card from Tooth and Company Limited that shows two of the hotel’s name changes in the 1970’s.

• Changed from “Commercial Hotel” to “Snake Gully”, 8/6/1972
• Changed from “Snake Gully” to “Hotel Amos”, 1/11/1979
  

Newspaper articles

Click for a full list of soldiers’ names on the gates.

We sometimes think of war memorials as edifices erected after a conflict, to honour the fallen. The Lambton Park Memorial Gates indicate a wider purpose, as evidenced in the name of the group who erected the gates – the Send-off and Welcome Home Committee.

The Great War had been fought for little over a year, when Henry Burg and Thomas Pease called a public meeting in September 1915, to form a committee to provide a “send-off to our boys for the front” and to welcome home wounded and invalided soldiers. The group resolved to present each enlisting soldier with an inscribed wallet on his departure, and a gold medal on his return.

At a farewell function in January 1917, Mayor Edward Charlton announced plans to “erect gates, as a Roll of Honour at the park.” With an estimated cost of £250, fundraising efforts ramped up. Dances, concerts, euchre parties, and sports days were held, mostly organised by the ladies on the committee, led by Mary Ott and Vera Darling. Plans for the gates progressed when Newcastle architect Eric G Yeomans agreed to be the honorary architect.

Extracting the time capsule, October 2018

On 19 October 1918, a large crowd gathered in Lambton Park for the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone. Mr J Estell MP addressed the crowd, then placed into a bottle a parchment with the names of 39 members of the committee, “together with a copy of the Newcastle Morning Herald from August 1914, containing the proclamation of the war, and a number of old coins.” The bottle was sealed and placed into the cement foundation, over which the stone was laid. The Mayor then presented Mr Estell with an engraved gilt trowel.

The war ended just three weeks later. The gate pillars could now be engraved with a closing year, alongside the names of 140 soldiers from the district. Thanks to the efforts of the Lambton citizens, one hundred years on, we will remember them.

Lambton Park Memorial Gates, Morehead St.

The ceremonial gilt trowel presented to J Estell at the laying of the foundation stone of the park gates. Photo courtesy of Estell family.

Items presented to soldiers

Wallet

Inscribed wallet presented to Henry Smith in April 1916

Wallet and pocket book of Henry Smith. Presented by Mayor Ed Charlton.

Medal

Medal presented to Private Frederick England from the citizens of Lambton. Photo courtesy of Noble Numismatics.

Names on the gates

There are 140 names inscribed on the four gate pillars. Soldiers who died in service are marked with an asterisk.  By using the resources of the Australian War Memorial and the National Archives of Australia I have been able to identify almost all the men and create a spreadsheet with relevant information on each soldier, including links to Honour Rolls, embarkation rolls, and service records.

In the process of compiling the spreadsheet I discovered a surprising number of errors in the gate inscriptions. There are over 30 errors such as

• Mis-spelled surnames
• Initials incorrect, or in the wrong order
• Incorrect enlistment year
• Incorrect rank
• There are five men who were killed in action, who do not have their names marked with an asterisk
  • Daniel Edward Docwra
  • David Douglas
  • Charles Henry Nichols
  • Albert Richard Warring
  • Thomas William Wilson

The table below lists the 140 names on the gates. The first column shows the name exactly as it is inscribed on the gate pillars, and the second column shows the full correct name where it is known from their service records.

Additional Information

• “Lambton Memorial Gates” list of articles on Trove.
• National Archive of Australia service records
• Article on Thomas and Harry Pease.

Newspaper articles