Coon Island in Lake Macquarie has been in the news lately, with calls for its name to be changed given the overt derogatory nature of the current name. I wholeheartedly agree that changing the name is the right thing to do.
I had to look up where the island is located, which is at the northern point of land above Swansea.
I found an old Regional Charting Map in the Historical Land Records Viewer that shows the island.
A few weeks ago I attended a Zoom seminar run by Newcastle Family History Society, at which Jeff Madsen explained how to navigate and search the Historical Land Records Viewer to find old land title certificates, which can contain valuable historical information, as well as the occasional map.
I had used this service before to find some old maps, but was never able to find anything when searching the Torrens (land titles) records. I learnt that the reason why I never found anything is because none of the contents are indexed. The only way you can find a land title certificate is if you know the Volume and Folio number. This is often referred to as the Vol-Fol, and is searched for by entering the numbers separated by a hyphen as shown below.
Without a Vol-Fol number, your chance of finding what you want is literally millions to one. However, having found a title certificate (that’s a story for another post), it will often contain a reference to the previous certificate, and possibly one or more references to following certificates. These links then form a ‘Chain of Title’ that shows the progressive changes of ownership and subdivision of land. Using this concept of ‘chain of title’, starting with my own property in Lambton I was able to trace the chain back to the original mineral lease granted to Morehead and Young in 1863 (Vol-Fol 2-4), and then trace the chain forward to Vol-Fol 3-156 from 1864 wherein the plan of the township of Lambton appears on page 3.
Finding this map was very exciting. It is the oldest map I had found of Lambton, more than 30 years older than what I had seen before. The map revealed a few interesting details:
For quite some time as I researched Lambton history, I’ve come across references to “Tharwa Road”, which no longer exists in Lambton. I wondered whether it was a mis-spelling or variant of “Tathra Road”. Recently while perusing old maps I discovered that a 1906 real estate poster map shows that “Tharwa Road” used to be the section of Wallarah Road north of Womboin Road.
Tharwa Road, Lambton. University of Newcastle, Cultural Collections.
It made sense that the road had two names, for they began as two completely separate roads divided by the Lambton colliery railway. Each road was also in a different council area – Tharwa Road in the Lambton municipality, Wallarah Road in the New Lambton municipality.
As early as 1926, residents of East Lambton were agitating to have the roads connected to make a thoroughfare to New Lambton. The joining of the roads appears to have happened around 1941, with The Newcastle Sun reporting on 11 Feb 1941 …
It was decided to ask the Newcastle Council to attend to … the renumbering of Wallarah Road, which has now been extended to include Tharwa Road.
While looking at Google Earth this weekend I noticed that it was somewhat odd the way the Sydney-Newcastle train line has a big eastward loop just south of Teralba.
Why didn’t the train line just continue north-south in a relatively straight line? Consulting Parrott’s 1893 map revealed that’s exactly what the line used to do. Here’s the map overlaid onto Google Earth, with the present day path of the rail line shown in red.
So why the change, and when did it happen?
A search of Trove revealed that construction of the deviation was commenced around 1901. It was one of a number of re-alignments and deviations between Adamstown and Morisset designed to reduce the grade (steepness) of the track, and thus improve the efficiency of haulage. The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate reporting on the program of rail deviations on 2 July 1901 stated that …
The grade will be 1 in 80 as against 1 in 40 and 1 in 50 on the present line. It is estimated that this deviation of the line, though a costly matter, involving as it does the expenditure of some thing between £70,000 and £80,000, will enable one engine to do work which it now takes two to do, and thus the expenditure is believed to be justifiable.
Construction of the Teralba deviation was halted in October 1901 because of a legal dispute. The deviation passed over the workings of the Pacific Co-operative Steam Coal Company, and the Railway Commissioner’s had offered £2,000 in compensation for the resumed land. The coal company thought this too little, and put in a counter claim for £25,000 compensation. Construction of the deviation recommenced in early 1902 while the legal arguments about compensation continued. In June 1902 it was reported that “the Teralba section is being pushed forward rapidly, giving employment to from 300 to 400 men”. The construction was reported as completed in April 1903.
However the argument over compensation was not completed. At an arbitration hearing in January 1903 the Railway Commissioners were ordered to pay £18,460 in compensation. The Railway Commissioners thought the award too high, and immediately asked “to have the amount of compensation settled by a jury, under the provisions of the Public Works Act of 1900.” On the other hand the Pacific Co-operative Coal Company thought the award too small, and immediately upped the ante by suing the Railway Commissioners for “£60,000 damages for the deprivation of mining rights.”
After a lengthy court case in March 1903, the jury awarded the coal company £17,609 in damages. On 11 June 1903 the coal company signed a “judgement for the amount of the verdict, with interests and costs.” But two months later in August 1903 the matter was back in the courts, where a ruling was made that the coal company “were not entitled to recover such costs.” To make matters even more complicated (as if they weren’t complicated enough), the Pacific Co-operative Steam Coal Company didn’t own the land they were mining. They leased it from the Perpetual Trustee Company for an annual fee based on the amount of coal extracted. The Perpetual Trustee Company thought that their payments would be reduced due to the resumption of land by the railway, and therefore they launched separate legal action against the Railway Commissioners for payment of compensation.
Convoluted legal proceedings continued for years, going all the way to the Privy Council in London in September 1904, other proceedings to the High Court of Australia in September 1905, and continuing in other courts until at least May 1906. With the massive amount of time spent in the courts and associated legal fees, I suspect the 3km Teralba deviation became the most expense piece of railway construction in NSW at the time.
I’ve just updated my visual index to historical real estate maps by adding maps from Creer and Berkeley, catalogued by the National Library of Australia. There were 130 items that were not in the University of Newcastle Flickr archive.
The two most interesting discoveries I made while adding the maps were
“In the depths of the bush, about half a mile to the south of the rising and flourishing township of Lambton, there was celebrated, on Thursday last, an event of no ordinary interest and importance.”
Thus began a Newcastle Chronicle report on the ‘turning of the first sod’ of the New Lambton colliery on 25 June 1868.
James and Alexander Brown were mining coal from the ‘Old Dog and Rat’ pit in East Lambton when they had a lucky break in 1868. On learning that the owners of Lambton colliery had failed to make payments on a mining lease, the Browns quickly stepped in and bought the mineral rights for 265 acres in the area we now know as New Lambton.
They immediately investigated the potential of their acquisition by commencing a trial shaft in April 1868. In June, at a depth of 100 feet, a good payable seam of coal was found and the Browns committed to developing a colliery at a cost of £10,000.
To inaugurate their new venture the Browns invited their employees and local dignitaries to a ceremony at the site on 25 June 1868. Two barrels of ale which had previously been conveyed to the ground, were at once tapped, speeches made, and the assembled company called upon to drink “Success to the New Lambton Colliery”.
Success came quickly, a new working shaft 16 feet in diameter was sunk, an engine house erected and a railway constructed to convey coal to the port. The colliery attracted miners and their families, and a town began to grow. Just a year later New Lambton was described as “going ahead, and buildings of all descriptions are multiplying fast.”
By 1884 the payable coal was exhausted, and the Brown’s moved on to establish other mines. The pit closed, but the town endured. The Chronicle was correct in asserting that the event celebrated 150 years ago was of no ordinary importance, for it marked the birth of New Lambton.
Major T S Parrott’s 1893 map of Newcastle showing the railway and a shaft of the New Lambton colliery. National Library of Australia.
Google Earth, showing the New Lambton Colliery mining lease, railway line, and a shaft located near present day Oxford St.
The article above was first published in the June 2018 edition of the Lambton & New Lambton Local.
In working out the history of the New Lambton colliery I have used the following sources:
Trying to work out the history of the New Lambton Colliery, and the mines of J and A Brown in Newcastle is a tricky matter for a variety of reasons.
Bearing in mind these difficulties, here’s my summary of the Brown’s mining leases and the history of New Lambton colliery.
| Colour | Notes |
| White | Development of this 310 acre lease commenced in 1863 as the Hartley Vale Colliery. The colliery was ready for production at the end of 1864, but was a commercial failure. In a c. 1873 Waratah Coal Company map this area is marked as “Brown’s Colliery” and “Brown’s shaft”.[ Brian Andrews on page 36 of his book “Coal, Railway and Mines, Vol. 1” indicates that this coal lease began development in 1861, but I cannot find any corroborating evidence for this. A report on Alexander Brown’s death in 1877 suggests that the Browns only acquired the land at Hartley Vale after they had sold off their Minmi colliery, which occurred in early 1863.] |
| Pink |
This 54 acre block was considered part of the Hartley Vale Colliery. The land was sold to Thomas Adam in 1869 and became the township of Adamstown. |
| Blue | This 280 acre lease was obtained by J&A Brown in 1862. Two pits (marked as A and B pit on the 1867 Hartley Vale railway map) were commenced to the north of the Lambton colliery railway in 1866. The B Pit later became known as the “Dog and Rat Pit.” These workings were connected to the New Lambton/Hartley Vale railway via a tunnel underneath the Lambton railway. The reason for the tunnel is described in the Empire newspaper of 2 September 1867.
In 1867 the “New Lambton Coal Pit” was opened on the 280 acre lease, to the south of the Lambton colliery railway, with a short curved branch line off the New Lambton railway. This pit later became known as New Lambton A Pit when the new ‘B’ workings were opened up in the 265 acre lease in 1868. (See below.) Some time around 1883 the New Lambton A Pit was renamed New Duckenfield Colliery. |
| Green | This 265 acre lease obtained by Stephen Foyle (on behalf of the Browns) in late 1867 when Morehead and Young failed to pay rent on lease. A trial pit was finished in June 1868 and a celebration held to inaugurate the “New Lambton Second Coal Working”, the first New Lambton coal working being the 280 acre lease in East Lambton. A working pit was commenced soon after. Somewhat confusingly, this New Lambton second coal working also became known as “the B or New Lambton Pit” (Kingswell)
Kingswell gives two contradictory dates as to when this pit ceased. On page 46 he states that the “B or New Lambton Pit” was “worked until the beginning of 1888”, and in the very next paragraph state that in 1884 “the old B Pit (was) finally abandoned.” (Although possibly this second reference is to the Old Dog and Rat pit in East Lambton?) |
| Orange/Red | This 640 acre area consisting of two 320 acre leases was obtained by J&A Brown and Stephen Foyle in March 1867. The December 1867 Hartley Vale Railway act shows that the Brown’s intended to build a railway to this lease, but it was not completed at this time. After the New Lambton second workings began to wind down in 1884, the New Lambton ‘C’ Pit was commenced in this area in 1884, and the railway finally completed in March 1884. |
The mining leases of J and A Brown.
The mining leases of J and A Brown in Newcastle, overlaid onto 1873 map.
1867 Hartley Vale Railway map showing location of New Lambton Colliery pits.
1944 aerial photograph that shows the remnants of the New Lambton railway traversing the park.
Path of rail line to New Lambton B pit marked in red, and the short branch line to the New Lambton A pit marked in yellow.
On page 45 of “The Coal Mines of Newcastle NSW”, Kingswell states that the New Lambton Estate consists of 1225 acres.
In the year 1867 Messrs. J. and A. Brown commenced to work coal from the New Lambton Estate, which at present is the freehold property of Messrs. George R. Dibbbs, and Alexander Brown, M’s. P. It consists of 1225 acres, and is bounded on the north and east by the Commonage, on the south by the Waratah Coal Company’s land, while the estate of the Scottish Australian Mining Company forms the western boundary. Prior to opening a mine the firm obtained a mineral lease of some 280 acres from the Government, and on this block, which lies to the north of the present estate, the now celebrated Dog and Rat, or A Pit, was sunk.
Where was this 1225 acres? It is difficult to be certain, but given that in the next sentence he refers to the 280 lease as being “prior” and to the north of the “present estate”, then it is reasonably clear that the 280 acre lease (blue) is not included in the 1225 acres.
Thus adding the 310 acres (white), 265 acres (green) and the 640 acres (orange/red), comes to a total 1215 acres, which is very close to the figure of 1225 acres that Kingswell state. The discrepancy of 10 acres could be accounted for in two ways. It is possibly simply an adding up error, or possibly because the 265 acre lease on the maps is marked as “ex rds”, and that these excluded roads account for the missing 10 acres.
| Article Date Event Date | Notes |
|---|---|
| 3 Dec 1867 | First mention of New Lambton colliery in the newspapers. The article is reporting on the opening of a section of the Hartley Vale Railway, that leads to a new pit a pit "about half a mile ... from the Lambton Colliery, and which has been denominated by the Messrs. Brown 'The New Lambton Coal Pit.' "
If the distance of half mile is correct then this is almost certainly referring to a pit in the 280 acre lease in East Lambton. The article goes on to state that "The line further leads to a pit on the other side of the South [sic] Australian Company's Railway, underneath which a tunnel has been made." This is possibly referring to a connection to the Dog and Rat Pit which was to the north of the Lambton colliery railway. |
| 4 Jan 1868 | James and Alexander Brown obtain the mineral lease for what would become the New Lambton mine, after Messrs. Morehead and Young of the Scottish Australian Mining Company indavertently fail to keep up payments on the mineral lease. |
| 27 Jun 1868 25 Jun 1868 | 'Turning the first sod' of the New Lambton Colliery. |
| 30 Jun 1868 | "The tunnel now in operation [the 280 acre east Lambton lease] will I believe give remunerative employment to about sixty miners, and I have no doubt, a profitable return to the proprietors for capital invested therein, until the new pit [265 acre lease in New Lambton] is in full working order." |
| 4 Jul 1868 | "The new railway works at the New Lambton Colliery are being pushed forward as fast as practicably, and are I believe progressing satisfactorily." |
| 4 Jul 1868 | Advertising for tenders for the sinking of the new working pit, and for earthworks in the extension of the New Lambton railway. |
| 18 Jul 1868 | "The new line of railway at the new Lambton colliery is making considerable headway but the sinking of the new working pit has been considerably delayed in consequence, I believe, of the difficulties experienced in getting a boiler across a swamp separating the new pit from the end of the present railway." |
| 5 Sep 1868 | "The extension of the New Lambton railway, is, I believe, progressing satisfactorily, and will, it is expected, in a short time, be so far advanced towards completion as to enable the proprietors to convey direct, any materials that may be required at their new pit, which is now down about seventy feet. It is expected that the coal in this shaft will be found at a depth of about 120 feet." |
| 31 Oct 1868 | The Brown's New Lambton colliery "line of railway will be shortly completed." |
| 29 Jul 1869 | "New Lambton is still going a-head, and buildings of all descriptions are multiplying fast. I am glad to see that those enterprising and really spirited men, the Messrs. J. and A. Brown, have commenced making a new line of railway to another new pit." |
| 3 Mar 1877 | "Plans and specifications have been prepared for a bridge to cross the New Lambton Railway, and
tenders will be called for the erection at once." This was for a bridge on Lambton Rd (where Royal Place is now) to go over the New Lambton railway. |
| 25 Aug 1883 | "The proprietors of the New Lambton Colliery are sinking a new shaft on their estate some mile and a-half from the present pit." This was the New Lambton C pit, which was located in the present day suburb of Adamstown. |
| 22 Mar 1884 | "The railway to the new pit [C Pit] on the New Lambton Company's estate has been completed throughout in a very workmanlike manner by the contractor, Mr. Chas. Turner, and a large staff of workmen. The line is about two and a-quarter miles in length from its junction with New Lambton railway to the pit mouth." |
| 1 Aug 1890 | New Lambton council prepares "specifications for the work of pulling down the New Lambton Railway Bridge, on the main road, and filling up the road." |
| 6 Aug 1890 | Tenders called for "filling in roadway over New Lambton railway at main road bridge." |
| 19 Jun 1925 | "The old shaft in Cromwell-street, New Lambton, the covering of which collapsed last week, has not yet been filled. The Mayor informed the council meeting that he had arranged to tip into it eight or 10 truck loads of rubble from the quarry, and New Lambton Coal Co, had agreed to complete the filling." |
Maps, like photographs, provide a glimpse into the past. They allow us to see the shape of our city as it once was. One of the most important and fascinating examples is Barrett’s 1910 Map of the country around Newcastle N.S.W. Previously, maps were mostly concerned with property, and focussed on details such as parish boundaries and mining leases. Barrett’s map however was born of military needs.
With the federation of Australia in 1901, defence became the responsibility of the national government, and it was soon realised that the scope and quality of current maps were woefully inadequate for military purposes. Because the newly formed Australian Army did not have the expertise, in 1908 Colonel Bridges wrote to the War Office in London asking that surveyors and cartographers be loaned to Australia for a period of two years, to assist in local mapping.
In answer to that request, the steamship Omrah arrived in Australia in April 1910 carrying four soldiers of the Royal Engineers, including Irish born Lance Corporal Arthur Barrett. The men were first sent to Newcastle, and for the remainder of 1910 worked on producing the map that bears Barrett’s name.
It is an exquisitely detailed map, showing individual buildings, the location of churches, schools, post offices, and council chambers. The topography of the land is carefully laid out, with features such as creeks, vegetation, and the contours of hills. Important industrial landmarks such as quarries, mines, factories, and even chimney stacks are comprehensively documented.
Barrett retired from the Army in 1919 to become the proprietor of a bookshop in Melbourne. A print of his 1910 map of Newcastle hangs in the library of the Newcastle Family History Society, in the Mechanics Institute building in Elder St. It is well worth a visit, to appreciate close up the beauty and detail of this remarkable and historic map, and for just a moment, to peer into the past.
The article above was first published in the January 2018 edition of the Lambton & New Lambton Local.
Most of the information for this article came from the book Australia’s military map-makers: the Royal Australian Survey Corps 1915-96 by C.D. Coulthard-Clark. The Auchmuty library at Newcastle University holds a copy of this book. (358.20994 COUL)
A digitised copy of Barrett’s map can be found in the University of Newcastle Living Histories site.
The article above mentions Colonel Bridges writing to the War Office in London in 1908. This was William Throsby Bridges who became the Australian Army’s first Chief of the General Staff (CGS) in January 1909. He was later promoted to Major-General on the outbreak of war in 1914, and was killed by sniper fire at Gallipoli in 1915. Bridges Road in New Lambton (which did not yet exist when Barrett mapped the area in 1910) is named after him.
| Article Date Event Date | Notes |
|---|---|
| 6 Apr 1910 5 Apr 1910 | The steamship Omrah arrives in Fremantle from London, carrying four personnel from the Royal Engineers to carry out mapping in Australia: Lance Corporal A.H. Barrett, Lance Corporal E.F. Davies, Lance Corporal R. Wilcock, and Corporal J. Lynch. |
| 27 Apr 1910 | "Four non-commissioned officers of the Royal Engineers recently arrived in Melbourne by the s.s. Omrah to take up work in connection with the military survey staff. They were Corporal J. Lynch, and Lance-Corporals A. Barrett, E. F. Davies, and R. Wilcock." |
| 12 Jul 1919 | A. Barrett succeeds R. Chugg as proprietor of the Antiquarian Bookshop, 431 Little Collins St, Melbourne. |
| 4 Jun 1925 | Death of Arthur Barrett. |
A glance at any map of Lambton and New Lambton shows the area was never traced out in a grand design by a town planner. It grew haphazardly, and the strangely shaped streets abutting at odd angles forms not only a mosaic on the map but a mosaic in history. Each oddity has a story to tell.
One of the more curious stories is of Bridges Road, for in an 1893 map of the region produced by Major T. S. Parrott of the Engineer Corps Sydney, we see not a road, but a line marked “Unused Railway”. This was the rail line of the ill-fated Australasia Coal Company. Having obtained a coal lease in the Hillsborough area in 1873 they spent a vast sum of money building a railway to connect their mine to the port of Newcastle. In October 1877 the first trainload of coal was taken to the port, but within 18 months, as a result of spectacularly bad management, the company went bust and the rail line fell idle.
By 1894 it was clear that line would not be used again and the rails were removed. The rail corridor was released to New Lambton council in 1915, and by 1918 a short section of road was constructed south of Russell Road. Initially called South Greta Road, in 1919 it was renamed Bridges Road in honour of Major General William Throsby Bridges of the Australian Army, who was killed by sniper fire at Gallipoli in 1915.
Bridges Road was extended several times towards the south in the following years and revealed a surprise in 1962. When the Bridges Road-Northcott Drive underpass was excavated, workers found buried in the earthworks, still intact, the original 1887 wooden viaduct that carried the Great Northern Railway over the Australasian Coal Company’s line. An unexpected and long hidden reminder of the genesis of Bridges Road.
A portion of T.S. Parrott’s 1893 map of Newcastle, showing what is now Bridges Road as an unused colliery railway. National Library of Australia.
The article above was first published in the January 2017 edition of the Lambton & New Lambton Local.
This 1915 real estate advertisement shows Bridges Road marked as “South Greta Road”. University of Newcastle, Cultural Collections.
Map showing the northern most section of Bridges Rd, with an annotation regarding the gazetting of the road. R13119 – 1603. Public Road. Road Dedicated Gaz 8 Mch’18
This map is from the NSW Historical Land Records Viewer.
This 1919 real estate advertisement, shows “Greta Road”, at the time its was being renamed to “Bridges Road”. University of Newcastle, Cultural Collections.
This locality plan from a 1925 real estate advertisement shows that Bridges Rd extended only as far as St James Rd, and that it was also known as Bridges Street. University of Newcastle, Cultural Collections.
This locality plan from a 1927 real estate advertisement shows that Bridges Rd was extended down to Henley Street. University of Newcastle, Cultural Collections.
In 1962, when excavating under the Great Northern Railway embankment in order to extend Bridges Road into Northcott Drive Kotara, the original viaduct bridge over the old Australasian Coal Company railway was rediscovered. J.F. Weber reported on this on page 161 of the September 1964 issue of “The Australian Railway Historical Society”.
Excavations for the Eastern abutment revealed heavy bridge timbers embedded in the embankment and puzzled engineers, on searching old plans, discovered that, at this exact spot, a viaduct of seven 26-feet timber openings had previous existed, being part of the original main-line construction. It had served as a flood opening, the second span being left clear for the possible revival of the Australasia Coal Company’s railway. It had existed until 1902, when the gap was closed by burying the viaduct in an embankment, as only a small opening was required for storm water. The old timbers, when excavated, were found to be still sound and in good condition, 61 years after burial and some 76 years after original erection.
| Article Date Event Date | Notes |
|---|---|
| 31 Oct 1874 | Australasia Coal Company, initial share offering closes. |
| 2 May 1876 | The earthwork for the first three miles of the Australasian Coal Company's line completed. |
| 24 Mar 1877 | Laying the Australasian Coal Company rail line proceeding … "about three miles of plates have been laid, locomotives being enabled to run within a short distance from the eastern mouth of the tunnels" at Stoney Pinch. |
| 5 Aug 1878 20 Oct 1877 | First trainload of coal from the Australasia Coal Company. |
| 14 Mar 1879 12 Mar 1879 | At a meeting of the shareholders of the Australasian Coal Company, it was resolved to wind up the company. |
| 16 Aug 1887 15 Aug 1887 | Opening of the Gosford to Newcastle section of the Great Northern Railway. The railway passes over the defunct Australasian Coal Company rail line at Kotara. |
| 31 May 1892 | "Major Parrott of the Engineer Corps, Sydney, has been engaged preparing a military reconnaissance map of the country along the coast between Broken Bay and Newcastle." |
| 12 Jan 1894 | Australasia Coal Company railway - rails being removed, discussion about the Government resuming the line. |
| 26 Jan 1917 | Before being renamed "Bridges Road", it was known as "Greta-road Extended". |
| 8 Mar 1918 | Bridges Road gazetted as a public road – Ref. R13119-1603 |
| 6 Feb 1919 | New Lambton Council honours three Australian Army generals (Birdwood, Monash, Bridges) in the naming of three streets in the municipality. |
| 27 Sep 1924 | In nominating for a vacant council position, F.W. Shayler's address is stated as "Greta-road or Bridges-street", indicating there is still ambiguity over the name of the street five years after the official name change. |