Quite number of locations around Newcastle seem to have attracted the name Frog Hollow …
This page is part of the collection of Newcastle’s Obsolete Place Names.
This page is part of the collection of Newcastle’s Obsolete Place Names.
A friend recently asked me about the naming of Croudace Road in Elermore Vale.
There is a Croudace Street in Lambton, named after Thomas Croudace, the first manager of the Lambton colliery. Thomas was also the reason for the naming of Croudace Bay, as he bought land and built a house in that locality. Presumably Croudace Road in Tingira Heights has a similar connection, being a road leading towards Croudace Bay. But what was the connection that led to the naming of Croudace Road in the Wallsend area? The answer turns out to be not Thomas, but his son Sydney.
Sydney Croudace was born in Lambton about 1874, the third son of Thomas and Christina Croudace. He was educated at The King’s School, Parramatta, and then followed his father into a coal mining career. At a comparatively early age he became manager of the Scottish Australian Mining Company’s B pit (also known as the Durham or Lambton B pit) at Redhead. In February 1913 he was appointed manager of the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company’s pit at Wallsend.
In August 1915, while he was manager, the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company registered a subdivision of a large area of their land with Deposited Plan 8479.
The subdivision, of approximately 1500 acres, covered the area between Wallsend, New Lambton and Cardiff. An area of about 50 acres was excluded from the middle of the subdivision, as this was the location of the Jubilee Shaft of the coal company. (More on this shaft later in this article.) The first land sale in DP8479 was to Henry Hancock for Lot 60 on 24 July 1916.
Just a few months after registering the subdivision, Sydney Croudace resigned as manager of the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company in December 1915 due to ill-health. The employees of the mine held a farewell dinner for Sydney Croudace, with both the office staff and the miners bestowing effusive praise upon him. By 1921 Croudace’s health had recovered sufficiently that he was able to resume the position of manager in February 1921.
By this time about 40 of the 94 lots in the subdivision had been sold. In July 1921 the residents in the northern part of the subdivision, known as Chinaman’s Flat, lobbied Wallsend Council to change the the name of their suburb, and to also set names for their as yet unlabelled streets.
Chinaman’s Flat is by no means a high-sounding title for a progressive suburb. The residents of No. 2 subdivision, which is situated on the Lake road, near Wallsend, think it should be changed to something more Australian. They have asked Wallsend Council, through the Lake-road and Cardiff Progress Association, to erase the name of Chinaman’s Flat from all official records, and that the streets be named according to a list they supplied. South Wallsend was suggested as more appropriate. Alderman England said that the name certainly acted to the detriment of the place, and visitors were not favorably impressed who might otherwise have entertained the idea of purchasing land there. The names suggested are: Jubilee-street, Cardiff-road, Scott-street, Lake-road, Croudace-road, Smith-street and Watkin-street. The council agreed to all of the requests on condition that they be called roads.
The Newcastle Sun, 29 July 1921.
Ministerial approval for the naming of Croudace, Smith, Watkin, Jubilee, and Scott Roads was received in December 1921.
Sydney Croudace finished as manager of the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company in October 1928, and moved to a property in Brighton Avenue, Toronto where he lived until his death on 3 February 1935 at the age of 61. Co-incidentally, his death came just one week after shareholders of the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company voted to cease operations at the Wallsend Colliery that Croudace had managed for ten years.
In the ensuing years the suburb adjacent to his namesake road was variously called “South Wallsend” and “Wallsend South” in equal measure.
On 14 November 1975, the suburb name was officially changed to “Elermore Vale”, probably in reference to the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company’s “A pit” that opened in Wallsend in 1859, which was also known as the “Elermore Vale Colliery”.
In 1887 in the year of Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee, the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company sunk a new shaft to assist with ventilation of their mine, and named it the Jubilee Shaft. It was located inside the area that was later subdivided in 1915 as DP8479, and thus was excluded from that subdivision.
In the early 1930s the Wallsend Colliery struggled to be profitable, and in November 1934 the owners advertised the colliery for sale or lease. When no acceptable offers eventuated, the shareholders voted in January 1935 to close the mine and sell off the colliery plant, machinery, waggons and railway. Surplus equipment from the Jubilee shaft was sold at auction in May 1935. The land in the vicinity of the shaft then began to be subdivided and sold off, however a smaller parcel of land around the shaft was retained by the coal company.
After the closure in 1935, the coal seams were worked by various tribute collieries until 1968, when the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company resumed operations at Wallsend under the new name of “Gretley Colliery”. The name was a combination of two coal seams the company was mining – the Greta Seam in their Pelton and Ellalong mines, and the Dudley seam they were working at Wallsend. In November 1996 tragedy struck at Gretley mine when four miners were drowned by a sudden inrush of water when they inadvertently broke through to flooded abandoned workings adjacent to the Gretley workings. The error was due to the mine having been supplied with incorrect plans of the old workings by the Department of Mineral Resources. Work at Gretley was immediately suspended. In 1999 Gretley was bought by New Wallsend Coal Pty Ltd, who operated the workings as “New Wallsend No. 2 Colliery.”
A partial history of the Jubilee Shaft site can be seen in the photo below, the sign on the enclosing fence shows “Gretley Colliery” overstamped with “New Wallsend Coal Pty Ltd, New Wallsend No. 2 Colliery.” At the bottom of the sign, the words “Mine Ventilation Shaft” are just visible.
In 2021 Newcastle Council approved a development application for the construction of a 50 lot Community Title subdivision on the former Jubilee Shaft site. The development will retain some of the remnant Jubilee Shaft sandstone building walls in a community area
In the original iteration of this blog post I posed the question of why there is a Croudace Street in Edgeworth? Thanks to a note on page 138 of Ed Tonks’ 1990 book “Wallsend and Pelton Collieries. A Chronology of The Newcastle Wallsend Coal Company”, I have the answer.
That area of Edgeworth has five north-south streets, all named after prominent colliery managers of the Newcastle district when that subdivision was created in 1885.
Edgeworth was originally called “Young Wallsend”, and the subdivision created by John Charles Bonarius was described by the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate on 16 May 1885 …
The subdivision has been laid out by Mr. Percy Hodgkinson, of this city, whose abilities in laying a township are well known to everyone in the district, and is under the supervision of Mr. John C. Bonarius, our oldest and well-esteemed auctioneer, who will wield the hammer at the sale. The streets are plainly seen. Large posts, with the names Neilson, Fletcher, Croudace, Turnbull, Thomas, and other notables connected with the coal trade of Northumberland are seen.
Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 16 May 1885.
A real estate poster advertising the sale of the subdivision was produced, but with Neilson and Johnson spelled incorrectly.
The naming of Johnson St is uncertain. It possibly refers to R Johnson who was the manager of the Glebe colliery.
| Article Date Event Date | Notes |
|---|---|
| 7 Feb 1913 | Sydney Croudace appointed manager of the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company's Wallsend Colliery. |
| 6 Dec 1915 4 Dec 1915 | Retirement due to ill-health of Sydney Croudace as manager of Wallsend colliery. "There was a large attendance at the Masonic Hall, Wallsend, on Saturday evening, when Mr. S. Croudace, who for the last three years has occupied the position of manager of the Wallsend Colliery, was entertained by the employees of the colliery, and presented with marks of their esteem and appreciation." |
| 2 Feb 1921 | "Mr. S. Croudace will succeed Mr. N. J. Clark as colliery manager of the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company." (Croudace returns to the position he previously resigned from due to ill-health.) |
| 29 Jul 1921 | Residents of "Chinaman's Flat" request that their suburb be renamed to "South Wallsend", and suggest names for a number of their roads. |
| 17 Dec 1921 | "Ministerial approval having now been received, it is notified for public information that the un-named roads in the South Wallsend subdivision, otherwise known as Chinaman Flat Subdivision, will be designated as follows: Croudace-road, Smith-road, Watkin-road, Jubilee-road, Scott-road." |
| 13 Oct 1928 10 Oct 1928 | "Mr. Sydney Croudace on Wednesday terminated his second period of service with Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company as manager of Wallsend colliery." |
| 23 Nov 1934 | Advertisement for sale or lease of Wallsend Colliery. |
| 25 Jan 1935 24 Jan 1935 | "At the annual general meeting of shareholders of the Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company held yesterday it was decided to cease operations at the company's Wallsend colliery owing to heavy losses incurred during the past six years and the uncertainty of the future." |
| 4 Feb 1935 3 Feb 1935 | Death of Sydney Croudace, in Toronto, aged 61. |
| 16 Feb 1935 | "Hopes of a reopening of Wallsend Colliery, commonly known as Wallsend C Pit, have been shattered … dismantling and removal to the surface of the underground appliances and plant of the colliery. … The mine is to be abandoned." |
| 18 Feb 1935 | "Wallsend citizens who have been hoping for an 11th-hour sale of the colliery property, or for a lease which would allow a resumption of operations, are beginning to despair as they realise the latest definite steps Newcastle-Wallsend Coal Company has adopted to seal the doom of Wallsend C pit. For three-quarters of a century the coal company has been operating at one or another of the branches of its Wallsend mine. Wallsend without a Wallsend colliery is to many people almost unthinkable." |
| 2 May 1935 | Sale of equipment from the closed Jubilee Shaft in Wallsend. |
| 16 Dec 1953 | "Newcastle Council Works Committee recommended last night that the council alter the name of Lundy-street, Wallsend, between Lake-road and Croudace-street, to Jubilee-road. The City Engineer (Mr. Baddeley) said a month had passed since the council proposed to alter the name. It had been publicised and no objection had been received." |
| 14 Nov 1975 | The suburb name "Elermore Vale" is officially gazetted. |
When the old Lambton colliery ceased operation, the pit paddock with its offices and buildings lay idle for a decade. Then 75 years ago, in 1947, a new enterprise began on the site with the opening of Leonora Glass Industries, founded by David Marr and three highly skilled Czechoslovakian glass workers.
Joseph and Henry Vecera and Josef Tvrdik came to Australia from Europe in 1934 to teach glass making at a Sydney factory. They later moved to Newcastle to work in the Electric Lamp Manufacturers Australia factory at Hamilton North. In 1946 the three men and their families became Australian citizens. The following year, along with David Marr (manager) and Alan Little (engineer), they set out to create their own glass making business, renting a portion of the Lambton colliery and setting up furnaces in the former colliery workshop.
In August 1947 they registered their enterprise as “Leonora Glass Industries”, possibly inspired by the town of Lenora in the Czech Republic, just 30km from Josef Tvrdik’s birthplace, where a famous glassworks had operated since 1834. Manufacturing commenced the following month and by December 1948 the works employed 23 people including several young apprentices. At this time they were making 2000 lamp shades a week. In the following years they produced many items such as wine glasses, dishes, ash trays, and car headlight lenses.
While the bulk of Leonora’s output was utilitarian in nature, they also handcrafted fine glassware such as jugs, vases, and decorative ornaments. Museums across Australia hold examples of these works in their collections. In July 1957 glassmaking in Lambton came to an abrupt halt when a fire destroyed the Leonora works. The company quickly recovered, purchasing 14 acres of land on Douglas St Wallsend to set up a new factory. In 1960 the multinational firm Philips Industries took over the glassworks to focus on the manufacture of light fittings. Although business expanded in the 1960s, increasing pressure from low cost overseas competitors in the 1970s led to the eventual closure of the works in 1982
The article above was first published in the October 2022 edition of The Local.
The following personal details of the three Czechoslovakian founders of Leonora Glass were extracted from National Archives of Australia records searches.
| Name | Henry Vecera | Josef Vecera | Josef Tvrdik |
| Birth | 15 Aug 1901, Uhrovec, Slovakia | 19 Mar 1899, Uhrovec, Slovakia | 12 Jan 1904, Nova Hut, Czechia |
| Arrival in Australia | 11 Nov 1934 | 9 Nov 1934 | |
| Naturalised | 30 Aug 1946 | 9 Dec 1946 | 3 Dec 1946 |
| Family | Wife, Julia; daughter, Henrietta Julia, born 1928 | Wife, Cecile; twin sons, Milon Edward and Joseph Henry, born 1931 | Wife, Coralie Violet Mary |
A search of the ASIC Registers shows that Leonora Glass Industries Pty Ltd was registered as a company on 11 August 1947.
I have no direct evidence for the naming of “Leonora Glass Industries”, and what follows is just a reasoned guess.
We know from the notification of intention to apply for naturalisation, that Josef Tvrdik was born in “Nova Hut” in Czechoslovakia. This is the village of Nové Hute in the Czech Republic today.
Just 17km away (28km by road) from Nove Hute is the village of Lenora. The tourism website for the Šumava region describes the origin of the town.
The village of Lenora was founded as a settlement around one of the last glass- works established in the Šumava mountains by Jan Meyer in 1834. Later on the glass-works were taken over by Meyer’s nephew Vilém Kralik. The village was named Eleonorenhain after the Princess Eleonora (1812-1873), the wife of the lord of the estates John Adolf of Schwarzenberg. Czech translation of the name is “Eleonora’s Paradise”. Later on the village adopted Czech version of the name, Lenora.
Sumavanet tourism website
Note that while there is Leonora Parade in Waratah West, it appears to have no connection to the Leonora glassworks. The street was formerly a section of Platt Street, and was renamed to Leonora Parade in 1968.
| Article Date Event Date | Notes |
|---|---|
| 6 Apr 1946 | Notice of intention by Henry Vecera, Josef Vecera, and Josef Trvdik to apply for naturalisation. Josef Tvrdik, born at Nova Hut, Czechoslovakia, resident over 11 yers. Josef Vecera, Born at Uhrovec, resident over 11 years, living in Adamstown. Henry Vecera, Born at Uhrovec, resident over 11 years, living in Pearson St Lambton. |
| 7 Oct 1947 | "A GLASS factory, now operating in a disused building which once was part of the Old Lambton coalmine, aims to produce the finest glass and crystal ware. The company--Leonora Glass Industries Pty. Ltd.- comprises Messrs. Jospeh and Henry Vecera, Mr. Jospeh Tvrdik. Mr. David Marr (manager) and Mr. Alan Little (engineer). Messrs Vecera and Tvrdik are Czech-Australians, who came to Australia in 1934 to teach glass-making at a Sydney factory." |
| 23 Nov 1948 | “The strange bulbous Dali-like shapes, coloured in streaky and marbled patterns, which yesterday made an appearance as part of the Christmas dressing of a Hunter-street store are not painted marrows or solid-seeming balloons ... they are made of glass. The result of a brain-wave on the part of the window dresser (Miss E. Ritchie), they were specially blown at the Leonora Glass Works at New Lambton.” |
| 3 Dec 1948 | The development of the fine glass industry in Newcastle by two Newcastle engineers and three Czechoslovakian glassworkers in a factory at Lambton is giving Newcastle boys an opportunity to learn the trade. The factory, which employs 23 after 12 months of operation, turns out 2000 lamp shades a week and some 400 water sets. Production of fine glass-wine glasses and ground glass-is starting. |
| 11 Dec 1948 | Photo of twins Joseph and Milon Vecera, on the steps of the old Lambton Colliery office, near to where they work in the Leonora Glassworks. |
| 11 Dec 1948 | Story on Ernest Sandgren, immigrant from Sweden, and Australian weight-lifting champion for 7 years, working as a cutter of fine crystal at Leonora Glassworks. |
| 3 Feb 1949 | "It was planned with the Leonora glass factory at Lambton to make Newcastle a centre of the fine glass industry in Australia, the Managing Director (Mr. D. Marr) told Newcastle Business Men's Club yesterday. The factory was still in its initial development. It had been operating for 18 months. In the factory there were three Czechs of world-wide experience in the manufacture of hollow blown ware, including the art of stemware. They came from generations of art craftsmen." |
| 8 Mar 1950 | “The factory is now producing heat-resistant glass in large quantities. About 100,000 such articles have been produced for distribution throughout Australia, in the past 12 months. The Manager (Mr. David Marr) said he believed this was the first time pyrex-type glass had been made in Newcastle.” |
| 4 Jan 1952 | "MILON and Joseph Vecera, twin sons of Mr. and Mrs. J. Vecera, of Croudace street, Lambton, celebrated their 21st birthday, which was on New Year's Day,' with a party, on New Year's Eve. About 40 people attended the party. Milon and Joseph, who were born in Lausanne, Switzerland, came to Australia when they were four. They are both glass craftsmen at Leonora Glass Works, Lambton, and both play the piano, violin and piano-accordion." |
| 26 May 1953 | The factory is turning to a new type of glass manufacture for Newcastle. This is the manufacture of pressed glass. A glass moulding press has been installed to manufacture pressed glass dishes, car headlight lenses, ash trays and other goods. The machine is in trial production. When producing fully, it will turn out 1500 articles a day.” |
Today’s post comes from Dan Rees St, Wallsend. From 1910 the tram line was extended out from this point to West Wallsend, but the extension was closed in November 1930. At the time this photo was taken (1940s) this was the tram terminus in Wallsend.
Old tram photo from University of Newcastle Living Histories.
Plattsburg Council was incorporated on 27th December 1876. It merged into Wallsend Council on 20th October 1915.
Wallsend Council was incorporated on 27th February 1874.
Wallsend Council Chambers, 6 Metcalfe St. (Years of use yet to be determined.) University of Newcastle, Cultural Collections.
From 1930 to 1937, the council chambers were in the School of Arts building at 69 Cowper St.
Wallsend Council Chambers (1930 to 1937). University of Newcastle, Cultural Collections.
Wallsend School of Arts building. March 2016.
My latest article for the Lambton Local is out, this month on the depression era shanty town “Hollywood”. This is the reason behind my “Rust and ruins” teaser post a couple of weeks ago.