Hanbury was a private town at Waratah in the area bounded by Turton Road, High Street, Bridge Street, and Platt Street.
In 1831 the governor of the colony Sir Ralph Darling promised a grant of 60 acres of land near Waratah to George Dent, and sometime later the promised grant was transferred to Simon Kemp and his wife. On 13 October 1843 Thomas Grove purchased the right to the land from Kemp, and on 30 April 1844 the government confirmed the grant to Thomas Grove with a Quit-Rent price (a nominal rent) of 10 shillings per annum. (Ser-Pg 61-182)
Promised by Sir Ralph Darling, on the 25th May, 1831, to Mr. George Dent, and possession ordered on the 27th January, 1832, as a small grant Dent has transferred his interest to Mr. Simon Kemp, who requests the Deeds to issue in favour of Mr. Grove. Quit-rent 10s. per annum, commencing 1st January, 1839.
New South Wales Government Gazette, 6 February 1844.
In a lecture to the Newcastle and Hunter District Historical Society in 1936, T A Braye stated that …
In October, 1843, this 60 acre block was sold by Kemp to Thomas Grove for the sum of £220. From the price paid, it would appear that the land had been partly cleared, probably by Dent, and that there was some kind of a house in existence on it. With regard to Thomas Grove, the information gathered concerning him was that he had come out to this country as quite a young man, and for some years worked on the Williams River, employed by the McPhersons, who were shipbuilders at Eagleton. With the moneys saved by Grove, he came to Waratah in 1843 and occupied the land – partly farming and timber-getting with bullocks which he ran not only on his own 60 acres, but on the adjoining Government lands.
T A Braye, 1 October 1936.
After Thomas Grove had acquired the 60 acres of land, it was sometimes referred to as “Grove’s Paddock”. For example, in referring to the work of constructing the railway between Newcastle and Maitland in 1856, the newspaper reported that …
The works of the Hunter River Railway seem to be pushed on with unremitting energy ; the cutting beyond Grove’s paddock, about six miles from Newcastle, where the work is principally effected by blasting, is being carried on night and day, and will probably be completed in about two months.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July 1856.
A correspondent to the paper in 1923 suggests that Grove’s land was also known as “Bloodwood Paddock”
The town of Waratah originally consisted of a paddock of 60 acres, known in the forties of last century to the people of Newcastle as “Bloodwood Paddock” so called from the bloodwood trees which grew there. This paddock was the home of a settler, Thomas Grove, an Englishman.
The Newcastle Sun, 14 December 1923.
In October 1857 Thomas Grove applied for 580 acre lease for coal mining, and in December 1861 was granted a lease for 320 acres of land “near Waratah Railway Station”. Just a few months later the paper reported …
We have much pleasure in being able to announce, that within the last few days, an important discovery of coal has taken place upon land leased by Mr. Groves, from the government, for a term of fourteen years, under the provisions of the new Land Act. The land consists of a section of three hundred and twenty acres at Waratah, and was bored and proved by Mr. William Steel, mining engineer.
The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News, 12 February 1862.
With the discovery of a payable seam, plans for a new coal company quickly developed.
A private company, in which Mr. T. S. Mort, Mr. Smart, Mr. C Smith, and Mr. Barley are said to be largely interested have entered into arrangements for the lease of a large piece of land from Mr. Grove. The working at present is twenty feet into the hill and shows seams of coal of a depth of 14 feet 6¾ inches. The pit will be only half-a-mile from the Waratah station.
The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News, 24 May 1862.
Although there is no definitive map available to indicate the boundaries of Grove’s 320 acre lease, the following evidence points to it being a rectangular area of land south of Waratah Station.
- The lease was part of the Newcastle Pasturage Reserve
- Description of the path of the proposed colliery railway in Schedule E of the Waratah Coal Company Incorporation Act of 1863
- An 1873 map of the Waratah Coal Company leases
- Description of the location of the first tunnels being “into the hills at the back of the village of Hanbury”
The new coal mine needed coal miners and a village to house them. In 1862 Thomas Grove subdivided his 60 acres of land into small allotments and named it the village of Hanbury, after the place of his birth in Staffordshire, England. One of Grove’s first actions in the development of the village was to donate a block of land on the north-west corner of Station and Cross (now Tighe) Streets, for the erection of a Wesleyan Methodist Church. (See Bk-No 81-870) Thomas Grove laid the foundation stone for the church in a ceremony on 9 September 1862.
An initial sale of “thirty splendid allotments of land in the fast-progressing village of Hanbury, close to Waratah Station” took place on 15 October 1862. The sale was so successful that Grove immediately arranged for another 29 allotments to be put to public auction on 10 December 1862, at which all but one allotment was sold.
At the same time as these land sales were progressing the colliery was ramping up operations.
In a very short time the Waratah colliery (known more popularly at present as Grove’s paddock) will commence cutting their drives in the course of a day or two; and we hear it is their intention to ship the coals thereby obtained.
The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News, 11 October 1862.
Having established the Waratah colliery and the village of Hanbury, Thomas Grove started making plans to return to his home country and to sell off his remaining land holdings.
W. H. WHYTE, Auctioneer “has (at the request of several applicants for Land, in the village of Hanbury,) prevailed on the proprietor, Thomas Grove, Esq., prior to his leaving for Europe, to permit a choice Block of Land, which he had reserved for himself, to be divided into allotments, for Sale; together with his beautiful Family Residence, known as Banana Cottage, with Orchard and Garden, so delightfully situated, near the Station at Waratah.
The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News, 31 January 1863.
For reasons unknown, Grove’s return to Europe was delayed for a number of years, with another advertisement in 1867 indicating Grove’s imminent departure from Australia.
W. H. WHYTE has received instructions from THOMAS Grove,. Esq., to submit to public competition, without reserve (prior to his departure for Europe by next Mail) on the Ground, at Hanbury, Waratah, On MONDAY, 8th April, 1867, at Noon : – Twelve Valuable BUILDING ALLOTMENTS
The Newcastle Chronicle, 23 March 1867.
Thomas Grove departed Sydney as a passenger on the steamship Kaikoura on 1 June 1867.
The voyage across the Pacific must have been particularly ‘interesting’, for on arrival at Panama, Thomas Grove and his fellow passengers were moved to place an advertisement publicly thanking the captain for his actions under “trying circumstances.”
Approaching the near termination of a voyage that, in this route, may be regarded as unusually boisterous, we place on record our appreciation of your ability as a commander, displayed under trying circumstances, and your constant vigilance and zeal for the safety of the ship and passengers.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 September 1867.
In October 1867, the Waratah Coal Company elected a director in the place of Thomas Grove, “whose seat at the Board has become vacant, in consequence of his departure from the colony.” Thomas Grove died on 9 June 1881 at Wolverhampton in England, where he had named his residence “Waratah Cottage”.
Use of the name “Hanbury” for the village near Waratah Station gradually subsided towards the end of the 19th century. However one place it lingered was at the local school, where Henry Parkes laid the foundation stone of Hanbury Public School in February 1868. T A Braye reflecting on the name in his 1936 lecture stated …
Mr. Thomas Grove was the cause of a great deal of tribulation to the boys of my generation who attended the Waratah School. He called his subdivision “Hanbury,” after his birthplace in England, but the railway station from the early first days of the railway was named “Waratah.” The boys who attended the Waratah School were ordered to write “Hanbury Public School” in their exercise books, but not one of them, to my knowledge, ever did, notwithstanding threats of punishment, and actual punishment. “Waratah School” it was with us, and “Waratah School” it remained.
The school’s name was officially change to Waratah Public School in March 1912.
A number of subdivisions of land by the A. A. Company land north of Platt Street around 1914 were named as being in North Hanbury.
This page is part of the collection of Newcastle’s Obsolete Place Names.
Here’s one for your railway detective.
The original Waratah colliery beneath Braye park lookout I presume would have had a railway going to it but have never noticed it marked on old maps. Have seen the later Waratah colliery line up Griffith road. I’m thinking if there was one it went up station street from Waratah station? I once remembered beneath braye park lookout seeing a brick lined entrance
with 2 narrow railways with pulleys and cables
between the rails going down into the hill.
And – koala shooting was a big sport at Waratah in the 1860s.
( Waratah history. Local studies library Newcastle.
There is an 1873 map that shows the first colliery railway going to the Waratah mine at Braye Park hill. For the subsequent mining further west, another rail line was constructed branching off at where the intersection of Griffiths Rd and Orlando Rd is now. There was a level crossing here known as the White Gates.