Lot 49
The petition is supported by a list of 33 signatories from the district.
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Exhibited:
- Paper Items, General Literature:
- Ephemera, Cards & Documents Medium:
- 520 Circa:
- Collectibles Notes:
- One of the largest exports from New South Wales in the late 19th Century was coal, and so it was not surprising that speculators would start scratching around looking for ways to get in on the action. Coal was first discovered in the rugged sea cliffs of the Illawarra south of Sydney in May 1797, and in the same year in Hunter Region north of Sydney. The northern deposits were much more accessible and quickly provided the Colony with its first exports and the beginnings of an important new industry, which in turn led to the establishment of the Port City of Newcastle to service what was to become one of the Worlds greatest coal fields. It was not until 1890 that the coal in the Illawarra was revisited as a large scale commercial proposition. A petition was forwarded to the New South Wales Government calling for the establishment of a new Harbour and Rail network to exploit a very large and important area of Coal Lands (that) exist in the District of Central Illawarra which at present has no outlet and therefore cannot be profitably worked. This local petition signed by a syndicate of thirty-three farmers and businessmen from the Illawarra requested that a bill be passed to empower the Illawarra Harbour & Land Corporation Limited to form and maintain an entrance and passage between the South Pacific Ocean and the waters of Lake Illawarra. The petition claimed that the establishment of harbour accommodation and the erection and maintenance of lines of Railway - will not only open up the District of Central Illawarra but provide for shipping coal from that District. The Government was open to the proposition and, despite opposition from some locals who decried the handing over of the whole of Lake Illawarra and its foreshores to a grasping syndicate, it passed a bill on 20th December 1890 which allowed the Corporation to begin works anticipated to cost hundreds of millions of pounds to build breakwaters and a new railway. The rail line was duly constructed with overseas capital at a reported cost of £42 million and put to use for a time servicing a smelting works at Dapto, but the local press was reporting as early as 1892 of the unlikelihood of Lake Illawarra ever becoming a port for ocean-going vessels, and in effect the Harbour scheme was buried by the economic depression that blanketed Australia by 1893. Attempts were made to revive the scheme in the following years but it all came to naught, and all that remains today of the Illawarra Harbour & Land Corporation Limited are the ghostly wails of investors, some remnants of the breakwaters and a rusted rail line. This is the original Petition as presented to the Honorable the President and Members of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.
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