Catherine Hill Bay’s First Coal Mine

Six years after the schooner “Catherine Hill” was wrecked 3 miles north of Bird Island Point on the 21st June 1867, the New Wallsend Company Ltd. Commenced the establishment of a coal mine at New Wallsend, which shortly after became known as Catherine Hill Bay. (The first plans to subdivide land in the area which was then listed as the village of “Cowper” was in 1875).

The mine works were completed on the 4th August 1873 (producing 400 tons of coal in 1873 and 18,146 tons in 1874). A timber jetty was erected direct from the tunnel mouth out 500 feet into the bay at the southern end of the beach and the first shipment of coal was effected on the 23rd December 1873, via the ship “Tasmania.”   (A blocked off mine entry can still be viewed at “Boatsheds” or “Little Beach,” south of the existing jetty).

A description of the New Wallsend Township published in the Newcastle Morning Herald in December 1874 stated that the township –“comprised 20 houses and several tents, a butcher shop, a store, but as yet no public house.” In the same newspaper on the 26th January 1876 it was reported that there were “30 or 40 inhabitants, 2 hotels – Talbots and Trevellions, a store, a Post Office conducted by Mr. Caldwell, also a bakery owned and run by Mr. Knowles.”

With the wrecking of their ship “Susannah Cuthbert,” on 7th July 1875 the New Wallsend Coal Company experienced difficulty in obtaining regular shipping space to dispatch the coal to Sydney and the exposed jetty was only available to shipping when the seas would allow.  

On the 4th March 1876 a report in the Newcastle Morning Herald stated that: “As insufficient working capital was available to the New Wallsend Mining Company Limited the dissolution of the Company was recommended.” The mine thus closed down on the 6th April 1877. The Mine Manager, Mr. DeFlon, together with a few remaining staff of the New Wallsend Mining Company Ltd. left Catherine Hill Bay for Little Bulli on the New South Wales South Coast.

*Information supplied by East Lake Macquarie Historical Society.

Click on the photo below to enlarge.