Coastal coal-carrying trade of New South Wales

During the heyday of the coastal trade, Sydney was dependent upon a constant supply of coal arriving by sea, particularly for the production of town gas and for bunkering operations.

[1]A group of escaped convicts led by a married couple William and Mary Bryant were the first Europeans to find and use Australian coal, at the end of March 1791.

They found "fine burning coal" near a "little creek" with cabbage tree palms 'about 2 degrees' north of Sydney, "after two days sailing".

[9][10][11] However, at least by 1832, an attempt had been made to mine coal near the western base of Mount York, in the Vale of Clwydd, but it was found impractical due to transport difficulties.

[12] Apart from limited local use, western coal could not be exploited until the railway from Sydney crossed the Blue Mountains in 1869, and soon after that there were mines in the area around Lithgow.

By 1847, especially through the work of a clergyman and geologist, William Branwhite Clarke, it was a becoming understood that there was a major coal resource, at widely dispersed locations within the Sydney Basin.

[13] That coal had been found so readily, by colonial settlers with no experience of mining and little knowledge of their new country, so soon after the first European settlement, implied that the resource was widespread and plentiful.

Indeed, it is only the more recent increased rate of extraction—for the export market—that will see the exhaustion of commercially viable reserves that can be extracted without unacceptable environmental damage, before the middle of the 21st century.

That arrangement improved the overall economics of the company's operations, by ensuring that the colliers never made any trip without a cargo and reducing the amount of coal that otherwise would need to be shipped to Wallaroo.

However, due to company takeovers and cross-ownership between RW Miller, Howard Smith and Coal & Allied, it is somewhat difficult to track ownership of vessels and loading assets of these firms.

[37] Ownership was sometimes difficult to follow; the Hexham Bank may have been described as an RW Miller ship when in fact it was on charter to that company from its actual owners McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co.

[33] Coal from the northern coalfields was loaded at Hexham on the Hunter River, Carrington (The Basin, The Dyke) and Stockton near Newcastle, on Lake Macquarie, and at the ocean jetty at Catherine Hill Bay.

The shape of Nobby's was altered by lowering its height, so that its wind shadow did not cause sailing ships to lose steerage and end up on the Oyster Bank.

Coal was carried a short distance from the mine, in railway wagons, onto an elevated structure and dumped, via a staith, into the ship's hold.

[90] The Drop Ship—made by equipping the hulk of an old 400 ton sailing ship, Antrocite—was permanently moored, in a deep part of the Hunter River channel, between Stockton and the Dyke wharf.

[105] These private operations dated back to those of the Waratah Coal Company, which opened its own 600 foot long wharf on Bullock Island, in March 1865.

As a river port, care had to be taken so ships made use of the tides to avoid running aground in shallow Fern Bay, when laden with coal and heading downstream, via the North Channel of the Hunter, to the sea.

[123] There were other collieries near to the northern, eastern and western shores of the lake, but most of these were connected to railway lines and sent their coal to Carrington and some for local consumption at the Newcastle Steelworks.

By using an ocean jetty, this colliery could exploit the coal seams of Lake Macquarie, without ships needing to enter the Swansea Channel.

It was just to the north of Brickyard Point and its broad rock platform, which provided some shelter from southerly weather; today the area is used to launch boats.

[16][183] The work of the winch-driver, while less physically taxing, involved great mental strain; any miscalculation in hoisting or braking, could result in death or serious injury to the others in the gang.

[192][193] Some 'sixty-milers'—such as the Stockrington—had their own lifting gear with grabs and were capable of coaling other ships; these semi-mechanised operations continued after the loader opened at Ball's Head.

It opened around 1926,[235] after Jones Brothers expanded their operations and relocated, from Darling Harbour at the bottom of Bathurst St.[236][237] In its final form, this installation consisted of a timber wharf—with ships berthing parallel to the shoreline—a gantry crane with a grab for unloading, and a bunker structure.

There were numerous foreshore industrial sites on Sydney Harbour and, particularly prior to the widespread use of electricity and fuel oil, many of those would have relied, as a source of energy, upon coal brought to their wharves by lighter.

[261] The "sixty-miler" MV Stephen Brown was donated by its owners, Coal and Allied, to the Australian Maritime College in Launceston, Tasmania, in April 1983.

Belmore Basin survives including the upper-level where the coal staithes once were located, as does the concrete and iron base for the crane of the former "Tee-Wharf".

Two cuttings, at the southern end of North Wollongong Beach, on the Tramway Shared Path, are remnants of the rail line from the Mt Pleasant Colliery that was removed in 1936.

[19] In June 2021, the coal loader site was added to the NSW Heritage Register,[273] but, by January 2023, the timber loading wharf was distorted and showing signs of impending collapse.

The Blackwattle Bay coal facility and its gantry crane were largely intact, in 2002, when a master plan for the foreshore area envisaged their retention and adaptive reuse.

She still carries her last cargo of coal, but is now partially coated in coral growths—the tip of her bow above the waterline and her rudder 24 metres below—reportedly making a perfect snorkeling and dive site.