Port Kembla Harbour Part 2 - From discovery to the inner harbour by Gregory Blaxell - View from Port Kembla from Flagstaff Point, Wollongong, 2008.
  Last month, the relationship between the growth of industry and the eventual development of an inner harbour by dredging Tom Thumb Lagoon was explored. Now let’s go back to the early European history of the area to the time when the outer harbour was created.
  Port Kembla is located south of Wollongong. The coastline was originally charted by Captain James Cook in the Endeavour in 1770. He named a headland south of the present harbour Red Point. Until 1883, Red Point was the generic name for the area.
  The first Europeans to set foot in the area were Surgeon George Bass, Matthew Flinders and a boy, Martin. In March 1796 they set out from Sydney in their Tom Thumb to inspect the Hacking River. They were blown further south and landed on a surf beach somewhere south of present day Wollongong.
  After repacking their boat, they proceeded to an anchorage in the lee of Red Point where they landed looking for water. The party was directed to a freshwater stream south of their landfall by two Aboriginal men. During their search they came upon Alowrie, the Aboriginal name for Lake Illawarra. They named the islands off Red Point the Martin Isles but this was later changed to the Five Islands.
The outer harbour c.1950. The Tom Thumb Lagoon can be seen beyond the northern breakwater. [Photo: Wollongong City Library and Illawarra Historical Society.] / A ship moored at the Southern Coal Company’s wharf, c.1907. [Photo: Wollongong City Library and Illawarra Historical Society.]
  Survivors of the Sydney Cove, a ship wrecked in Bass Strait in February 1797, were next to visit the area. Originally there were 17 survivors but 12 had succumbed during the trek up the coast towards Sydney. Of the five remaining, two were killed by Aborigines on the slopes of Mt Keira.
  The leader of the survivors, William Clark and two others arrived in Sydney on 15 May 1797.  Clark was the first to report the sighting of coal in the cliffs south of Sydney. Governor Hunter sent Bass to report on the sightings and he did so in his report to the Governor of 20 August 1797.
  The south coast was also the home of the red cedar, a timber much admired by the early colonists. From 1810, cedar cutters unofficially took timber that was usually transported to Sydney in small boats operating out of Lake Illawarra.
  The first overland route to the Illawarra was a track cut from Appin to Bulli by Dr Charles Throsby in 1815. This ‘track’ was shown to Throsby by the local Aborigines and its development allowed cattle to be brought to the Illawarra.
  A better route from Appin, but descending the escarpment near Mt Keira, was built by Cornelius O’Brien in 1821.
  The residential and industrial areas of Port Kembla were part of an original land grant of 890 hectares to David Allen in 1817. Allen named the property Illawarra Farm. He sold the property to Richard Jones in 1827, who on-sold it to William Charles Wentworth in 1828. Wentworth renamed the property Five Islands Estate.
  After a visit by Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell in 1834, the site for the town of Wollongong was fixed after Mitchell had examined both ‘harbours’ at Wollongong and Red Point. From 1837-1844, work was carried out at Wollongong Harbour. Breakwaters and an inner harbour were constructed under the supervision of Captain George Barney. The port was initially used mainly for the transportation of timber and dairy products. 
The Port Kembla quarry where core and armour stone for the Port Kembla breakwater was mined. [Photo: Wollongong City Library and the Illawarra Historical Society.] / Unloading quarried rock, referred to as rock armour and used for building the Eastern breakwater, c.1930. [Photo: Wollongong City Library and Illawarra Historical Society.]
Map of the facilities at Port Kembla Harbour including new developments in the outer harbour, effective 1st January 2007. KEY: 206 bulk liquids; 202-205 privately leased berths operated by Port Kembla Gateway; 201 discharge wharf, petroleum products; 107-113 Bluescope wharves; 105-107 Australian Amalgamated Terminals (AAT) for vehicles and containers; 104 grain terminal; 101-103. coal loaders.  The first coalmine in the area was the Albert Mine near Mt Keira that was opened by James Shoobert in 1849. Carts brought coal to Wollongong Harbour. However, it was not until 1856 when the Albert Mine was sold to Henry Osborne who leased it to William Robson, a mining engineer. They built a tramway from the mine to the port in 1861 and put pressure on the government to improve the facility, especially for their coal. This construction of the new harbour commenced in 1861 and was officially opened in 1868 by Lord Belmore and named the Belmore Basin.
  In 1865, a kerosene works was opened at American Creek, Mt Kembla, by the Graham Brothers. In December of that year, the first load of kerosene was sent to Wollongong for shipment to Sydney. Kerosene production was continued and by 1873 around 8,000 litres of kerosene were shipped weekly to Sydney. In 1874, the kerosene-producing operation was sold to Mount Kembla Coal and Oil Company. 
  Although the company persisted with kerosene production, the operation was superseded by coal mining. 
  The company received an authority to build a rail link from their Mount Kembla mine to the sea at Red Point and by 1883, a 280m jetty, designed by William Burrall, was opened.  This ‘harbour’ was given the name Port Kembla because of its association with the Mount Kembla mine. The first ship to transport coal to Sydney from Port Kembla was the SS Arawata. That year, the company shipped 21,522 tonnes of coal and employed 110 men.
Ships being loaded at No. 3 jetty in the outer harbour, c.1960. [Photo: Arthur Cratchley Collection, Wollongong City Library and Illawarra Historical Society.]  Another wharf was built at Port Kembla in 1887 by the Southern Coal Company. This two-storey wharf could load a ship at the rate of 300 tonnes per hour. The first vessel loaded at the wharf was the SS Kurrara on 7 November 1889.
  It should be remembered that the export of coal by sea from the Illawarra was done through Wollongong and offshore jetties at Coalcliff, Austinmer, Bulli, Bellambi, Corrimal and Port Kembla. Of these, Port Kembla offered the best protection from the southerly storms because of Red Point and the Five Islands.
Ships alongside No.4 jetty, the wharf closest to the eastern breakwater. [Photo: Lyons Collection, Wollongong City Library and Illawarra Historical Society.] / A ship being bunkered at No. 1 jetty, c.1920. Many companies used the port for bunkering. One of these, the Port Line, had SS Woodara of 8,000 tonnes grounded broadside on the beach during heavy seas and never again used the facility. [Photo: Wollongong City Library and Illawarra Historical Society.]  Because of the pressure from the coal producers, a committee was set up to study the possibility of creating a harbour at Port Kembla. It recommended the construction of two breakwaters, an eastern one of 860m and a northern breakwater of nearly 1,100m. Initially however, only the construction of the eastern breakwater was authorised.  The Port Kembla Harbour Act for the construction of a deep-water harbour at Port Kembla was passed in December 1898 and this included the resumption of land, jetties and railway lines by the government. This was not finally gazetted until November 1901.
  Prior to the beginning of the construction of the eastern breakwater, a ‘blue-black granite quarry’ was opened at Gillian’s Hill (known also as Port Kembla quarry) and the first rock was tipped into the water on 2 August 1901. Work went on until May 1905 when the breakwater was 400m long and had taken 224,000 tonnes of stone. However, the improvement had immediate effects, such that during 1903 only one ship had to leave the Southern Coal Company’s jetty in rough weather.
  The breakwater was extended by 1912 to 860m, was capped with concrete, had a rail line and the weather side was made up of granite blocks weighing between 10 and 40 tonnes. Irrespective of their size, these massive stones had to be restored after almost every gale. Eventually, the breakwater reached a length of 1,155m and by this time some 844,631 tonnes of rock had been used to create the breakwater.
  Although the northern breakwater was initially approved, the construction of the eastern breakwater was the only one officially undertaken. However, smaller rocks from the quarry were deposited to form a northern breakwater. By the time it reached 430m in 1912, an official Act of Parliament was enacted and work officially began on the northern breakwater.
  Its length was extended to 1,000m by 1925.
  The eastern and northern breakwaters were completed on 30 June 1937, giving an overall harbour area of 145 hectares.  With the building of up to six jetties, the outer harbour was still too limiting for the rapid growth of heavy industry in the area. Ships often had to stand off until there was a berth available. Also, the size of ships using the port was restricted so plans to build an inner harbour (plans that had been initiated as early as 1916) were acted upon and the development of the inner harbour commenced in 1955.
  The new Port Kembla Harbour officially opened in 1960 but has undergone further development and this development is still going on today.
Gregory Blaxell is an historian and author. He has been boating offshore and in the harbour for more than 25 years. His latest book is The River: Sydney Cove to Parramatta.