The Newcastle-Hunter Studies Symposium

NEWCASTLE / HUNTER STUDIES SYMPOSIUM

Presented by the Humanities Research Institute, University of Newcastle
in partnership with Newcastle Art Gallery

The Newcastle Hunter Studies Symposium
Friday 3 May 2013
10.00am – 4.30pm
Newcastle Art Gallery
Free

About the Symposium
Scholarship on Newcastle and the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, has the potential to illuminate national and transnational themes in historical and contemporary research, as well as to deepen the city’s and the region’s understanding of itself.

This symposium brings together, for the first time, members of the present generation of humanities and social sciences researchers focusing on Newcastle and the Hunter. This event is part of a broader project to collect past and present scholarship on the city and the region. It showcases the breadth and depth of studies being undertaken; it introduces this work to the community; and it is an occasion to discuss how future studies of the city and the region might proceed.

Welcome

Papers

Mark Dunn – Aboriginal Guides in the Hunter Valley

Dr Lisa Ford and Dr David Roberts – Newcastle and the Transformation of Penal Practice in the Colony of New South Wales

Dr David Murray – Words for the Heat of Deeds: Creative non fiction and the writing of cultural history

Helen English – Music, Power and Public Space: a Case Study in Newcastle, NSW

Gaye Sheather – Local Sites and Sounds:  A History of live mainstream music in licensed venues Newcastle, NSW, during Australia’s Oz Rock Era (1970s and 80s)

Dr Keri Glastonbury – Rough and Tumblr: Blogging Newcastle

Panel Discussion -  The Place of Newcastle and the Hunter in History
Chair: Dr Julie McIntyre

Speakers:

Professor Erik Eklund, Monash University

Dr Nancy Cushing, University of Newcastle

Dr Julie McIntyre, University of Newcastle

Gionni Di Gravio, University of Newcastle

Images from the Day

Newcastle Hunter Studies Symposium

Audience

Lauren van Katwyk – Newcastle Art Gallery

Ron Ramsay

Professor Hugh Craig

Dr Nancy Cushing

Aboriginal Guides of the Hunter Valley

Mark Dunn

Dr Nancy Cushing and Mark Dunn

Mark Dunn

Dr David Roberts

Dr David Roberts

Dr David Roberts

Dr David Roberts

Words for the Heat of Deeds

Dr David Murray

Dr David Murray

Aboriginals

Elizabeth Ellis and Gallery Staff

Dr Julie McIntyre

Helen English

Gaye Sheather

Dr Keri Glastonbury

Dr Julie McIntyre

TREASURES OF NEWCASTLE FROM THE MACQUARIE ERA
2 March – 5 May 2013
A State Library of NSW and Newcastle Art Gallery partnership exhibition
Sponsored by Noble Resources International Australia

Treasures of Newcastle from the Macquarie era (2 March – 5 May 2013) provides an exceptional opportunity for the Newcastle/Hunter Studies Symposium. The exhibition, featuring the Macquarie Collector’s Chest and works by colonial artists Joseph Lycett, Edward Close and Richard Browne, was drawn from the significant collections of Newcastle Art Gallery and the State Library of NSW, and is the most important collection of historic and artistic material related to this city ever to be assembled.

Local Treasures: Progressive Sydney – The Newcastle, Mayfield and Toronto Bits (1938)

Cover of “Progressive Sydney as it stands today” (1938)

Day Shift – 16/04/2013 – 02:10 PM
Presenter: Carol Duncan
Interviewee: Gionni Di Gravio, Archivist, Newcastle University

University of Newcastle Archivist Gionni Di Gravio explores a work entitled “Progressive Sydney as it stands today : a pictorial directory of its most attractive centres, in sepia” published in Adelaide by G.H. Baring, 1938.

This unusual book was loaned to us by Mr Russell Rigby, our Coal River Working Party colleague, from his family’s collection, and contains some interesting streetscapes and individual business shop fronts in Newcastle prior to 1938 including advertisements for some of the businesses who paid for their place in the publication. Some recreational sites such as the Bogey Hole are also featured.

The Blue Room, Newcastle’s Famous Cafe (1938)

 

The Bogey Hole Baths (1938)

 

Newcastle is described as “The Big Industrial and Tourist Centre”,  Mayfield, as “Popular Mayfield – Newcastle’s Leading Suburb” and Toronto as “Beautiful Lake Macquarie District – Toronto in its Beauty”. Those three places represent the Hunter Region in this book. There are some fantastic and exotic places mentioned, such as the Blue Room, and Mayfield’s Casino Inn Bar.

The series of 63 images from the work relating to Newcastle, Mayfield and Toronto can be viewed here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uon/sets/72157633226705430/

We have digitised all relevant pages in large and smaller formats, as well as creating separate individual images of streetscapes and businesses as well.

We thank Russell Rigby for bringing this interesting snapshot of the local business community to our attention.

Gionni Di Gravio
April 2013

John Turner Memorial Lecture 2013 – Emeritus Professor Michael Rosenthal

John Turner Memorial Lecture Flyer – 9 May 2013

Emeritus Professor Michael Rosenthal will deliver the John Turner Memorial Lecture Colonel Paterson’s Scrapbook.

“When, in 1809, he knew he would be returning to Britain, colonial hand Colonel William Paterson took great care to commission watercolours from John Lewin and George Robert Evans, arguably the leading artists in the colony.

This comparatively ambitious project involved importing both drawing paper and watercolour paints into New South Wales, and the resulting work offers an intriguing snapshot of how what was meant as a penal colony, a place of punitive retribution, could be perceived as something very different.

The lecture will also investigate the role of scrapbooks more generally, and how the watercolours commissioned by Paterson for his own have a significant biographical significance.”

Michael Rosenthal BA, PhD (London), MA (Cantab) studied at the Courtauld Institute, and was Leverhulme Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, before arriving at Warwick, where he has remained for 35 years. He has held various fellowships in Australia and the US, and was lead curator of the Gainsborough exhibition at Tate Britain in 2002. Michael Rosenthal is currently undertaking research towards a second book on colonial Australia titled Governor Macquarie’s Culture.

WHEN:  Thursday 9 May 2013, 5.45pm for 6pm

WHERE:  Newcastle City Hall (Concert Hall)

This a FREE public lecture open to the community

Registration is essential as seats are limited.

RSVP:  Monday 29 April 2013

EMAIL:   enquiries@weahunter.com.au

PHONE:  02 4925 4200

Professor Rosenthal delivered a paper on Edward Charles Close during the 2012 History Seminar Series. See: http://coalriver.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/professor-michael-rosenthal-on-edward-charles-close/

Newcastle in 1887 – The Knaggs Map

Plan of the Port of Newcastle: reduced from recent surveys by officers of the Harbours & Rivers Department ; outer soundings by Captn. F.W. Sidney, R.N. ; inner soundings corrected to June 1879 / Lithographed by Forster & Co., 2 Crow Street, Dublin, Ireland. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia

 

This is an excellent plan of the City and Port of Newcastle (Australia) in 1887 and published by R.C.Knagg’s & Co., Nautical Stationers and Chart-sellers, Newcastle, N.S.W. It shows the soundings of the harbour, the various harbour and earth works underway, details of the vegetation and landscape of Newcastle.

This plan is an excellent key to understanding the Aboriginal landscape of Newcastle as it shows the ancient dune system that ran from Cottage Creek, around Steel Street with its central point being the Cook’s Hill (on Laman Street). The swamps later became the site of the No 1 Sports Ground and is where Aboriginal people hunted for food. On the surrounding dune they were born, lived and were buried over millenia. In 1881 a set of Aboriginal burials was unearthed on Parry Street and on the edge of the ancient dune system. More on this story is here: http://coalriver.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/aboriginal-burial-ground-discovered-on-parry-street/

The original map is held in the National Library of Australia http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1671314

Gionni Di Gravio
University Archivist and Chair, Coal River Working Party
11 April 2013

Newcastle’s 7000 Years of Achievements Before The Commonwealth

Joseph Lycett – Corroboree at Newcastle c.1818 (Courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales)

To co-incide with the spectacular Treasures of Newcastle from the Macquarie Era exhibition, currently on display at the Newcastle Art Gallery, the University’s Coal River Working Party has submitted a nomination for national recognition for Newcastle’s 7000 years of historic achievements to the Commonwealth of Australia.

Newcastle’s birthplace, the Coal River (Mulubinba) and Government Doman have been nominated for inclusion in the National Heritage List, which is a record of places in Australia that have outstanding natural, Indigenous or historic heritage values for the nation.

Locations of Coal River (Mulubinba) and Government Domain sites (Compiled by Mr Russell Rigby)

Nominating a place for the National Heritage List means identifying its national heritage values and providing supporting evidence.

The submission provides compelling evidence of  Newcastle’s history, spanning 7000 years of human habitation. It provides documentary evidence that Newcastle’s Coal River (Mulubinba) and Government Domain is the site of:

- Australia’s first discoveries (1791 and 1796), first export (1799) and first profit (1801) of a natural resource (i.e. coal) in this country.

- Australia’s first full length autobiography and dictionary compiled by James Hardy Vaux in 1811-1814.

- First systematic study of an Aboriginal language anywhere in the country by Biraban, Chief of the Newcastle Tribe (now known as the Awabakal) and the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld and published in a series of works from 1826 to 1892. This is one example of the unique cultural relationship that is mirrored here between Aboriginal and Colonial peoples.

- Australia’s “Cultural Capital” during the Macquarie era from 1810 to 1821 that led to the creation of artistic objects and works of world significance such as the Macquarie Chest, Wallis Album, Skottowe manuscript, notable engravings and paintings.

- Australia’s first environmental action in 1853-1854 on behalf of a community to protect a natural landform (Nobbys)

- Australia’s first Industrial School for Girls, and later, the first hospital for “Imbeciles and idiots”.

- The important transitions in Australia’s journey to nationhood; from government industry to private enterprise, from convict to free labour, from punishment to profit, from a natural to a human-fashioned landscape. The landscape tells these stories in a dramatic fashion; through its changing landforms shaped by the demands of industry, through its archaeological remains intact and in situ, and through the continued and inescapable presence of a bustling working harbour.

The full submission can be downloaded here:

NATIONAL NOMINATION FOR NEWCASTLE’S COAL RIVER (MULUBINBA) AND GOVERNMENT DOMAIN (3.3MB PDF FILE)

Cover of Treasures Exhibition Catalogue

We also urge all Novocastrians to also visit the current exhibition at the Newcastle Art Gallery that contains many of Newcastle’s cultural treasures, some of which have not been back here since they were created over 195 years ago. They are not only of national significance, but of international significance, and it is important that all Novocastrians get a chance to see them, even those who have never ventured into a gallery before.

A list of activities can be accessed here:

http://www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au/nag/exhibitions/present/artist/treasures_of_newcastle

The Exhibition Catalogue can be downloaded from here:

http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/events/exhibitions/2013/treasures_newcastle/docs/treasures_newcastle_catalogue.pdf

or here:

TREASURES OF NEWCASTLE FROM THE MACQUARIE ERA CATALOGUE (5 MB PDF FILE)

We urge all Novocastrians past and present to support this nomination for Newcastle. We believe recognition for Newcastle’s place in the Australian story needs to be acknowledged and restored. This is long overdue.

I wish to thank my Coal River Working Party colleagues, especially Ann Hardy, Dr Brian Walsh, Russell Rigby, Kerrie Brauer, and Professor Erik Eklund (Monash University) and Dr David Roberts (University of New England) for their support and work for this nomination.

We hope that our efforts bear fruit.

Gionni Di Gravio
University Archivist and Chair, Coal River Working Party

Lake Macquarie in 1907

Captain Ernest Snowden Deed – Map of Lake Macquarie 1907-1908. Courtesy of the Cultural Collections University of Newcastle (Australia)

DEED, CAPTAIN ERNEST SNOWDEN (NEWCASTLE PILOT)
Deposited by Mrs Diana Stephenson (Grand daughter)
February 2007
MAP: M4802
TITLE: Lake Macquarie
CARTOGRAPHER: Captain Ernest Snowden Deed
DATE: 1907-1908
SCALE: 40 chs 2 inches = 1 mile (land mile)
FORMAT: Laminated Linen
SUBJECT/ AREA/ FEATURES: Original hand drawn map on linen, with annotations in pen and pencil and including depth soundings from across Lake Macquarie.
NOTES: Captain Deed was assisted by his two sons Captain Ernest James Deed and Captain Allan William Deed. Contains two news clippings from the Newcastle Herald.

The original map above was donated by Mrs Diana Stephenson, grand daughter of the late Captain Ernest Snowden Deed, a Newcastle Pilot, who during the summer of 1907-1908, undertook a detailed survey of Lake Macquarie with his two eldest sons.

It was donated in 2007,  100 years after it was created, and we sincerely thank her for entrusting this regional treasure into the custody of the University of Newcastle, and in making it available to historical researchers across the world. The map is provided for personal research use.

Gionni Di Gravio
University Archivist and Chair, Coal River Working Party

_________________________

Here is the text of a newsclipping from the Newcastle Herald:

Sounding out the lake
Newcastle Herald (Australia) – Thursday, July 20, 2000 pp. 13-15

An old map of Lake Macquarie tells us something about what the lake looked like in the years immediately following 1907-08.

It was a time when the permanent population of Lake Macquarie was small and when most of its residents were to be found near the established townships, such as Belmont, Swansea, Cardiff, Teralba, Boolaroo, Toronto, Cooranbong and Morisset.

It was also the time when a Newcastle Harbour pilot, Captain E.S. Deed , and his family spent school holidays at the family weekender at Carey Bay.

One of their pastimes was sailing the family’s yawl, the Black Angel (later the Seabird).

In the summer of 1907-08 Captain Deed went sailing with his two eldest sons, Neville, then 9, and Ernest, 7. They had with them a rough linen chart of the lake and a lead line. And what began as a bit of fun became a annual summer hobby.

For during that summer of 1907-08, the two boys began to swing the lead, taking soundings of the lake ‘s depth while their father noted the results on the chart.

Over the next few summers, and with the later help of another son, Alan, the Deeds sounded most of Lake Macquarie .

Over the ensuing summers the yawl – a former cutter from a British warship – sailed from one end of the lake to the other. Additional information was added to the chart such as the location of sheltered bays, tidal effects at the lake entrance, and the spots where the family stopped for picnics.

The map has several interesting and unusual features.

Snake Point, near Valentine, was named at the time the young Ernest stepped ashore and found a coiled snake. Marjory’s Bay, south of Summerland Point, was named after the sister of the three boys and was entered on the chart as a ‘clean, sandy beach’.

When Black Angel entered Dora creek it was noted to ‘keep right hand bank opposite fir tree and cottages’. On Pulbah Island there was Pulpit Rock and Deed ‘s Landing. The latter was listed as ‘good landing here on a rock sheltered from N.E., E. and S.E. winds’.

Some of the names of bays and other places that appear are rarely seen or remembered these days. Among them are Shelsea (given as the name for Nord’s Wharf), Copper Point, Bareena Bay, and Tree Point. Green Point is listed as a ‘good clean landing’ site while at Coal Point there is a note on ‘demolished coal jetty chute’.

The Deed family’s summer hobby continued until 1914.

Captain Deed later was harbourmaster at Newcastle (1926-34). Four of five Deed sons went to sea. Ernest went to sea at a young age and over a 23-year period he was master of eight ships. He joined what was then the Maritime Services Board of NSW and followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming harbourmaster at Newcastle from 1957 until his retirement in 1966. He died in 1982.

In August, 1974, a retired Captain Ernest Deed with the assistance of Mr Charlie Hollis, of Marks Point, again took soundings of part of the lake , covering a small area sounded by his father, his brother and his younger self way back in 1907-08.

Overlay of 1907-1908 Survey with 2013 Google Earth Imagery of lake Macquarie

Port Stephens in 1828

Plan of the Australian Agricultural Company’s grant at Port Stephens,
New South Wales. (London: J. Cross, 1828). Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.

The Alexander Turnbull Library, The National Library of New Zealand,  in Wellington New Zealand holds a copy of The Plan of the Australian Agricultural Company’s grant at Port Stephens, New South Wales. (London: J. Cross, 1828). Scale 1: 126 720. Size: 112 x 72 cm
Reference Number: MapColl -817gbbd/1828/Acc.10 Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.

Gionni Di Gravio
University Archivist and Chair, University of Newcastle’s Coal River Working Party

Newcastle in 1830

The Alexander Turnbull Library, The National Library of New Zealand,  in Wellington New Zealand holds what we believe is the best-ever early map of the township of Newcastle. The map, at Shelf Location MapColl 817.95gbbe/1830/Acc.3580 was drawn by Surveyor John Armstrong, an employee of the Australian Agricultural Company, in 1830, and shows every building and every small detail in the early Town of Newcastle. How it ended up in New Zealand is still a mystery.

The National Library of New Zealand kindly forwarded to us two high-resolution (transparencies). Our earlier scans of this plan are here  Plan of the Town of Newcastle New South Wales shewing it’s present actual state with part of the adjoining Country, and the coal works of The Australian Agricultural Company from a Careful Survey in 1830 by Jno. Armstrong. (Courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)

These transparencies were recently re-scanned and we present the plan for you below as a 12.4MB jpg file:

Plan of the Town of Newcastle New South Wales shewing it’s present actual state with part of the adjoining Country, and the coal works of The Australian Agricultural Company from a Careful Survey in 1830 by Jno. Armstrong. (Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.)

In addition, a companion to this plan, showing the transverse sections indicated in the map above was prepared by J. Henderson and J. Armstrong and entitled:

J. Henderson & J. Armstrong. View of four different sections taken in the coalfield at Newcastle, New South Wales [ms map]; shewing the different strata which occur there & all spots which have been bored with the Engine Pit etc. of the Australian Agricultural Company. 1830. Scale 1: 2 376. Scale of heights 1:360. 73 x 127 cm. Shelf Location: MapColl os817gbhm/1830/Acc.3327 (Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.) It is presented below as a 5.8MB jpg file.

View of four different sections taken in the coalfield at Newcastle, New South Wales 1830. (Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.)

These plans, along with the survey sketches of Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1828, and the paintings by Edward Charles Close and Joseph Lycett from the 1820s are our most trustworthy renderings of the Newcastle landscape at the time. We are currently using these drawings with our 3D Visual artist, Charles Martin, who with Russell Rigby are creating a 3D Newcastle which we hope we can again visit in time through the marvels of digital technology.

Gionni Di Gravio
University Archivist and Chair, University of Newcastle’s Coal River Working Party.

Kooragang Island in 1871

Australia East coast New South Wales 1871 Hunter River surveyed by J.T.Gowlland assisted by J.F. Loxton (Courtesy of the National Library of Australia)

It may come as a surprise that our modern day Kooragang Island is a creation of industry. Prior to the 1950s the Hunter Estuary was home to many islands.

The map above is housed in the National Library of Australia under the title of Australia East Coast New South Wales : Hunter River surveyed by J.T.Gowlland  assisted by J.F. Loxton 1871. Scale [ca.1:12 160] [Sydney : S.T.Leigh & Co. Lith], 1871. 1 map : col. ; 87.5 x 176 cm. Ferguson Collection Map F 863. See: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3014507

It is a map of the Hunter River from the township of Raymond Terrace to Newcastle showing cultivation, vegetation, coal piers, inn, saltworks, oyster bank and Walleroo Copper Co. smelting works. Relief shown by bathymetric soundings and hachures.

Starting at Raymond Terrace, then on to Kinross, along the Parish of Alnwick, as the Hunter River splits into the North Arm (known as the Hexham Reach, then along past Tomago to Windeyer Reach along the Parish of Stockton, and the South Channel along the the Parish of Hexham. To the north in the Parish of Stockton lie Cabbage Tree and Forest Swamp, Fullerton Cove, Dunn’s Island, Wallis Island, Smith’s Island, Sandy island, Mangrove Island.

In between the two arms of the Hunter River emerge Ash Island, Upper Moscheto, Moscheto Island, separated by Moscheto Channel, Dempsey Island, separated by Dempsey Channel, through to Spit Island (with the unmarked Platt’s Channel). The “ancient road to the interior” the Maitland Road is shown as a straight line to Newcastle past the township of Waratah with Railway line.

As we approach the North Harbour of Newcastle can be found the Spectacle Islands and Bullock Island lying adjacent to Throsby Creek, before we make out way to The Horseshoe (later to become Horseshoe Beach?) and the Oyster Bank.

All of the islands were industrially “glued” together with slag and other industrial pollutants and refuse as a convenient dumping ground to create our modern day Kooragang Island. As the backbone of the Australian Industrial establishment arrived in the form of B.H.P. and its companion industries, they transformed what was then seen as useless swamp lands along the south arm of the Hunter River, into Industrial heartlands. The river and islands were re-designed, modified and sculptured by engineers to enable it to function as an industrial port.

Gionni Di Gravio

University Archivist and Chair Coal River Working Party

Awaba or Lake Macquarie in 1841

Heritage Map of Lake Macquarie or Awaba with geological locations (NSW Department of Trade and Investment)

This gem of a chart of Awaba or Lake Macquarie was located in the DIGS database this morning by our colleague Mr Russell Rigby.

It is an historical chart or map of Lake Macquarie with geological locations marked including Aboriginal place names. The database says that the outline was sketched by W. Procter from his examination in August 1841 and base printed by W. Baker Lithographer, King Street Sydney. Extensive notes were possibly made by the Reverend W. B. Clarke regarding rock outcrops and the location of fossils.

Of particular note is the fossil forest that is referred to by the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld as Kurra-Kurran. For further information on this petrified forest please consult the following resource “Fossil Pine Forest, Lake Macquarie: Compiled by Michael Organ, with assistance from John Byrnes” (14 April 2009) Available online here: http://www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/forest.htm

On Michael Organ’s page is a link to a online resource by Mr John Byrnes which leads to a dead link. We have retrieved the original document from the Internet Archive, and can be accessed here:

“Kurrur Kurran ~ Seeking all aspects connected with A Fossil Forest at Fennell Bay (NW corner of Lake Macquarie)” by John Byrnes (4.7MB PDF File)

Heritage Map of Lake Macquarie or Awaba with geological locations (Courtesy of NSW Department of Trade and Investment)

The place names and annotations recorded on the chart include:

AWABA (an extra ‘a’ is included in ink) or LAKE MACQUARIE

THE OCEAN

“Broughton’s Point” (Now Bolton’s Point)

‘Fossil trees’ are marked in ink further along towards what is now Fennel’s Bay. On the inset map this is marked in ink as “Kurran Kurran” and the Toronto-Coal Point peninsula marked “Tirabeenba”

“Ebenezer Colliery” and “Wharf” at modern day Coal Point.

The possible site of Reverend Threlkeld’s Mission House is also illustrated with a drawing of a house at modern day Toronto.

In ink are the words “Tree Fossil Beds” on the southern coastline and the words “Tir abeenba” over the peninsula of what is now modern Coal Point and Carey Bay. Compare this name for the peninsula  with another recorded by Henry Dangar in 1828 as “Derahbamtbah” See: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2787133

“Erraring Bay”

“Wangee Wangee” (Wangi Wangi)

“Pulbah I[slan]d” and inside the island is printed “Burregorons I[slan]d” – is this a reference to Burigon, one time Chief of the Newcastle Tribe circa 1820?

“Point Woolstoncroft”

“Point Morrissett”

“Moon I[slan]d” is marked further down to the south of Catherine Hill Bay. Russell Rigby adds “there are several references in the 19th century to Moon Island as an area south of Catherine Hill Bay (hence Moonee Beach and Moonee Colliery) – now Flat Rocks?”

Further up coast is marked in ink “Wabung Head” at the southern end of Catherine Hill Bay

In pen adjacent to coastline is marked “Sand dunes Conglomerate Shales & Lignite Beds with trap dykes & faults”

Adjacent to present day Catherine Hill Bay is marked in illegible pen “Punibbo(?) Rozinba(?)”

“Coolocoolo” in ink near present day Caves Beach

Along present day Swansea is marked in ink “Fossil Tree Beds” & “Reefs”

Where Moon Island is today is marked in ink as “Nirritin I[slan]d” and below “Grits & Sand & Stones”

“Reid’s Mistake” (“Victoria Bay” in ink is marked)

“Shoal Point”

“Neck(?)” near modern day Black Ned’s Bay

“Keep Clear Point”

“Pelican Island”, in ink is marked close by “Mud Island”

“Canoe Point” and nearby in ink is marked “Kahiba” (close to “Kahibah” in Dangar’s 1828 Map see: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2787133 )

“Fishing Point”

“Red Head”

In pen is marked “Coal Series(?)”

“Moderately elevated” is marked in pen along the coastline

In pen along coastline towards Red Head is marked “Sandy Dunes and Beach of blown? sand & shells”

“Three Hammocks”

“Flat Point”

The pen annotation on the side of the map – “The serious gale of April 1842 completely altered the entrance into the Lake WBC[?]“

Pen annotation near scale bar “incorrect scale”

Pen annotation top right corner (near Redhead) “33 [degrees] S”

There are also very faint & indecipherable pencil annotations in margin of map – we will need to see original to adequately decipher those.

There is also a square pencil grid drawn on map – was this done for reproduction at different size/scale?

1841 Awaaba Map overlay in Google Earth

KUR-RUR-KUR-RÁN  (Threlkeld 1834) “Forest of Petrified Trees”

Kur-rur-kur-rán (Kurrurkurrán) – The name of a place, in which there is, almost, a forest of petrifactions of wood, of various sizes extremely well defined. Situated in a bay at the N. W. extremity of Lake Macquarie. The tradition of the Aborigines is, that formerly it was one large rock which fell from the heavens and killed a number of blacks, which were assembled where it descended, they being collected together in that spot by command of an immense Guana, which came down from heaven for that purpose. In consequence of his anger at their having killed lice by roasting them in the fire, those who had killed the vermin by cracking, were previously speared to death by him with a long reed from Heaven! At that remote period the moon was a man named Pón-to-bung (Póntobung) , hence the moon is called he to the present day; and the sun being formerly a woman, retains the feminine pronoun she:. When the Guana saw all the men were killed by the fall of the stone, he ascended up into heaven, where he is supposed now to remain.
- Threlkeld, L. E. (Lancelot Edward), 1788-1859. An Australian grammar : comprehending the principles and natural rules of the language, as spoken by the Aborigines in the vicinity of Hunter’s River, Lake Macquarie, &c. New South Wales. Sydney : Printed by Stephens and Stokes, 1834. (p. 85)

Kurra Kurrarn is Blackalls Bay at the north-western extremity of the Lake, and is known as a site of water-covered pertrified forest. Large numbers of petrified wood pieces have been removed from the shallow waters and used to form front fences at homes in Blackalls Park.

According to the Awabakal legend, as told by Threlkeld, a huge rock fell from the shy and killed a number of natives assembled there by the command of an immense iguana, who had descended from the heavens to call these natives together. This reptilian spirit (a rare mention of reptile life in this form) was angry because natives had killed lice by roasting them on a fire. (These were probably a type of sea lice that occasionally invade Lake Macquarie). The iguana had previously dealt with natives who had killed lice by cracking them. This the iguana did by spearing them to death with a long reed from heaven.
- Percy Haslam Papers A5410(i) leave 4

Gionni Di Gravio
University Archivist and Chair of the Coal River Working Party