History of the City
If it hadn't been for a heavy surf Captain Cook would have made his first landing in NSW within the Illawarra, though he did note, in his log book, the attractive appearance of the shore and the presence of Aborigines - the Wodi Wodi tribe, who had been in the area for at least 20 000 years. He also named 'Red Point' (Port Kembla) and 'a round hill top of which look'd like the Crown of a hatt' (Mount Kembla), subsequently called 'Hat Hill' by Flinders. Cook continued north and landed at Botany Bay the following day.
The first Europeans to officially set foot in the vicinity and to meet the Aborigines of the Illawarra (who claimed that there were already several whites, presumably escaped convicts, living amongst them) were explorers George Bass and Matthew Flinders and their servant William Martin in 1796. Sailing south in the tiny Tom Thumb their boat was overturned at Towradgi Point.
In search of fresh water and a place to dry their powder and mend a broken oar they stopped at what is now Port Kembla where they were approached by two Aborigines who led them to Lake Illawarra. There numerous others gathered on the shore and during an encounter Flinders gave a number of the locals a shave in an attempt to play for time and defuse hostilities.
The small islands off Port Kembla they named 'Martin Islands' in honour of William Martin's baling efforts, which kept their bark afloat at a crucial moment. However, the name did not stick and 'Five Islands' was the title bestowed not only upon them but upon the entire region in the early colonial days. The party then camped at a point probably just north of Bellambi Point before returning to Sydney.
The following year the survivors of the wreck of the Sydney Cove passed through the area. The ship had developed a leak and beached on the Furneaux Islands in Bass Strait. Seventeen of the crew set out by boat for help but were wrecked at Point Hicks in Victoria and continued the journey by land. Only three survived the harrowing trip to Sydney, thereby becoming the first Europeans to make an overland trip in Australia of any duration.
Bass initially made an eight-day trip with two of the Cove's men intended to search out two crewmen left behind in the Illawarra and to investigate the survivors' reports of coal. This Bass found at Coalcliff and elsewhere at the northern end of the Illawarra, though it would be fifty years before the seams of the Illawarra were exploited. Later that year , in another voyage, Bass visited Wollongong Harbour.
In 1803 a Captain Nicholls shipped cattle into the Shellharbour district when the Sydney area was in drought. In 1804 Captain Kent was authorised to explore the South Coast and botanist Robert Brown also visited the region some time between 1800 and 1805.
In 1805 surveyor James Meehan noted the tremendous stands of huge red cedar trees in the area. The (illegal) pillaging of the South Coast's timber reserves to feed the demand in Sydney for softwoods appears to have commenced around 1810.
In 1815 Charles Throsby and party hacked a track from Liverpool to the Illawarra escarpment and down through an area near Bulli Pass to confirm what his Aboriginal guides had told him: that here was excellent pasturage. He soon returned with his livestock and set up the first stockman's hut at what is now the corner of Smith and Harbour Streets, Wollongong.
Others followed and Governor Macquarie sent John Oxley down to survey the area and negotiate free land grants with the graziers. However, few of the landowners initially took up residence, instead leaving stockmen in charge, who lived in crude makeshift dwellings.
Conflict arose with the local Aborigines and, in 1826, a contingent of soldiers was sent to reinforce the claims of the settlers and perhaps to assert order amongst the unruly timber-getters. They established themselves at Port Kembla (the first land grant being made in that area in 1817) but moved on to Wollongong in 1829. Their presence represented the effective founding of townships at those two sites. Cases were initially heard in the commandant's tent and in a slab hut from 1830. The first church services were held in 1831 and the first hotel opened c.1833. Although the land was originally set aside for grazing, agriculture (mostly grains and potatoes) soon asserted itself.
The town plan was gazetted in 1834 and the first regular steamship service to Sydney began that year. Convict labour was used to cut a path down Mt Keira in 1835-36 and to carve a safe harbour out between 1837 and 1844 so that passengers could step rather than wade ashore. Dairying developed in the region in the 1840s as cedar supplies were trailing off. The first government school opened in 1851 and the newspaper the Illawarra Mercury was established in 1855. Henry Kendall, one of Australia's most-noted 19th-century poets, lived in what is now Fairy Meadow or Corrimal in the 1850s and wrote a number of poems about his experience of the area.
In 1856 the population of Wollongong was recorded as 864. The Bulli Pass route, investigated in 1844, was opened to wheeled traffic in 1868. The railway arrived in 1887.
More importantly, the region's first coal mine commenced operations at Mt Keira in 1849. As steam power developed and was applied to shipping and manufactures the demand for coal increased and, by 1880, there were ten mines along the Illawarra escarpment, giving birth to a string of mining villages which now constitute the northern suburbs of the City of Greater Wollongong. As exports accelerated there was a need for improved transportation, processing and port facilities. Tramways were laid from two of the mines to Wollongong Harbour to transport coal skips which were drawn first by horses and later by locomotives.
In the 1860s Belmore Basin was constructed at Wollongong Harbour. However, even this proved inadequate. By 1885 1600 ships passed through the harbour every year.
Work commenced on the establishment of a smelting works on the western shore of Lake Illawarra in 1895 and harbour facilities were developed at Shellharbour. However, the smelting operation ran into financial trouble and was transferred to Port Kembla in 1906, which soon emerged as the main port. Its shipping history began in 1883 when a jetty was erected to service the output from the Mount Kembla mine, the source of the port's name.
Work on the inner and outer harbours commenced at Port Kembla in 1898. A cokeworks was followed by copper refining in 1908, metal manufacturing in 1918, fertiliser production in 1921 and, most crucially, in 1928, Hoskins Iron and Steel transferred its operations from Lithgow to Port Kembla. This led to considerable expansion of operations and of the fledgling township of Port Kembla. BHP purchased the venture in 1935 and immigration after World War II fed the labour needs of what has become the largest steelworks in Australia and the largest steelworks owned by BHP anywhere in the world.
The influx of migrants caused a rapid population increase and fostered a highly multicultural community. World recession and rationalization in the 1980s led to significant unemployment in the region. Today, fishing, manufacturing, textiles, clothing and tourism supplement the income provided by the steelworks, coalmining and dairying.
Noted British novelist D.H. Lawrence lived in the Illawarra in 1922 while writing Kangaroo (see entry on Thirroul).
Local festivals include Seafood and Sail at Wollongong Harbour in mid-February and Harbourfest, held in May at Port Kembla Harbour with a street parade, fireworks, live entertainment, street theatre, children's activities, a waterskiing display and a circus. Folklorica in June is a multicultural celebration with parade that centres around Wollongong's city centre. The Wollongong Visitor Centre has a comprehensive cultural services and facilities directory.
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