David Shoebridge is a Greens representative in the NSW Legislative Council. He would like to pay tribute to the research of the Coal River Working Party and especially the work of Roslyn Kerr and Gionni Di Gravio in uncovering this history.
WHAT would you do if the NSW government hatched a plan to blow up Nobbys Head?
Would you get active?
Would you form a local action group and petition your government to stop this reckless plan?
Thankfully you don’t have to confront these questions because 160 years ago a group of Novocastrians took just such a stand.In saving Nobbys Head, these citizens were part of the first recorded campaign to save a precious part of Australia’s natural environment. It is well and truly time we remembered their pioneering efforts.For the Awabakal people, Nobbys is known as Whibayganba.
Before Europeans came to Newcastle, Whibayganba was an island. It was known as a site rich in resources for hunting and fishing.
It also holds an important place in the stories of the Dreaming as the place where a renegade giant kangaroo hid itself from its pursuers and whose occasional movements are still felt as tremors and falling rocks.
For Europeans, the site also became significant. By the early 1800s, what was then known as Nobbys Island had become an integral part of a burgeoning port, providing a landmark for coastal navigation and essential shelter from southerly busters for the colony’s growing shipping fleet.
For almost 30 years from 1818, teams of convict labourers built a breakwater linking Nobbys Island with the southern shore of the mainland. Then came the push to build a lighthouse to mark the entrance to the harbour.
Plans were discussed and a Select Committee of the Legislative Council was established to recommend how it was to be done.
On August 31, 1852 the committee delivered a report recommending a radical approach.
In order to get a nice stable rock platform to build a lighthouse and to stop the bulk of Nobbys Head from blocking an on-shore breeze and becalming sailing ships in the harbour, the NSW government would simply blow the top off Nobbys.
The proposal was accepted and work began almost immediately.
By April 1853, a team of 30 convicts was tunnelling deep into Nobbys Head. In May, the colony’s civil engineering office ordered 17tonnes of gunpowder and 150yards of fuse to ‘‘blast the rock in order to reduce it to the proper level’’. By November, the blast chambers were almost ready.
But strong local opposition to the project had begun to form.
Leading the charge to protect Nobbys was John Bingle, a local land and ship owner. He was joined by a diverse group of concerned Newcastle residents, shipmasters and traders wary of the impact on the harbour and surrounding land.
By late November 1853, they had presented the first petition to save a natural landmark to the NSW parliament.
The 49 petitioners from Newcastle told their government: ‘‘That your Memorialists have been informed that it is intended to destroy the said Promontory by means of Gunpowder, and two chambers are already excavated in it for that purpose.
‘‘Your Memorialists therefore humbly request, Your Excellency will cause enquiry to be made in the premises, in order that the Promontory may be preserved for the purposes of shelter, and of erecting a Light House thereon.’’
In July 1854, with the help of influential Sydney businessman and merchant Mr George Thorn
e, the plan to blow up Nobbys was temporarily halted and the matte
In November 1854, the committee handed down its report and concluded: ‘That the proposed lighthouse should be erected on the top of Nobby, and that that island should be merely prepared by levelling and thus making a ledge a few feet below its present summit. The adoption of this course will, it is believed, combine all the advantages which have been suggested as desirable by retaining the island for a landmark … but as preventing the necessity for making explosions, the idea of which has caused so much apprehension among the residents at Newcastle.’’r was referred to a fresh parliamentary committee.This recommendation, which so neatly matched the public mood in Newcastle, was readily adopted and, after more than a year of struggle, Nobbys was saved.
With present-day Newcastle facing its own challenges from a 2013 state government keen on delivering radical change, it is timely to remember the role of protest in saving many of the places we cherish.
It was 160 years ago that a group of committed citizens saved Nobbys Head and kept the kangaroo from being blasted out of his hiding place.
We all need to remember these victories and to respect the collective power of communities when we are campaigning in the 21st century.
Read the original article in the Newcastle Herald here.