In 1893 William Brownlee of Tongarra started
mining a coal seam on hisproperty.The Albion Park Butter Factory had opened
inCalderwood Road and in 1894 William sold his coal to the factory for their
machinery operations. William built a cottage of local sandstone for his family
which still stands today.
The coal at Tongarra was regarded as being of
the best quality and was put on par with Newcastle. William Brownlee was able
to sell the coal to operate the machinery at the creamery.
After years of traveling to the mine atop the
coal trucks, the miners demanded a bus. WJ Harris who ran a car hire service in
town, put ona bus for them in 1945. Claude Harris (WJ Harris’ son) drove the 52
miners every morning from 1945-1960. It was a wild road up to the mine and
there wasn’t any room to pass coal trucks coming down. Claude would often have
to back the bus all the way down to the bottom of the bank to let the trucks
pass. Claude would leave the bus up at the mine and ride a Norton motorbike
back down again. He would ride back up to the mine on the bike to pick up the
miners again. He would leave his motorbike in one of the mine tunnels
overnight. He has fond recollections of the mine -
The Miners
Contract miners were paid by the amount of
coal they produced. Miners worked in pairs with a small lamp on their cap to
see what they were doing. Coal was dug out with picks and shovelled into wooden
skips. A small pony would pull the skip along the rails to ‘The Flat’ where it
was attached to a steel cable and pulled to the surface by a winch.
Billy Break
The miners would open the boiler and stick in
the Billy to boil the water. When it was boiled they would add tea leaves and
then put in back in the boiler to brew.
Blasting the
Coal
The coal seam was only 4’6’’ high and the
miners could not stand upright. The men would come out of the mine at the end
of the day holding their backs. At times, coal was blasted out. Shots were
fired into hard sections of the wall by drilling holes, ramming in the powder,
hiding around the corner and then firing the shots with the detonator.
Smoko
Smoking was a little bit common in the mines
in those days but it was very illegal. Then there’d be a scare! The management
would be waiting for the miners to walk out of the pit and there would be a
smoke and matches search.
Snakes
Snakes were up there everywhere. Bill Thomas
used to travel on the bus to the mine and used to feed a pet diamond python in
the bathroom every morning. Jack Brownlee used to catch snakes up there - black
ones, brown ones and diamond snakes. The men would bring these home on the bus.
‘Tongarra Mine since 1945’ Claude Harris in
‘A Short History of Tongarra Mine’ The Tongarra Heritage Society, 1996
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Tongarra Mine Site 1958.
Shellharbour Images, Shellharbour City Libraries. |
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Tongarra Mine Storeroom after a landslide c.1955.
Shellharbour Images, Shellharbour City Libraries. |
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Tongarra Mine Workers in the 1950s.
J Noon, O Timbs, C Dawes.
Shellharbour Images, Shellharbour City Libraries. |
