Newcastle is a prosperous and modern city boasting excellent accommodation, entertainment, shopping and transport facilities. The beaches of Newcastle are world renowned. It has a vibrant nightlife, and great Aussie Pubs.

Newcastle people have developed from a diverse mix of cultures and art into the "Novocastrian". A hard working legacy and will to excel. Many business and sporting legends have come from Newcastle. Newcastle has become over 200 years the largest export port in Australia and has only been possible due to hard work and Coal. Newcastle has a large metropolis with a lot of pubs. Why? Coal!

Newcastle has an interesting history, and so do the pubs.

The Hunter River was noted by Cook in 1770 but virtually forgotten until rediscovered by Lieutenant John Shortland in 1797 while chasing runaway convicts from Sydney (Farm Cove). He noticed coal outcrops in cliff faces of Nobbys (Coal Island) and the southern headland. This was a momentous discovery. Samples were taken back to Sydney and found to be of very high quality. Governor Hunter apparently did not react to this discovery. The news however soon got around the colony and prompted enterprising colonialists to sail up and chip out coals and sell them for a tidy price.

A new administrator however, did react. Governor King finally ordered a settlement be made at Coal River to mine coals in 1801 but it was abandoned in 1802 due to poor conditions. In 1804 following a violent riot by convicts at Castle Hill it was decided to set up a permanent penal colony at Coal River for the worst re-offenders in the colony and use them as miners. Most of these convicts were of Irish origin and had far more agricultural knowledge than mining experience so it was slow going. There was no machinery of any sort, only hand tools, a few horses and, of course, gunpowder.

The settlement became known as Kings Town but was renamed Newcastle shortly thereafter to reflect the coal region in England of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The river was renamed the Hunter River after Kings predecessor. Convict labour was used in the construction of sandstone buildings for administration and housing, the building of their own gaol, mining of coal from a pit on the southern headland and lime-burning at Stockton to produce mortar from oyster shells. A break-wall was commenced to Nobbys Island. Conditions were harsh and the lash plentiful. By 1820 the town had 7 streets with about 13 government buildings, 70 houses and a population of approx 700, of which there were only 3 or so free settlers. The town had, as with all old English towns, a Common, much of which has since been settled but the Broadmeadow as it was known, still has the racecourse, football stadium, schools and parks as a legacy. The salty alluvial ground in the Common was poor for crop growing and livestock grazing. This didn't stop squatters taking up land here and eventually being allowed to purchase this land under the 1861 Crown Lands Alienation Act.

Alcohol was banned for all convicts but the government officials and officers of the NSW Corp were allowed to imbibe, and in fact they imported many thousands of gallons of rum from England in these years as there was a ban on local distilling imposed by British parliament until the 1840's. There was a huge demand for alcohol among the government gentry and army ranks, rum was considered a food or a supplement for water and this ideology stemmed from the polluted drinking waters in English cities, suffice to say many alcoholic officials came to Australia. Rum per alcohol volume was by far easier to transport than beer or ale. Illegal stills abounded as did a watered down product known locally as grog, which was sold by army personnel at a huge profit, to convicts and settlers alike. To counter this contraband trade the government legislated to allow the establishment of inns, to be privately built, which were to be licensed by the Crown, be supplied liquor only by the Crown, and of course be taxed by the Crown. Strict regulations were enforced. Some inns were established in towns but many were scattered along the roads in between the towns. The standard distance between these isolated inns was about 20 miles which was then a fair days ride. Many existing NSW towns and some ghost towns originated around these inns. Inns had to have at least 2 rooms for board and lodgings plus feed and stabling for 4 horses.

In the convict years Newcastle would not have had an inn but instead a wet barracks for the army corps. Inns were established at Hexham, Maitland and thereon towards the upper Hunter towns. Newcastle has many old sandstone buildings from those early convict days. Fort Scratchley on the southern headland was built in the early days to defend the harbour against pirates. It was upgraded with heavy artillery during WW1 and actually saw action when Newcastle was bombed by a Japanese submarine during WW2. Newcastle ceased to be a penal colony in 1823. It was considered too close to Sydney and an easy escape to newly developed farmlands in the Maitland region, a new hard labour penal settlement was established at Port Macquarie. This is where the infamous Australian Agricultural Company stepped in.

The Australian Agricultural Company was not Australian at all, it was a consortium of 'English Lords and Business Gentlemen', who through an act of British parliament in 1824 were granted 1 million acres in NSW to develop beef, sheep, grain, flax and even opium production in the colony for export back to England, which was very deficient in these commodities. None of these original investors probably ever set foot in Australia but sent a delegate who acted as a Commissioner and decided where they would take up their grant and run their affairs. The area of land first decided on included some 450,000 acres north of Newcastle from Port Stephens to the Hastings River and west to the Barringtons. It was soon apparent this region was ill suited to farming except for some areas which later became Stroud and Gloucester, some of which it retains to this day. The company was also given large tracts of land on the Liverpool Plains and Peel River west of Tamworth which were ideally suited for its agricultural purposes. It has been selling parcels of the Port Stephens land ever since, North Arm Cove being a recent one.

With the closure of the penal colony the AA Co. grasped the opportunity to convert some of it's poor choice into the southern side of the river. In 1829 the AA Co. was granted 2000 acres in Newcastle in addition to it's million acres. This included a 31 year monopoly up until 1860 of all mining operations in the Newcastle district along with use of the remaining convict labour. Four new pits were sunk into what became known as the Borehole Seam, the break-wall to Nobbys Island completed, a new wharf built, roads and a railway system were constructed to the pits. The railroad was completed to Maitland in 1857, which with its growing agricultural and timber industries, was the largest commercial centre of the Hunter Valley. The company sent expert miners from British mining districts such as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Lancashire and Wales to operate these pits and small private towns developed around the pit heads. One of these was a locality called Pit Town later to be called Hamilton. With the government penal restrictions gone inns were built in these towns. These were often little more than shacks with the bare minimum requirements to be licensed. Many pubs were later built on these sites in future years.

Outside the AA Co. estate large parcels of land had been granted to government officials, retired soldiers and the good released convicts. There were also large tracts of unclaimed Crown Lands. In the early 1840's a few enterprising squatters such as J&A Brown and Eales tried to open pits on these Crown Lands only to be prosecuted and shut down by the AA Co. This action was opposed on legal grounds by the squatters. In 1846 the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the AA Co. the judge stating that the company had exclusive mining rights to all Crown Land in the district. This was greeted with great joy for it meant mining could proceed on privately owned land and so in 1847 J&A Brown commenced operations at Minmi on a leased private estate which they subsequently purchased. The AA Co. rescinded their monopoly the same year. The AA Co. didn't go away of course. In 1860 they purchased the 2000 acre Platts estate and developed at that time the largest mine in the southern hemisphere. The private town was called Plattsburg but this was changed to Wallsend. The AA Co. wound up their Newcastle operations in 1916 coinciding with the advent of BHP. They subdivided and sold a lot of their land in Newcastle into housing estates like Kotara and Garden Suburb. In 1914 they opened the Hebburn mine near Abermain and built the private town of Weston near Kurri Kurri. This mine was closed in 1949. Some of the buildings and stack still remain.

After the decision of 1847 mines were sunk all along the Borehole Seam on in cases very cheaply acquired private estates by many newly formed companies some fully British owned. Companies including the Scottish Australian Mining Co at Lambton, the Wickham & Bulloch Island Mining Co at Charlestown, the Burwood Coal Mining Co. at Merewether, J&A Browns New Lambton Colliery to name a few were all operating in the 1860's. Towns were built to accommodate workers and rail and road extended to these new towns. Towns such as Cardiff, Whitebridge, Dudley, Redhead, Belmont, Teralba, West Wallsend, Killingworth, Holmesville, Toronto to name a few all began as mining towns. All these towns were on privately owned estates still it wasn't long before service industries including many pubs were built to provide for the hard working thirsty workforce. The older surviving pubs of Newcastle were built from the 1870's into the 1890's in these mining towns usually on the main road and as close as possible to the pit. With a almost solely British workforce and therefore British architects they were designed with the classic English architecture of this era. Unlike the housing in these towns, little expense was spared on these hotels. Solid two to three story brick or rarely stone buildings, a large public barroom with a big central bar often built of fine teak or cedar to accommodate the workers rush at shift end. They had large bathrooms for the blackened miners to wash. Bath facilities at the pits were not provided until the late 1930's. It was more common though for the workers to head straight to the bar. The public bars had tiled floors and walls so the soot, grime and swill could be hosed out into the street on closing. They had a big dining room, a ladies salon bar with more comfortable furnishings, maybe a smoking room, a grand staircase which led to the upper floors featuring large rooms with fireplaces, wide outside verandahs with ornate latticework and intricate facades. The pub was the meeting place, even the court house in many instances.

The Newcastle rail network was commenced independently of the Sydney network and steam was a cheap resource in Newcastle. As the rail network was extended to the pit towns, for instance, Wallsend in 1878, Belmont in 1891 and Toronto in 1899 there was a preference to build hotels close to the railway station to trade with commuters and accommodate travelers. The Newcastle system had reached as far south as Gosford and as far north as Glen Innes. This network was finally joined with the Sydney network in 1889. The difficult construction of the railway from Hornsby to Gosford was finished with the opening of the Hawkesbury River Bridge and Woy Woy Tunnel allowing the Sydney system to reach the Newcastle system. This was further upgraded to double track in 1912. The Sydney system was electrified and this electrification was not extended to Newcastle until the 1980's. Gosford became a stop over for the train systems. In the early days the change of trains might be hours or even overnight. The Gosford Hotel opposite the station did a roaring trade. As the changeovers improved in the mid 1900's a bar was incorporated at the station and staff would serve alcohol, food and cordials to passengers windows on the platform while locomotives were shunted.

Newcastle also had an extensive tram system which opened with a line to Wallsend in 1887 and was progressively extended to all the major colliery towns and the steelworks by 1920. The trams lines were slowly shut down from the 1930's as business declined due to pit closures. The last tram line which was also the first to Wallsend was closed in June 1950. The tram line to Toronto was originally partly owned by the Toronto Hotel built in 1887 at the terminus. This line was replaced with a train line in 1899 which operated until the 1990's.

In 1915 Broken Hill Pty Ltd opened a steelworks at Newcastle on Kooragang Island in the Hunter delta. It established Port Waratah on the southern bank of the Hunter near Mayfield. Much of this was reclaimed land, some of the Hunter rivers channels being filled. This was a boom time for Newcastle and the coal industry and despite a decline in the depression years of the early 1930's the advent of WW2 sealed Newcastle's fortunes. The steelworks despite it's pollution and high injury rate was the lifeblood of the city for nearly a century. Many of the old pits, like Burwood and Lambton were purchased by BHP to fire the furnaces. These mines were extended for many kilometres under the ocean by the time they closed. BHP announced it's intention to close the steelworks in 1983 but it was 1999 before it finally ceased operation. It took about 3 years to demolish the plant. It was feared that this would cause a major downturn in the local economy as there were many other industries which supplied the steelworks and others which refined the end product employing tens of thousands of workers. This has not been the case. Employment is above the national average due to a strong manufacturing industry, the bulk of the NSW electricity industry and as the port for the huge coal industry which has now moved it's base to the Singleton region. The last of Newcastle's old suburban pits, the Burwood Colliery closed in 1982 after 93 years of operation. The Lambton B Colliery at Redhead was the last of the old-style privately run undergrounds when it was closed in 1991. Mining continues in the Lake Macquarie region where there are several government owned underground collieries supplying the electricity industry.

The mining industry, in the early years was plagued with very poor work conditions and many lives were lost in way too many tragic disasters. Miners have had to fight hard to incorporate safety measures which are standards these days. Many suffered hardship during long strikes to gain a safe and clean workplace. The old companies always put profit before anything else. These hard won battles have become part of the Novocastrian ethic.

On the 28th of December 1989 at 10:29AM Newcastle was subjected to the most damaging earthquake in Australian history. Thirteen people were killed and hundreds injured. While it was by no means the biggest earthquake, only 5.6 on the Richter scale (a nearly yearly occurrence in some part of Australia), it was very close to a major residential area and was magnified due to the alluvial nature of the soil. The epicentre was some 12kms below Boolaroo in Lake Macquarie, an area surrounded by rocky terrain on three sides. The shockwaves intensity were more pronounced to the east, finding the easier path through the sandy strip and causing waves in this surface. These waves caused widespread damage and many buildings to topple in Newcastle. Hamilton and the CBD were the hardest hit. Ironically the Newcastle Workers Club in Newcastle and the Kent Hotel at Hamilton were amongst the most damaged buildings and suffered the most casualties. The only saving grace was the timing of the quake, the patronage was low at this time of the morning. Newcastle was drawn ever closer as a community after the events of 28/12.

Novocastrians have beaten many hurdles to develop into the modern city Newcastle has become. The pubs of Newcastle have developed along the same lines into hotels that are modern, comfortable and friendly on the inside and wear their proud heritage on the outside. Newcastle has sights, it has excitement, it has great pubs, it has a good soul.