Mullet Creek is located on the Hawkesbury River on the New South Wales Central Coast. The construction of the railway line between Hawkesbury and Woy Woy in New South Wales began in 1883 at a time when railway construction was at its peak. It was the final stage in the railway line connecting Sydney and Newcastle, and in many ways, was the most challenging for railway contractors. A significant part of the construction process included a tunnel being constructed between Mullet Creek and Woy Woy Creek, which became the longest railway tunnel in Australia at the time. To accommodate workers, a semi-permanent town was established at Mullet Creek, which was home to eight hundred railway workers and their families for about eight years. Services were established at the camp to cater for the population resulting in a fully functioning and thriving township.
Map showing the railway from Sydney to Gosford
The building contract was awarded to George Blunt who had several years experience building railways in England. Many labourers and skilled workmen were required to construct culverts, bridges and tunnels in the relatively short portion of railway which took several years to complete.
No doubt, a dilemma for Blunt was how to house, feed and entertain hundreds of workers and their families in such a rugged and remote area. While the majority of residents at navvy camps were male workers, there was a significant number of wives and children who travelled with their husbands. Due to the projected length of time of construction, workers were required to be at the Mullet Creek for an extended period. While workers accommodation was of a temporary nature, more permanent buildings such as stores, a butcher, boarding houses, a school, hotels and post office were established on the site. In 1885 expressions of interest were requested for an individual to convey mail from Mullet Creek to Woy Woy three times a week. The successful candidate was Mary Ann Taylor from Woy Woy.
The main camp was located at the head of the creek where residents found any available flat piece of land to set up a tent. Many more tents were perched high on the mountainside while others were erected near the tunnel entrance at Mount Pleasant (now known as Mount Wondabyne), just off the main access road from Woy Woy to Mullet Creek.(1)
Enticing prospective workers was undoubtedly at times difficult, and while the consumption of alcohol was seen as a problem amongst navvies, contractors realised without hotels, workers would be reluctant to relocate to such an isolated area. There were lucrative opportunities for inn keepers establishing hotels where railway workers set up camp as there was a strong and consistent customer base. As such, in 1883, John Snape applied to the authorities to erect a hotel at Mullet Creek. As described in his application, the building was to contain ‘four sleeping rooms and two sitting rooms, in addition to those required for the use of my family’, and contained a number of billiard tables. Known as the Travellers Rest Hotel, it was located close to the tunnel entrance at Mount Pleasant.(2)
Another proprietor, John Brown, was the owner of The Navvy’s Friend Hotel located further along Mullet Creek. A number of illegal distributors of alcohol also operated at Mullet Creek.(3) Snape later built a two storied ‘resort’ style hotel in 1888 adjacent to what was once the Mullet Creek railway station, specifically for the tourist trade. Upon completion of this hotel he attempted to sell it.
While the Mullet Creek camp was relatively isolated, residents did have regular access to Sydney via a steamer. It was also a popular route for travellers who did not like sea travel. Local residents and those from further afield travelled to Mullet Creek via Gosford and Woy Woy tolerating the treacherous road conditions along the way. Once the escarpment at Mullet Creek was reached, ‘an ordinary store two-wheel truck was used to take the luggage down to the steamer: this truck would be piled up with boxes, and immediately the incline was reached going down to the wharf, it was a sight to see the bonnet boxes and other tin boxes go racing down, much to the disgust of the owners’.(4) Once the shores of Mullet Creek were reached, passengers boarded a steamer from the wharf then travelled through to their destinations.
Agnes Fagan who lived at Point Clare near Woy Woy during the construction of the railway passed through the area on the way to Brooklyn for a holiday with her husband, noting the experience in her diary. She witnessed the families of navvies and railway workers hard at work:
… there were numbers of tents, a public school and a large hotel, also stores, some of the tents and their occupants looked quite cheerful and also neat and clean. Some have sewing machines at which women are busily engaged, indeed one may see tidily kept flower gardens at the side of some of the tents, then again we met dirty tents, slovenly looking women standing yarning outside them, little children looking dirty and uncared for.
As witnessed by Agnes, navvies wives filled their day with numerous activities such as looking after children, mending and making clothes, baking bread and cooking meals for families and workers. Gardens were established which possibly provided a distraction to the mundane life of the navvy wife. Surprisingly, however residents were not without luxuries of fine ceramic serving ware and modern day conveniences such as sewing machines. Artefacts left behind at Mullet Creek that are still evident in the area, suggest residents possessed ceramic tea cups and saucers, butter and casserole dishes, plates, bowls and mugs including children’s tea sets. Families appeared to make the most of their situation at Mullet Creek where they were able to set up home with most contemporary conveniences.
George Davis operated a butcher shop at each end of the tunnel. Davis owned an abattoir at Davistown near Gosford and shipped large quantities of meat by road and steamer to his shop at Mullet Creek which was run by James Coleman. C G McGregor operated a store which was situated close to the wharf at Mullet Creek and bread was baked in large quantities onsite as witnessed by Agnes Fagan on her travels.
In 1886 the construction of the Hawkesbury River Railway Bridge commenced which was the last major project linking the railway between Sydney and Newcastle. The bridge was officially opened on 1 May 1889. Once the work was completed most workers and their families left the area to the next location where work was available. By the 1891 New South Wales census most of the population at Mullet Creek had moved elsewhere with approximately twenty-four people living at Mullet Creek at that time.(5) Today, very little remains of the thriving railway workers settlement of the 1880s.
List of known adults who lived and worked at Mullet Creek and their occupation if known:
Babbington, John
Beattie, Andrew (boarding house)
Beattie, Elizabeth (boarding house)
Beattie, James
Beattie, Elizabeth
Bell, Robert (store owner)
Britliff, John
Brittliff, Emma
Brown, John (Navvy’s Rest)
Carney, James F
Carney, Mary
Carney, Blanche
Chave, Ernest C (teacher)
Coleman, James (butcher)
Coleman, George
Copp, John
Crossland, Mrs
Davies, David
Desreausa, John
Dempsey, Patrick Charles (railway worker)
Dempsey, Eliza
Dempsey, William Henry
Dempsey, Ellen
Dempsey, Joseph
Donnelly, Joseph
Douglass, Humphrey (railway worker)
Dovey, Richard
Dugdale, David (quarry man)
Dugdale, Annie
Duggan, John born (railway worker)
Duggan, Elizabeth
Durston, William (railway worker)
Durston, Mary Ann
Edmonds, Jane
Harding, Edward
Harding, Maria
Edgar, Hans
Edgar, Margaret
Evans, John
Farrell, John Francis
Fleming, William
Fleming, Jane
Foote, George (teacher)
Fuller, James
Gill, James (railway worker)
Gleeson, Patrick
Hislop, John
Hodge, Mrs
Howard, John
Huff, Benjamin (railway worker)
Jeffery, John (railway worker)
Jones, Emily
Kelly, Mrs
Kelly, Michael
Kent, Joseph William (Quarryman)
Kent, Susan
Lane, George
Lawson, Thomas
Lewis, Henry Charles (railway worker)
Lewis, Mrs
Loady, John F
Ludwell, Sarah Ann
Macdougall, Douglas
Mackay, Sarah Jane
Mackay, George (stonemason)
Mansfield, John (miner)
Mansfield, Frances
Maynahe, Daniel
McDonnell, James
McGregor, C G (store owner)
McMahon, John
McManus, James
Morley, Robert
Morley, Mary Ann
Moss, Joseph
Mullard, Isaac (hotel keeper)
Murphy, William H
Neal, Frank (teacher)
Oliver, Edward (miner)
Owen, W D
Poulteney, John (overseer)
Pulham, William John (Plate layer)
Pulham, Mark (plate layer)
Pulham, Jane
Ryan, James
Saltin, Alfred (railway worker)
Seaton, Arthur (teacher)
Sherry, Mary Ann
Smith, John
Smith, Ellen
Snape, John Richard (hotel owner)
Snape, Elizabeth
Stagwick, William (railway worker)
Stamming, Joseph
Stamming, William (railway worker)
Stephenson, Robert
Swanson, Peter (ganger)
Taylor, Mary Ann (mail conveyor)
Thompson, James (teacher)
Thompson, H
Tozziy, Andrew
Tuch, Charles (railway worker)
Turner, Susan
Williams, Alfred
Williams, Fanny
Windsor, Eli (railway worker)
Windsor, Beatrice
Wood, Edward
Wright, James (stonemason)
Children of Mullet Creek:
Beattie, Andrew
Beattie, Annie
Beattie, John
Beattie, Thomas
Beattie, William
Beattie, Robert
Beattie, Charles
Beattie, Alexander
Beattie, Thomas
Brittliff, Martha Ann Ednor
Brittliff, Elizabeth Ann
Brittliff, George Edward
Brittliff, Thomas William
Brown, Henry Edward John
Carney, Blanche A
Dempsey, William Henry
Dempsey, Ellen
Dempsey, Joseph b. 1887
Dempsey, John Thomas
Dempsey, Patrick Charles
Dugdale, Florence M
Dugdale, Alfred
Dugdale, Gertrude
Dugdale, John William
Dugdale, Mary Ellen
Durston, Charlotte
Durston, Margaret
Durston, William
Durston, George
Durston, Arthur
Durston, Elizabeth Mary
Farrell, Patrick Alphonsus
Fleming, Isabella
Fleming, Wilhelmina
Harding, Catherine Agnes
Harding, Lilian Augusta
Harding, Evelyn Mary
Harding, Edward Albert
Hartland, Jane Ann
Hatley, Albert Edward
Hatley, John
Hepburn, William
Hodge, Eva
Hodge, Mary
Kelly, Elizabeth
Kelly, Bridget
Kelly, Margaret
Kelly, Ellen
Kent, Myrtle Estelle
Kent, Ellen Catherine
Kent, Henry J
Ludwell, Sarah Ann
Ludwell, Frederick
Mackay, Catherine Elizabeth
Mackay, Florence Sarah
Mackay, Georgina
Mackay, James
Mackay, Emily G
Mansfield, Frances Jane
Maynahe, Mary E
Maynahe, Catherine
McBeth, Agnes M
McBeth, Jane E
McBeth, John B
McBeth, Daisy
Miller, William Herbert
Miller, Stephen James
Miller, Charles
Miller, John Henry
Morley, Georgina
Morley, Agnes
Mullard, Amelia
Mullard, Lucy
Murphy, Elizabeth
Murphy, Mary Jane
Pulham, William John
Snape, Ambrose
Snape, Mary Ann
Snape, William James
Snape, Maud Evelyn
Snape, Gertrude May
Snape, Arthur Charles
Snape, Bertha Lily
Snape, Ruby Victoria
Snape, Henry
Snape, Richard Edmund
Stephenson, George Alfred
Stephenson, John William
Stephenson, Sarah Elizabeth
Sutcliffe, John
Sutcliffe, Frank
Sutcliffe, George
Sutcliffe, Anne
Thompson, Mary
Williams, Alfred Willoughby
Windsor, John James
Windsor, John William Eli
Windsor, Elizabeth Beatrice Victoria
Windsor, Ellen Louisa
Windsor, Mary Ann Charlotte
References
-
L Lindsay, ‘Mullet Creek Railway Construction Camp 1883-1889′, Australian Railway History Journal, Vol. 71, No. 987, 2020. pp. 9-17.
- Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 20 September 1883, p. 1.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 27 November 1884, p. 10.
- Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 21 April 1888, p.871.
- 1891 NSW Census, Gosford (parish of Patonga), p. 4.
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