Mount Kembla History in 5 Minutes

Page Under Construction

Kembla History

Jumbulla - Hat Hill - American Creek - Mount Kembla

FAll in Love with Your Local history

Mt Kembla is the tallest mountain on the Illawarra escarpment, south west of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia with a long and fascinating history beginning with "the Dreaming" of the Dharawal people who called the mountain jumbulla or dejembella, the men's mountain, a place of good hunting. In 1803, the forests and foothills of Hat Hill (Mt Kembla) were visited by Robert Brown, an English botanist, who with the help of Aboriginal guides collected the first koala to be scientifically described by Europeans - the koala type specimen (Organ 2006). By 1810, cedar getters were at work, making inroads into the thick temperate rainforest. These were followed closely by European settlers, authorities dividing up the land piece by piece, pushing the Dharawal off their country. These early pioneers worked the fertile land carving out a living, in time several communities sprung up sustained by dairies, orchards and farms.

1848 Map of farms at American Creek, Mount Kembla

1848 map showing the earliest small farms in the American Creek Valley, Mount Kembla

Courtesy of NSW State Archives and Records

Oil bearing shales were discovered in the area in 1849, and the first kerosene plant in Australia was established by John Graham as the Pioneer Kerosene Works in 1865. Both the shale and local coal were mined, the coal was used to fuel the kerosene retorts. Cheap American imports though saw the local kerosene industry decline and a focus move towards coal mining. Mt Kembla Coal and Oil Company purchased the Kerosene works and opened the Mt Kembla Colliery in 1883 which became one of the largest coal mines in the district, boasting its own railway line and port. Strikes and industrial action for better working conditions, as well as economic depression with no running water or electricity made for hard times, but a strong, close knit community formed. The pursuit of extracting coal from the earth came at an incredible cost to the people of the mountain. On the 31st of July the mine exploded and took the lives of almost 100 men and boys who were working at the pit along along with the lives of two rescuers. The Mt Kembla Mine disaster, shook this tiny isolated community to the core and tore families apart. With no bread winner, some families were forced to leave the district, or were evicted from their company owned cottages, others found it too painful to stay and moved onto the Hunter or Lithgow coal fields.

In time the rhythm of life returned. They put their lives back together as best they could looking after each other. Twelve years on the local communities of Mt Kembla, Kembla Heights and Cordeaux River answered Australia's call and sent their youth to fight in World War One. Twenty-nine of her finest were killed or died of illness while overseas, many more went to early graves suffering the effects of gassing and trauma. The Great Depression followed the war, only to be followed by another war.

In the years that followed the communities at the foothills transformed from agricultural to suburban, while conditions and living standards improved. Mt Kembla struggled to maintain a village atmosphere despite modern development encroaching on an ever narrowing green belt surrounding it. While the communities today are largely detached from the historical struggle and enjoy more comfortable lives, the landscape remains as unchanged and as endearing as ever. This page is dedicated to the history of all the intervening years.

Click on images below to go to our Facebook Albums on each area. We've been collecting information and images on all these communities over the last four years, so you're bound to find something new.