NSWPort & river
Stockton
The harbour’s other shore made lime, salt and coal.
1830First land grant on the peninsula
WHAT STARTED IT
Stockton sits on the sandy peninsula across the Hunter River mouth from Newcastle. In the convict era, lime burners’ camps there burned oyster shells from the vast middens into lime for colonial buildings, and its waterfront faced the port.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Through the 19th century the peninsula was an industrial and mining base, producing timber, lime and salt, and from 1885 its colliery stacked coal on the foreshore for export; 11 men died in the 1896 colliery disaster. Ferries were its link to the city until the Stockton Bridge opened in 1971.
TURNING POINTS
1830Potter McQueen receives the first land grant at Stockton, 10 acres.
1835Alexander Walker Scott and James Mitchell receive grants on the peninsula.
1885Stockton Colliery opens, its shaft sunk 367 feet through clay, sand and mud.
1896Carbon monoxide in Stockton Colliery kills two miners, then nine men of the exploring and rescue parties.
1971The Stockton Bridge opens, replacing the car ferry as the road link.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
Newcastle’s suburb across the harbour, with a small-town feel, its own shops and a passenger ferry to the city. Beaches, dunes and shipwrecks line its ocean side.