Origins In July 1888, a group known as 'the Great Dapto Syndicate' bought some land, known as the Lakelands Estate, on the western shore of Lake Illawarra, with the stated intention of developing a port there. The Great Dapto Syndicate, included Thomas Andrew de Wolf and Andrew Armstrong, both of whom were later directors of Illawarra Harbour and Land Corporation. A new bill was introduced by
Michael Chapman, in April 1890. The Act also defined routes for railway and a southern branch line, and it gave the company access to land—mainly owned by others—for the railway corridors. The bill gave the company a right to reclaim land over the lake bottom, using dredged material, and then to purchase that new land from the government at market rate, minus the cost of the work to reclaim the land. This right, seen by some as highly unusual, was one focus of debate over the bill. The enabling legislation was passed in December 1890, and the Lakelands Estate was purchased by a new company, Illawarra Harbour and Land Corporation. Approval was obtained to quarry stone from Windang Island, to use in a breakwater, in late 1891. A tender was accepted, in late 1892, from a contractor, Brand and Drybrough—owners of the Cleveland Foundry and Slipway in
Townsville—for £58,000, and some limited work was done on part of a breakwater—a 'tie bar' between the land on the southern side and the island—at the entrance of the lake at
Windang,
Rival schemes and other ports There was a rival port scheme, based on a plan to dredge Tom Thumb Lagoon, and make a new entry to it, via the existing
Wollongong Harbour. In September 1889, an act of parliament was enacted, which established the Wollongong Harbour Trust and gave it control of the existing small port at Wollongong as well as the neighbouring Tom Thumb Lagoon. The new Trust was advised by Sir
John Coode. He advised against dredging the lagoon. Instead, Coode proposed a scheme involving two breakwaters enclosing an area of water outside the existing port, reclaimed land, and multiple jetties within the safe anchorage. The Trust adopted that revised scheme, in March 1891. Some work commenced, but there were doubts about its feasibility, and the scheme failed to achieve adequate debt funding and was abandoned. By 1890, as well as the existing port at Wollongong Harbour, there were ocean jetty coal ports at
Austinmer,
Bulli,
Coalcliff,
Bellambi, and
Port Kembla. With the exception of the Coalcliff mine jetty and Wollongong Harbour, all these ports had a connection to the
South Coast railway line, although all were owned by various mines and not necessarily prepared to load coal from other mines. In late 1894, there was some agitation for construction of a breakwater to make safe harbour at
Bellambi—a scheme known as 'Bellambi Harbour'— to protect its two coal jetties. One of those jetties was so badly damaged, during a gale in February 1898, that it was never used thereafter. With the exception of Port Kembla, none of the ports were ideally situated to suit loading coal from mines at the southern end of the coalfield. At the time, Port Kembla—much like the other ocean jetty coal ports—was exposed to rough seas during bad weather. The large protected and safe anchorage, now known as the "
Outer Harbour" did not then exist. The only other coal port on a
coastal lake was
Lake Macquarie in the
northern coalfields. It could only be used by relatively small ships, and dredging was needed to keep the Swansea Channel, at its entrance, deep enough for those small ships.
The planned port In a newspaper interview, in January 1893, Mr. L. R. Gundlach, C.E., an engineer, working for the company's consultant engineers, summarised the planned port works at Lake Illawarra, as follows: "At the entrance to the Lake there will be two parallel breakwaters, the northern and the southern, each 27
chains in length, with a southern training bank of about 24 chains, and a northern one 13 chains long; also a tie-bank of about 20 chains, connecting Windang Island with the breakwaters. There will be an opening about 500
ft wide between the ends of the breakwaters. The outer ends of the breakwaters will be 12ft, and the shore ends 7 ft above high water-mark — their width on top will be 15 ft. They will be built of rubble blocks not less than 4 tons in weight, with 10-ton blocks on the outer portion. The length of the channel through the Lake will be approximately 3½ miles, and its bottom width will vary from 150 ft to 300 ft. There is intended to be a depth of 22 ft of water at low tide along the whole course of the channel. The proposed shipping basin at Tallawarra Point will have an average length of 30 chains, by 13 chains in width, and will give room for 4 double-sided jetties each 450 ft long, placed between 2 single-sided jetties each 1000 ft long. In connection with the harbour it is intended to construct about 8 miles of railway, of Government gauge, with all necessary sidings and other adjuncts for the transit and shipment of coal from the properties of the Corporation". By July 1893, with the work under contract, the channel width had been reduced to 100 feet wide. The difficulties of the entrance works were apparent with the need to build breakwaters extending into the sea to a depth of 26 feet of water. The estimated cost of all the harbour works was £150,000. In 1893, Australia had entered a serious
economic depression, which involved a
banking crisis. By the beginning of 1895, it appeared that the port scheme had stalled. In a select committee hearing in 1898, Thomas Andrew de Wolf, stated that company's funding problems around this time related to, "One of the largest shareholders having a great interest in this company was the Mercantile Finance Company of Melbourne" and added that Melbourne company was, "Very badly insolvent". Fink held a major interest in the Illawarra Harbour port venture, and was publicly associated with it, at least prior to his financial troubles.
Revival Late in 1895, a select committee was told that, while the original purpose had been as a port for coal, there was now a plan to erect a smelter for
sulphide ores. One envisaged advantage of the smelter to the port would be that ships would arrive ballasted with ore, for smelting, and depart carrying cargoes of coal. Further, it was stated that the interests associated with the new smelter would guarantee the debentures of the land company, allowing construction of a railway to the site of the future wharves. The chairman of the select committee examining the new legislation,
John Cash Nield, after which he became a senator for New South Wales in the newly-established
Australian Senate. The
Dapto Smelting Works was constructed, by the Smelting Company of Australia, among whose directors was Thomas Andrew de Wolf. The first managing director of that company was
John Howell. The smelter commenced operation in December 1897.
Later construction Railway lines Under the original Act of 1890, the company had five years in which to complete a railway. around where Fowlers Road crosses the railway line now. The line to the smelter then crossed Brooks Creek, curving to enter what is now Webb Park at its western end, then passing just to the south of what are now the southern boundaries of allotments adjoining the park. It then passed through what is now a curving, narrow strip of land, between Webb Park and a point nearby the intersection of Kanahooka Road and Brooks Terrace, after which it crossed Kanahooka Road and entered the plant.
Harbour works The same contractor who built the railway, Robert Amos, also had a contract for the dredging of the channel across the lake bed and the entrance works at
Windang. While financial arrangements had not been finalised, a sum of around £200,000 had appeared in the press. When Amos was interviewed on the subject, in September 1895, "He did not think the dredging would be difficult in any way. The making of the entrance, however, between the sea and the lake would not be easy work." Amos stated that he had contracted to do the dredging for a
lump sum, and the other work on a schedule of rates. In 1898, it was revealed in a select committee hearing that the contract for the harbour works was in
status quo, pending a notice to proceed from the company. Amos also stated that those works had not proceeded, due a lack of funds from the company. He stated that, while a sand dredge had been arranged, it was at
Coolangatta and needed transporting to the worksite.—Lieut-Col.
John Cash Neild (1846—1911)—a colourful NSW politician and later Senator—were local directors of Harbour and Land Corporation, in 1898. Each had one share in the company.
Edmund Barton (1849—1920)—NSW politician and later first
Prime Minister of Australia and judge of the
High Court—had been a director, but was no longer one, by late 1898, although he still owned one share. and the chairman of the
Daily Telegraph and director of
Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Co., J. R. Carey (1834—1923), had 30.
Robert Matteson Vaughn and a Mr Styles had received shares, as a part of the transactions when the company acquired coal lands that they held, the site of the proposed Ocean Steam Colliery. At select committees held, in 1898, he was asked about the company's commitment to building the port. He replied to the effect that the main object of the company was to sell its land profitably. The company would build the port only, because the government or some other entity would not do so, to realise the consequent increase in the value of the land. The three sat on the Legislative Assembly's select committee of December 1898. Evidence was given at the select committee in 1898, that a sum had been owed to Osborne, causing him to begin repossessing the land, as mortgagee. Earlier in 1894, some creditors of the company—the two principals of the harbour works contractor Brand and Drybrough—had petitioned to have it wound up, so apparently the supposedly well-capitalised company was not paying all its debts. De Wolf relocated to London in the same year. Illawarra Harbour and Land Corporation had sold 500 acres at the northern end of the 'Lakeland Estate' to a group of entrepreneurs, known as the
Camden Syndicate Limited, another English-domiciled entity, before the end of July 1895. The Camden Syndicate then sold 300 acres of the land, three small mines, and some rights to the Smelting Company of Australia, for £50,000 in cash and 250,000 fully-paid £1 shares. That transaction secured the Camden Syndicate a controlling interest in the new smelting company, before the remaining 250,000 shares were offered to the public in London. Much of the cash component of the land sale was used to pay off the original mortgage debt to Osborne, according to the evidence given to the 1898 select committee, by the Illawarra Harbour and Land Corporation's company secretary, Frank Jarvis. The members of the Camden Syndicate included Andrew Armstrong (c.1842—1921),—an experienced and well-known mine manager and smelting expert, with financial interests in various mines—and Thomas Andrew de Wolf (d. 1903). and de Wolf from around 1894. As his Melbourne-based property empire collapsed, Fink was able to transfer various sizable assets to his wife Catherine. His reputation was damaged as a consequence, since others bore the cost of his financial problems. The land was adjacent to the smelting works on the southern side of Kanahooka Road; it was styled as "Illawarra City". A report of the auction held on 15 March 1897, to sell the lots was that, "The attendance was good, but bidding was anything but spirited". Only twenty-four lots were reported as being sold. It seems to have been the last land sale by the company, but it was not yet the end of the port scheme.
Final years of the port scheme John Howell became the first general manager of the smelter, as well as Managing Director of Smelting Company of Australia. As late as February 1898, he was still stating—at least publicly—a confident expectation that the deepening of the lake bed for the new harbour would be completed within twelve months. Howell resigned, in May 1898, to pursue his private mining interests. The Camden Syndicate—having achieved its aim to establish the smelting company and fold the assets it owned into it—resolved on 12 May 1896 to enter voluntary liquidation and wind up its affairs. The Syndicate then immediately reformed as a new entity, Camden Exploration Company, with John Howell as its mining adviser. The relationship between Howell and the new company apparently soured, and in 1899 Howell sued the company for damages for his alleged wrongful arrest under a
writ of capias. Camden Exploration appears to have been a financial vehicle for the promotion of gold mining companies, one such—ultimately unsuccessful—mining venture was
Mount Kimo Gold Mining, with its mine near
Gundagai. Under the Act passed in 1895, the company had been required to deposit £10,000 with
NSW Treasury, by 20 December 1897, as security for completion of the harbour works. The select committees struggled to understand the various land transactions, the complex ownership arrangements, the relationship between various interested parties, the apparent lack of progress on the harbour work, and the seeming lack of funds, despite the company involved supposedly being well-capitalised. concluded, also in late 1898, that it would take five to seven years to complete the Illawarra Harbour port; it did not recommend delaying the decision on an alternative artificial harbour at the
existing coal port of Port Kembla. The outcome was that the NSW Parliament hedged its bets, passing separate acts that both enabled the
Port Kembla harbour works and granted a further time of two years, to complete the Illawarra Harbour scheme. One factor that kept hope for the Illawarra Harbour scheme alive was that, being a private venture, it would be built without cost to the NSW Government, who otherwise would be funding any work at Port Kembla. In January 1900, two mining leases—including the 'Ocean Steam Colliery'—held by the Illawarra Harbour and Land Corporation were cancelled, due to non-payment of rent. In April 1900, the
Governor of NSW issued a proclamation. It made the depth of dredging 20 feet, below low water, instead of 15 feet, and it granted a further extension of time to complete the harbour works, to a date four years after 3 April 1900. The date by which the company had to complete the port works or forfeit the £10,000 security deposit was 3 April 1904. John Howell's successor as General Manager of the Smelting Company of Australia, Ernest Ludwig Adolph Weinberg (1855-1925), resigned in April 1901, to become general manager and chief metallurgist of
Chillagoe Railway and Mining Company. From around mid-1900, the smelter assets had been under control of Smelter and Harbour Syndicate Limited, which sold them to a newly-floated London company, Smelting and Refining Company of Australia, in exchange for 150,000 6% preference shares in that company. The new company's board did not include any of the Camden Syndicate members; one director was its 'local advisor', Sir
Edward Horne Wittenoom (1854 – 1936) . The new company agreed to take over the liabilities of Smelting Company of Australia and the smelter assets on 29 January 1902. The shareholders of Smelting and Refining Company of Australia only finally ratified the purchase, in April 1902. The new management assumed control of the smelter during May 1902. An immediate priority of the new company was obtaining agreement to lower rail freight rates and wharfage fees for New South Wales ores landed in Sydney. Once these reduced rates were achieved, there was an increase in the amount of ore arriving at the smelter by rail. The old company, Smelting Company of Australia subsequently resolved to enter voluntary liquidation, in July 1902. The dredged channel across Lake Illawarra and the wharves at Elizabeth Point were not constructed, no coal was ever shipped, and the mine and jetty scheme effectively was abandoned in 1902. == Aftermath ==