© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 481 articles
Read more about the article Building the Hexham Bridge over the Hunter River

Building the Hexham Bridge over the Hunter River

Long before anybody considered building a bridge across the Hunter River at Hexham, people crossed by punt. A convenient crossroads and staging point between Newcastle, Maitland and Port Stephens - and between Sydney and Brisbane - Hexham was settled by Europeans in the 1820s. It soon had a railway station, a handful of industries and facilities for loading coal aboard small ships. Hexham punt, 1904. Photo by Ralph Snowball. Early photo, circa 1910, of a car leaving the steam punt at Hexham. Photo by Ernest Docker According to the December 1946 issue of the NSW Department…

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Read more about the article Newcastle schoolboy’s shipwreck story
A sketch, from a New Zealand newspaper, of the sinking Helen B Sterling.

Newcastle schoolboy’s shipwreck story

Stockton schoolboy Leslie Harris was 10 years old on January 5, 1922, when he went aboard the four-masted schooner Helen B Sterling, along with his mother Edith and his father George - the captain of the ship. The first mate, whose surname was also Harris and who may have been a relative, also had his wife aboard. The ship was carrying coal from Newcastle, NSW, to the Society Islands (part of French Polynesia) and San Francisco in the USA. Aside from the members of the Harris family there were 15 crew members aboard. The schooner was…

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Read more about the article James Fletcher, “the miner’s advocate”

James Fletcher, “the miner’s advocate”

JAMES Fletcher’s name has become synonymous with the foundation of The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate. The Scottish-born former miner, mining union leader, mine manager, mine owner and Member for Newcastle may not literally have founded the newspaper, but he was its proprietor during some of its crucial early years and he used the paper to powerfully influence the progress of the coal industry. Fletcher migrated from Scotland in 1852 at the age of 18 and, after an unsuccessful attempt to make his fortune in the gold rush, came to Newcastle to work coal, finding…

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