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Great Depression

Read more about the article The Rothbury Colliery “riot” of 1929

The Rothbury Colliery “riot” of 1929

IT was December 16, 1929. Christmas was just around the corner, but it wasn’t shaping up to be a merry one for many residents of the Hunter Valley Coalfields of NSW. In March, thousands of coalminers had been locked out of their workplaces by mine owners whose profits were being eroded by the steadily unfolding financial catastrophe of the Great Depression. The mine owners wanted the miners to take a hefty pay-cut, but the miners refused – unless and until the mine owners opened their books and revealed the true state of their profits and costs.…

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Read more about the article Old trams became Depression housing
Old Waratah tramcars being towed to the bush as accommodation for single men in the Great Depression.

Old trams became Depression housing

DURING the Great Depression hundreds of Hunter people lived in makeshift humpies cobbled together from whatever materials their owners could scrounge. Some of the camps were Nobbys Camp near Horseshoe Beach, “Texas” in Carrington, “Hollywood” (also known as “Doggyville”) at Jesmond, “Coral Trees” in Stockton and Platt’s Estate and “Tram Car” at Waratah. A Ralph Snowball image of the opening of the Waratah tramway in 1901. Thirty years later the trail cars became housing for unemployed men. According to researcher and author Dulcie Hartley, writing in her book The Hungry Thirties, Tram Car camp housed 17…

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