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Teaching this Unit Study Units
Integrating Perspectives of Economic Groups Innovation and Australia's Future
Investigating Heritage and Popular Culture Defence and Security
Assessment Advancing Economically
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Focus questions
What do Richmond Main Colliery and Glennifer Brae (and the AIS at Port Kembla) reveal about the influences on life in Australia between the World War I and World War II?
How do the influences revealed by these places contribute to our understanding of: industrial and technological change; growth of trade unionism; exploitation of natural resources; attitudes to communism; the effects of economic change; past and present attitudes of Australians to social equity?
What is being preserved in these places; who decided what was important and should be kept; and how is it being done?

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Richmond Main Colliery (in the Greta-Cessnock area) and Australian Iron and Steel (in the Illawarra) both featured in the economic boom of the 1920s. Richmond Main was one of sixty-six collieries operating on the Greta and Homeville seams. Coal in this area is part of a continuous band running from the Illawarra to Southern Queensland. The seam runs close to the surface around the Greta-Cessnock district, making the coal economical to extract. The Greta Collieries reached their peak in 1925, producing forty percent of the State’s production of high quality low-ash coal.

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Construction of the Richmond Main Colliery commenced in 1908. John Brown – managing director and part owner (with his brother) of the firm J&A Brown – spent large sums to ensure that his mining plant, colliery railways, steamships and engineering works were at the forefront of technological development. Richmond Main was one of the largest and most important shaft mines in early 20th century Australia. Peak annual production was reached in 1928.

link toa History of the Greta Coal Measures 1861 - 1998.

Sidney and Cecil Hoskins – who moved their steel-making operations from Rhodes in Sydney to Lithgow in 1908 – abandoned their Lithgow site in 1928 and moved to Port Kembla where natural resources and the transport network were more advantageous. Australian Iron and Steel (AIS) was founded in the same year. Sidney Hoskins chose to live in the Illawarra at ‘Glennifer Brae’.
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The Hoskins were powerful players in the development of the iron-making industry in Australia. John Brown was recognised as the most influential player in the Australian coal industry. Union activism in the period between the wars saw workers at Richmond Main and Port Kembla seek better employment conditions. Negotiations between trades unions and these powerful employers were on-going.

Major economic development in the Greta-Cessnock and Illawarra districts is closely linked to the expansion of coal-mining and iron-making industries in these localities

The development of the South Maitland coalfields led to the establishment of an entire community based on the townships of Cessnock and Kurri Kurri. The collieries in the area have become an emerging focus of community consciousness.

Source: NSW State Heritage Inventory
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