Port of Maitland
The Port of Maitland was integral to the initial development of West Maitland as an urban centre serving a large rural hinterland. But where exactly was the Port sited? Was it on the old Horseshoe Bend meander where the river abutted High St, or on the Lorn reach of the river on the northern side of the peninsula of Horseshoe Bend? Or, given that there were wharves in both the Horseshoe Bend meander and on the Lorn reach, could both areas be considered parts of the Port of Maitland?
The beginnings of port development
The first wharf in the then Wallis Plains was constructed by William Powditch and Frederick Boucher in 1824. In 1825 they established Maitland’s original store, run by their agent John Stronarch, next to this wharf and near today’s road from High St down the former riverbank to Smyth Field. Before long a grain store and cattle yard appeared as well.
The bank which marked the outer side of the Horseshoe Bend meander here can still be seen for a considerable distance both upstream and downstream of today’s athletics facility which was built in what was once the bed of the river. Here, on the meander’s outer edge (the undercut bluff), the river would have been relatively deep and suited to small craft of shallow draft plying the river above Morpeth. Ocean-going steamships unloaded and loaded at Morpeth from the early 1830s but the droghers (barges) were necessary to ship items between Maitland and Morpeth because the river lacked the depth to accommodate large vessels. Manufactured items from Sydney came up the river, to be loaded onto droghers at Morpeth, and the produce of the inland (especially wool) was transported in the other direction.
Soon, David Cohen & Co built another wharf near the Powditch-Boucher one, and other businesses constructed wharves soon after. Except for one which belonged to the government, these wharves were privately owned. They were locked off to guard against the theft of items piled on them.
The wharves of the Port of Maitland were located between the original confluence of Wallis Creek and the Hunter River (near Ward St) and the location of today’s Radford St.
Part of the parish map of West Maitland, 1885.
(Parish maps: NSW Land Registry Services | HLRV (nswlrs.com.au)
The map shows Horseshoe Bend, the meander in which the port developed, and the original confluence of Wallis Creek with the Hunter River. The later mouth of Wallis Creek was created artificially as part of the development of the railway line.
The Lorn reach
By 1840, on the northern side of Horseshoe Bend, there was a punt which provided access to the track north to Paterson. Immediately upstream of the punt there was a public wharf. A map dating from about 1840 refers to a ‘wharf allotment’ there as ‘Port Maitland’. This was on land owned by James King, who subdivided it for sale. His ‘wharf allotment’ suggests he had hopes of developing a port facility there.
This Lorn reach was subject to erosion on the right (southern) bank. A whole street (Mallon St, with an extension named Hunter Terrace) was washed away in stages in floods between 1857 and about 1870. Houses and a wharf (perhaps the only one actually constructed on the right bank on this reach) disappeared, along with an island in the river, and Russell St was truncated by perhaps 80 metres.
James King’s map of ‘Port Maitland’, circa 1840, showing Mallon St and Russell St, Horseshoe Bend.
The map shows Mallon St and Russell St, Horseshoe Bend. Hunter St is at the far left and opposite it is the island that was washed away. Hunter Terrace was an extension of Mallon St off to the right of the map.
A large area of land was lost and the river channel was straightened somewhat, a reminder of natural environmental processes. Meandering rivers change their courses periodically, especially during times of flooding when flows are strong and banks are eroded.
It is probable that King’s naming of an area as ‘Port Maitland’ was no more than that, the provision of a name for the purpose of promoting the sale of the ‘wharf allotment’. Some sites there were sold in 1840, but no real port developed. King’s ‘wharf allotment’ at ‘Port Maitland’ appears to have been a salesman’s ambition rather than a reality. King needed a marketing pitch, which his map was intended to be. But ‘Port Maitland’ was a false start, more illusory than real, and wharves to attract shipping never materialised. Little if any commercial development was stimulated nearby.
The punt was little patronised because the river could be crossed (and without charge) at the sandbar at The Falls just upstream of the location of today’s Belmore Bridge. At this point the water was shallow at low tide and farm animals and wheeled carts could pass, mostly in relative safety although there were some accidents including drownings.
The real Port of Maitland that emerged on the Horseshoe Bend meander next to High St provided the critical link between the river and the main access route to the upper Hunter and across the Great Dividing Range. The strategically important link was between this major thoroughfare and the wharves in the meander. King’s Port Maitland lacked this vital connection.
The port and the central business district
The river was the main transport link with Newcastle for more than 30 years before the coming of the railway and the later creation of a sophisticated road. The port that grew up on the Horseshoe Bend meander was the key to the early development of West Maitland. It was critical to the form and function of the town. Business establishments (shops, inns and other establishments) had by 1840 taken root in numbers on High St, near the wharves, and they made up the original central business district of the town. They located adjacent to the port to minimise the distance over which landed items had to be carted.
John Turner’s map of West Maitland in about 1840 indicates that there were approximately 60 buildings between the bridge over Wallis Creek and the site of the present post office, a distance of nearly a mile and a half (or more than two kilometres). Nearly half of these buildings were in the 400-metre stretch between today’s Ward St and Hunter St. This is where the density of commercial buildings was highest. There were, at that time, few substantial buildings on the higher ground further west which houses most of today’s CBD and which developed strongly only after about 1850.
The original central business district of Maitland, next to the port on the Horseshoe Bend.
(John W. Turner, The Rise of High Street, 1988.).
The numbers refer to business establishments.
The several wharves built on the meander were testament to the demands created by the rapidly growing volume of river-based trade. As early as 1828 there appear to have been half a dozen vessels plying the river between West Maitland and Morpeth.
Other facilities on the river
Shipping-related functions developed both above and below the Port of Maitland. About a mile (1.6 kilometres) upstream of the wharves there was a small shipyard, probably on the Lorn side (the left bank) of the river. There a shipwright (Charles Prentice) operated a boat repair facility: he was in business in 1836 and lasted at least into the 1840s. Possibly the yard had been established as early as the late 1820s by Benjamin Singleton and George Yeomans, two important entrepreneurs in early Maitland.
At least two boats were built there including the Monitor for Yeomans. This was a cutter of 21 tons (about 19 tonnes), 35 feet 6 inches (10.8 metres) long and 12 feet 2 inches (3.7 metres) wide. To negotiate the river between West Maitland and Morpeth it would have been built with a very shallow draft.
Well before 1850, a substantial number of wharves and jetties had been built downstream of Maitland. On the right (south) bank there were seven of these between Duckenfield and Alnwick alone. There was also a shipyard at Dockyard, just above the confluence of the Hunter River and the Williams River at Raymond Terrace.
References
Keys, Chas, ‘Our past: mystery over the exact location of the original Port of Maitland’, Maitland Mercury, 11 October 2020.
Keys, Chas, ‘Our past: port was crucial in Maitland’s early development to deal with the growing river trade’, Maitland Mercury, 18 October 2020.
Keys, Chas and Allan Thomas, The Port of Maitland: when Maitland was a river port, Maitland and District Historical Society, 2022.
Turner, John, The Rise of High Street, Maitland: a Pictorial History, second edition, Maitland, 1989.
