Wollongong was a wild, tough town in 1855 when the Illawarra Mercury’s first edition rolled off the hand-operated press.
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There were floggings in those early years, and hangings too.
One record of the times reported a penalty of ‘‘50 lashes for getting drunk and kicking up a row’’.
How times have changed.
When 25-year-old Thomas Garrett arrived in the region to visit family in 1855, the fledgling community, suffering from dilapidated roads, filthy drinking water and poor leadership, was desperately in need of a voice.
Garrett noted that the Illawarra was a region of promise, but lacked a vital element: a newspaper.
So Garrett and business partner W. F. Cahill pooled their resources and embarked on a daring venture, founding the first newspaper on the South Coast - the Illawarra Mercury.
Today the Mercury endures as the second oldest regional newspaper in NSW, behind the Maitland Mercury.
There are no surviving copies of the first 13 editions but archives show the paper was greeted with enthusiasm.
Only around 800 people lived in Wollongong at the time of the Mercury’s launch, and circulation is thought to have been around 200. Within a short time the paper’s reach grew and Garrett moved the business to bigger premises on the corner of Market Street and Market Square in 1857.
Published every Monday with a six pence cover price, the Mercury contained a mixture of local and Sydney news, advertisements, the state of the markets, and the all-important shipping news - information regarded as essential to the region’s citizens.
News coverage was spread throughout the region, with correspondents in the Shoalhaven, Kiama, Shellharbour, Dapto and Bulli forwarding the latest happenings of their communities.
When Cahill pulled out of the partnership after three months, Garrett asked his father John to step in.
Within weeks the younger Garrett embarked on a political career, handing control of the paper to his shocked father in January 1856.
The older man dispensed his duties with conviction. "[The Mercury] would do the district an amount of good that could scarcely be estimated. It is my aim to make it increasingly useful," he said during a public address a month later.
John Garrett’s attitude towards news reporting was to both educate and stimulate the community to action.
Campaigning for better roads, he said unless residents demanded attention, the region would be reduced to "a system of primitive barbarism".
In another edition he accounted for the strong reliance on court and police reports as a means of inducing readers to "do right, when they know if they do otherwise it will be recorded in the columns of the Mercury".
The Mercury threw its weight behind the issue of public education with a front page editorial on June 9, 1856, thundering: “As to the necessity for general education, of sound, and it may be hoped, religious education, amongst all classes of our community, we trust we shall not be required to deduce proofs.”
On the paper’s first anniversary, John said the business had prevailed in the face of "clouds of ignorance, of envy and ill-feeling".
John not only led the Illawarra’s call for local government, his efforts saw him elected the first mayor of Wollongong Council in March, 1859. The first council meeting was held in the Mercury office; the newspaper’s editor John Curr was elected Wollongong’s first town clerk.
While serving as mayor of Wollongong, John also won the seat of Shoalhaven in June 1859 and again in 1860.
Thomas, meantime, won the seat of Monaro in 1860, Shoalhaven in 1864 and Camden in 1872.
Archibald Campbell joined the Mercury as a partner in 1856, and in 1883 became sole proprietor.
Among the most tragic stories covered during Campbell’s tenure was the Bulli mine explosion of 1887, which claimed the lives of 81 men and boys.
The Mercury reported: ‘‘A fearful blast of hot air, strongly impregnated with gas, belched forth from the mouth of the tunnel, bringing with it a boy named Herbert Cope who was driving a horse 50 yards from the mouth of the tunnel.’’
The subsequent investigation found the explosion was caused by a build up of methane being ignited by an uncovered lantern - the result of a laid-back attitude to safety.
During the 1890s Campbell campaigned for better living conditions for the indigenous community, a move well ahead of the times.
In the tradition of his predecessors, Campbell entered politics and was elected Member for Illawarra in 1891, holding that position until his death in 1903.
Campbell’s wife Margaret carried on the role of proprietor of the Mercury for 18 months until Edward Allen took over.
By the turn of the century, the Mercury had established a proud tradition and commitment to local news, with strong and visionary leadership crucial to the paper’s success.
In 1855, Wollongong had no jail, no hospital, no Belmore Basin, no local council and no telegraph office.
There was a national school, some private schools, a market square, army barracks and a courthouse.
Reaching the Illawarra was no easy task - at one stage it could take 10 days to travel from the Shoalhaven to Wollongong.
A Wollongong to Sydney road, begun in 1843, was still under construction because work was only carried out sporadically.
Before the rail line opened in 1888, a sea journey of nine hours between Sydney and Wollongong was considered a fast passage.
Roads throughout the region were notoriously rough, the Mercury reporting in 1858: ‘‘Frequently the ears of decent people are offended by the swearing of persons in charge of teams (of horses) which become stuck in the innumerable holes and quagmires.’’
And forget overnight express post, in the years up to 1855 the mail was carried variously by steamboat, coach and horseback. A thrice-weekly mail service on horseback began that year from Wollongong to Dapto, Jamberoo, Kiama and Shellharbour.
A story in the Mercury on February 2, 1880, reported a meeting of Wollongong citizens who supported the idea of a “Mutual Provident Building Land, and Investment Society of Illawarra”.
A few months later the IMB was established and the Mercury began running notices for shareholders. IMB Bank this year marks its 135th anniversary.
Also in 1880, William Dwyer began a coach and buggy building business in Kiama, moving to Wollongong in 1885.
Dwyer advertised in the Mercury that his coaches and buggies were built with ‘‘only the best of seasoned timber, in the very best style of workmanship and executed with dispatch.’’
Dwyers switched to building motor vehicle bodies in the 1920s and moved into automotive sales, service and parts in 1933. The business remains one of the Illawarra’s top vehicle dealerships.
Another high-profile Illawarra car dealership - Harrigan Ford - also has its roots in the 1800s.
Herbert Harrigan entered the motor trade in 1899 after his father paid the princely sum of £25 to cover his son’s apprenticeship premium.
In 1907 he rented a space on Crown Street where he repaired bicycles and later went on to become Wollongong’s first garage, and the first company on the South Coast to sell motor vehicles.
Real estate is another proud tradition in the Illawarra.
Frank Bevan hung out a sign in Crown Street in 1888, calling himself a real estate agent and auctioneer.
The young builder established a dynasty and three generations of Bevans ran the company for almost a century.
Bevans is Wollongong’s oldest surviving real estate company.
Born in 1830 in Liverpool, England, Thomas Garrett came to Australia in 1840 with parents John and Sarah and four siblings, William, John, Job and Eleanor.
At the age of 10, Garrett secured a printer’s apprenticeship but soon after ran away to sea, working as a sailor before being exposed as a runaway and marched back home.
After completing his apprenticeship, Garrett worked on the Goulburn Herald, Sydney Atlas and Melbourne Argus newspapers.
It was during a visit to his family, which had relocated to Wollongong, that Garrett identified the need for a newspaper in the area and the Illawarra Mercury was born.
In 1856 Garrett embarked on a political career, winning the seat of Monaro in 1860, Shoalhaven in 1864 and 1869, and Camden in 1872.
Increasing political demands forced him to sell the Mercury in 1867.
Garrett died at his Newtown home in 1891, aged 61.
The Illawarra’s first coal mine, at Mount Keira, opened in 1849 just a few years before the Mercury was established.
When the second mine opened there in 1857 it was big news. Exhorting the success of the Mt Keira mines, the Mercury proclaimed: ‘‘The result cannot be surpassed. And we have now an export equal, if not superior, to the best coal of the Hunter.’’
Heeding the calls of the Mercury, politicians agreed a port was vital for what they hoped would become a mining-led economy, and Belmore Basin was opened in 1868.
By 1871, there were four coal mines, employing 183 men.
In 1882, it was reported the northern areas of the Illawarra were dependent on coal mining, while dairy farming dominated the south.
The first export of blue metal was shipped from Kiama Harbour in 1871, the forerunner of an industry still operating in the area today.
Port Kembla harbour began to take shape in 1899 and by 1907 was becoming a mining and manufacturing centre.
Illawarra residents were serious about their swimming in the 1850s, but public bathing was prohibited between the hours of 8am and 7pm - at least until the 1880s.
In the 1850s, when bathrooms were not a standard feature of most homes, surf bathing was often a matter of hygiene rather than sport.
Privacy was a major issue and the Mercury regularly published articles announcing new regulations, as well as letters debating the vexed question of mixed bathing.
A notice in the Mercury on November 25, 1870, proclaimed: ‘‘CAUTION TO BATHERS - Considerable annoyance having been occasioned by parties bathing during prohibited hours, viz. from 8am until 7pm, the attention of the police has been called to the matter, and we understand that any person found bathing during prohibited hours will be prosecuted according to the law.’’
An alternative was to use “bathing machines” - small cubicles on wheels where people could change into their neck-to-knees, and then be wheeled right to the water’s edge, thus avoiding the calamity of being exposed.
Bathing was strictly segregated, with gentlemen using the area north of Wollongong Harbour, while ladies were allowed to swim south of Flagstaff Point.
When swimming baths were constructed, two sets were built at a suitable distance apart to maintain modesty.