The shouts of “timber” echoed thought all the forests

The Timber Industry is the oldest industry in the entire Ulladulla district. When the Rev Thomas Kendall who in late 1828 selected 1280 acres at Narrawallee Creek, just north of Milton today.  But the Kendall party were not the only cedar cutters in the area; within four months of Rev Thomas Kendall establishing his cedar cutting trade in the Narrawallee creek area, he complained to Alexander Macleay, the Colonial Secretary and a fellow neighbouring landholder about a Mr Bloodsworth who was cutting cedar on Kendall’s land and resulting in a “communication being made to Mr Bloodsworth pointing out the authority to cut cedar in the neighbour of the Kendall estate will be withdrawn should he give any further cause of complaint”.[1] George Bloodsworth was a publican from Sydney who owned a coastal ship called the Alice and dealt in cedar, he later established the cedar trade at Wyong and Norah Head on the Central coast of NSW.

Rev Thomas Kendall never resided there himself, he only visited it to inspect his cedar cutting etc, for which he engaged sawyers, who had their huts in the forest. The original landholders at Murramarang were Sydney Stephens and William Morris, who both obtained their land grants in 1828, Stephens with 2560 acres and Morris with 1820 acres. They were not the best of neighbours and even quarrelled over the ownership of Brush Island, Morris eventually moved to Batemans Bay after he sold his Murramarang landholdings to Stephens in 1835.[2]

Shipbuilding commenced back in 1840 on the foreshores of the Boat Harbour at Ulladulla. The shipwrights David Warden and Robert Gee also owned land on the foreshores of Ulladulla Harbour and were later joined by David’s younger brother James Warden. The building of many brigantines and schooners continued for two decades at Ulladulla, using local cedar and timber from the surrounding woods.

The timber transported to the harbour by bullock dray was also shipped to Sydney for trade. Both Warden Brothers were very much involved in the local community in areas of education, religion, local government and others. David Warden was appointed the first Mayor with the establishment of the Ulladulla Council in 1874.

Shipping of produce was the main use of the harbour, the shipping of cedar commenced soon after the arrival of Rev Thomas Kendall in 1828. The harbour was open to the elements of the sea with stores being unloaded onto the beach by means of a waiting boat. Timbers were floated out to the steamers from the beach. Maize, wheat, bark, potatoes, cheese, butter, pigs and other produce from local farms soon became cargo for vessels sailing to Sydney for trade.

As written by a Henry Kendall biographer Agnes Hamilton-Grey in 1926, to give the ‘young reader’ some idea of the country around Ulladulla district in those early times, thick brush had to be cut through for roads for the carriage of cedar. Most of the population were ex-convicts, ticket-of-leave men and aboriginals or timber cutters of timber, sawyers and bullock drivers employed in the cedar trade. The fare was hard, and they had to grind their own corn, or wheat between two stones. Though such rough roads even bullock teams had hard times and as all provisions had to be brought to the place under great disadvantages life in the Ulladulla district was not one of ease or luxury.[3]

• Timber Fellers
• Bullock & horse team drivers
• Mill workers and owners
• Sleeper Cutters
• Boat Builders
• Truck & Lorry Drivers
• Log Cutter

From Wandandian on to Milton the road for miles goes through densely-wooded bush, and the presence of large numbers of bullock drays hauling logs to the mills is a fair indicator of what is being done. After leaving Milton the best of the timber country is met with, and at the present time is giving employment to a large body of men who find the business payable. To appreciate the importance of the timber industry one has to drive or ride into the hidden recesses of the forest, and there see what wealth nature has built up.

The bush around Termeil rings with the crash of the trees and the chopping of the sleeper-getters. In the Kyola forest many varieties of hardwood timber are to be found.   There are black butt, spotted gum, messmate, stringybark, ironbark, and mahogany. A drive through the forest is a pleasant experience.

After leaving tho main road near Termeil one enters the forest, and can cover miles of country containing many trees that are 80 or 90 feet high. The Ironbark on the ridges, the spotted gum lower down, all show how bountiful is the supply; while there is plenty of woolly gum, messmate, stringybark, and red mahogany.

In the heart of the forest is the timber- getters’ camp. Here they live in primeval simplicity, with a few canvas tents, or a hut made from the stringybark, most useful of all building materials. The life is free and rough, but healthy, and those engaged in it reach a stage of muscular development that would make a physical culturist green with envy.

Tree felling is an art which requires considerable experience and knowledge. The method of falling a tree is simple enough to the initiated, but to negotiate a forest giant over 100ft high, surrounded by other trees, is a task that requires some skill. First of all, a scaffold is erected to ascertain if the tree is sufficiently sound to justify cutting it. If it is, the scaffold is used for the men to cut it down, and the work of felling is then commenced. Falling trees have an awkward habit of being caught in the branches of other trees, and this necessitates the tree in which it is caught being felled. Some trees will measure over 100ft, and the barrel of those, provided the wood is all right, will cut out over 100 sleepers 10ft long.

The bullock teams do yeoman service in hauling the timber to the mill or depot. Sometimes it has to be drawn from the most in accessible spots, and then when the road is reached it is often found rough, so the patience of the driver is sorely tried, and the bullocks are severely tested. In the forest enterprising mill proprietors have laid down tramlines, to which the logs are drawn, and then taken to the mill or depot for shipment.

The timber has often to be shipped in an open roadstead, and this usually proves costly. At Kyola, where a depot has been established, it is drawn on board the ships by means of steel hawsers attached to winches. The logs are easier handled than the sleepers, which have a knack of slipping off. At Bawley Point, where Messrs. Guys have an up-to-date and well equipped mill, the timber is shipped by means of punts, which are lifted into the water and towed out to the ship’s side. At Ulladulla there is a harbour, and the work of handling the timber is very easy compared to the other ports, it being all shipped from the jetty.

The places of shipping the timber are numerous, and the following are the principal ports from which the timber is shipped and brought to Sydney included Ulladulla, Bawley Point, Kioloa, Pebbly Beach. Kioloa Mill: built 1888 closed 1928, whilst the Bawley Mill, burnt down 1922 and was described as one of the biggest sawmills in the Milton district. Ironic this was it fate as in 1894 it was burnt to the ground and rebuilt.

1921 – Termeil – Two small sawmills (between Milton and Bateman’s Bay), belonging to Messrs. Guy and Ellis, are to be closed on May 4, on account of the slump in the timber market.

Bawley Point, part of Evans’ land holdings, was surveyed 16 October 1892 by Fred Arnheim. Noted on his plan was ‘Sawmill in course of erection’. This notation is the earliest official documentation relating to the Bawley Point sawmill. The mill and its tramway were built simultaneously and were in use by 1893. The editor of The Ulladulla and Milton Times (1893) described ‘a crude light line of timber railway servicing Guy’ Mill at Bawley Point.’ Goodlet and Smith had built the Kioloa sawmill at O’Hara Head five kilometres south of Bawley Point in 1891 and about this time, Francis Guy Jnr., son of Francis Guy, who had sawmilling, mining and shipbuilding interests around Batemans Bay since 1870 commenced milling at Bawley Point.

The 1890s depression detrimentally affected the south coast timber industry and operations ceased at the Kioloa sawmill after a boiler explosion in 1893. Guy’s Bawley Point sawmill continued to function under duress. Ships which were vital for transporting the timber and delivering supplies were lost in 1895, 1896 and 1897 causing further shut downs. Despite the loss of his last schooner, Gleaner, Guy maintained operations until 1912 when he finally sold out to A. & E. Ellis of Sydney. Goodlet and Smith had withdrawn and sold their equipment from the Kioloa sawmill in 1898.

With the laying of railway tracks sleeper cutting became profitable. These were mainly cut from ironbark using cross cut saws and broadaxes. Bridge girders were cut from ironbark, turpentine, mahogany, blackbutt and even spotted gum. Telegraph and electricity poles have been for many years cut from turpentine and ironbark, which our mills shipped to Port Kembla and Sydney. Ship building timbers included shaped timbers for knees, stems and keels, the later sometimes being in lengths of 80 feet.

[1] Letter dated 2 March 1829 Alexander McLeay, Colonial Secretary to Mr. Thomas Kendall, 43 Upper Pitt Street, Sydney [29/1583]. Reply to complaint that a Mr Bloodsworth was cutting cedar on Kendall’s estate in the County of St. Vincent, in Kendall Family Letters, University of Wollongong Archives WUA D105.

[2] Bruce Hamon, They came to Murramarang; A history of Murramarang, Kioloa and Bawley Point. Canberra: Australian National University, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies and The Edith and Joy London Foundation, Canberra ACT, 1994. pp. 5 – 20.

[3] Agnes Hamilton-Grey, Poet Kendall: his romantic history, John Sands, Sydney, 1926: 43.

© Cathy Dunn

 Image: Bawley Pont Timber Mill from author’s collection