Valentine

NameOrigin:

Valentine was named in honour of the accountant and land owner Valentine Geary, who had once owned the land the suburb occupies.

European History

Early LandGrants:

Portions 38A (of 122 acres) 39A (of 178 acres) and 40A (of 142 acres) (Kahibah Parish) had been conditional purchases in the 1860s, with mining leases taken out by Samuel and James Bennett, two Sydney Merchants who had a stake in the New Hartley or West Hartley Colliery. When the lease ran out the land reverted to the Crown, and remained crown land for many years.

Though the portions were officially purchased by Alexander Robert Minter and Edward Percy Simpson (later the owners of Pacific Colliery at Teralba) on June 17th 1913, under an agreement made 3 years before the purchase, Minter and Simpson had mortgaged the land to Valentine Geary on December 6th 1910. Transfer of the mortgage was made to Geary when full payment was received on 24th April 1913.

Further informatin on the history of the ownership of the land can be found in the book "Green Point, Valentine, Eleebana and Croudace Bay" by Peter Murray, 2010.

Early Subdivisions:

D.P. 10822: In 1916 Minter and Simpson's Portion 40A was subdivided by Henry F. Halloran as the "Valentine Estate", the first use of the name. This was the section between Tallawalla Road in the north, the waterfront to the west and Allambee Place and Werona Crescent to the south, containing what is today the shopping centre and school.

Early European Settlers:

The Croudace family built a house on their Portion. Called "Leighinmohr", it was in the vicinity of the present-day Valentine Bowling Club and the trees in its garden may still be seen in the park on the waterfront off Valentine Crescent, a row of big old camphor laurels and a very old Norfolk Island pine.

Early Industries:

The Croudace Portion had a small coal mine. The Hartley Coal Co. leased land on the lake shored near the present Hartley Point, sank shafts, procured equipment, built a wharf and bought two schooners, named. West Hartley 1 and 2. During the 1860's the mine was producing and the schooners were carrying coal but shortly afterwards one of the schooners was wrecked at the Lake Heads. It had cost 800 pounds and the wreck was sold for just 50 pounds. The West Hartley No. 2 was also wrecked at the Lake Heads in the great "Cawarra" gale of July 1866, killing the captain. These losses caused the collapse of the Company and the mine was abandoned, the mineral lease reverting to the Crown.

The Green Hills Coal Works sank a shaft near the present Green Point but operations were soon discontinued. Before its closure, the Hartley mine had experimented with the production of kerosene from shale and also quicksilver, products which would not suffer the transport problems of coal. An attempt by Mr. Speer of Speers Point and the Hon. John Robertson to re-open the Hartley mine was unsuccessful.

Early Transport:

By dray tracks over the hills or by water. The materials for the first house in the subdivision were brought by "Fisho Jack" Richardson in his launch because there were no suitable roads.

In 1945 the government bus service was extended as far as the Valentine turnoff and in 1948 it was extended into Valentine. In 1964 a bus service to Belmont was instituted.

First Post Office:

Open on 1 July 1947 as "Croudace Bay". It was renamed Valentine on I September 1949.

First School:

Public School opened in January 1958.

Town:

Thomas H. Halton Park at Croudace Bay was resumed by the Council in 1947 from the Croudace Estate. It was named after Lake Macquarie's longest-serving Town Clerk who had been instrumental in obtaining the I-and. With the water front land went a large acreage to the east in the vicinity of Regal Way and Tingira Drive. The N. S.W. Government had to pass a special Act, the Local Government (Land acquisition) Amendment Act in 1951 to validate the resumption and subdivision.

Water Supply:

1948.

Reference

Nilson, Laurie & Leis, Susan & Noble, Rodney & Lake Macquarie (N.S.W.). Council 1985, Lake Macquarie : past and present, Lake Macquarie City Council, [Boolaroo, N.S.W.]

Streets in Valentine

This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Lake Macquarie History