The Old Wollongong Telegraph and Post Office is a heritage-listed former government offices, telegraph station and post office and now local history museum at 11 Market Street, Wollongong, in the City of Wollongong local government area of New South Wales, Australia. James Barnet designed the 1882 extension and expansion. The telegraph and post office was built from 1864 to 1882 in varying stage by S. E. Bloomfield (1864), George Brown (1870), George Billings (1882), Andrew Herd (1885) and the NSW Government (). It is also known as Illawarra Historical Society Museum; Wollongong Museum; and Illawarra Museum. The property is owned by Wollongong City Council. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 February 2015.
History
Aboriginal land
For more than 30,000 years prior to European occupation, the Illawarra area was home to the Dharawal people and their ascendants and used for all manner of cultural and ceremonial activities. There was an abundance of food from the combined marine and riparian environment. Archaeological evidence of this extended occupation by the Aboriginal people is found in extensive middens in the area.
Colonial history
Following the colonisation of Sydney Harbour by the British convict settlement in 1788, the Wollongong area, 80 kilometres to the south, was slowly affected by European occupation. Although relationships between the Aboriginal people and early European settlers were initially peaceful, by the I830s they had deteriorated as a result of the Europeans laying claim to land. The Aboriginal population declined sharply but descendants continue to live in the area.
In 1809 the first official postal service in Australia was established when the Sydney merchant Isaac Nichols was appointed as the first postmaster in the colony of NSW in April 1809. Prior to this, mail delivery was neither secure nor reliable as it was distributed directly by the captain of the ship on which the mail arrived. Charles Throsby came down the escarpment at Bulli in 1815 and established grazing lands near the present harbour.
John Oxley surveyed the area in 1816, leading to the granting of land to selectors. The first official land grants in the Illawarra were made on 2 December 1816 or 24 January 1817.
During the 1820s shipments of produce and timber destined for the Sydney market as well as supplies into Wollongong were transferred by small flat bottomed boats to ships anchored off the beach. In 1825 the colonial administration in Sydney was empowered to establish a local postal service, which had previously been administered from Britain. In 1828, the first post offices outside Sydney were established, including offices in Bathurst, Campbelltown, Parramatta, Liverpool, Newcastle, Penrith and Windsor. By 1839, there were forty post offices in the colony and more post offices opened as settlement spread.
Between 1826 and the 1830s, a garrison was established in Wollongong in 1826, marking the official beginnings of European occupation. The settlement developed as a cedar port from 1826, and also as a dairying and agricultural centre. In the early days mail arrived in Wollongong once a week by boat and was administered from the court house. 'The amount of mail collected for and sent from Wollongong during the 1830s and '40s would fill no more than a saddlebag.'
Following a visit to the Illawarra in 1834, Governor Bourke proclaimed the Town of Wollongong as officially surveyed by Thomas Mitchell. In 1838 the postal service was shifted from the Wollongong's magistrate's office to E. Palmer's store. During the 1830s and 1840s Governor Bourke ordered the construction of a harbour at Wollongong. The work of excavating a safe harbour out of the headland was carried out by hundreds of convicts. The harbour enabled safe berthing for ships and expanded the commercial capacity of the region.
The first coal mine in the Illawarra was opened in 1849. By 1865 "mail deliveries to and from Wollongong had vastly improved. There was a daily delivery by horseback and a steamer called in at least three times per week".