MAITLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

'Maitland' is a city in the Lower Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia and the seat of Maitland City Council. It is on the Hunter River approximately 200 km by road north of Sydney and 30 km north-west of Newcastle. It is on the New England Highway about 15 km from its start at the Pacific Highway. Central Maitland has two stations, Maitland station (opened in 1880) and High Street station (the original Maitland station opened in 1857 with the Newcastle-Maitland line),^[2] on CityRail's Hunter line.
Maitland is sometimes called the largest inland city in New South Wales, though Wagga Wagga also claims this title due to Maitland being only 25 km from the coast and a satellite of the Newcastle Metropolitan Area.
It has an approximate 62,596 inhabitants, spread over an area of 396km², although the main built up area predominantly forms a strip between the suburbs of Rutherford and Metford respectively.
Surrounding areas include the cities of Cessnock and Singleton LGAs.

Contents

Culture and History

Employment

Schools

Living

Education

Transport

Floods

1955 floods

2007 floods

Festivals

See also

Business in Maitland

External links

References

Culture and History

Founded in 1820, vessels with a shallow draft could navigate the Hunter River to West Maitland. Nearby Morpeth served as the head of navigation for larger ships (later, steamships), and goods would be transhipped upriver to West Maitland on barges and smaller vessels. Maitland was therefore the point at which goods were unloaded for, and distributed to, the hinterland. Accordingly there were large warehouses (some of which still exist) built, which faced onto the main High Street and backed onto the Hunter River. For almost 20 years until the gold rushes in Victoria, Maitland was the second largest town in Australia. The arrival of the railway from Newcastle, coupled with the increasing silting of the river and larger ships spelt the end of the traditional river traffic.
Originally three separate towns -West Maitland aka "The West Side") (a privately founded town which grew because of its closeness to the river and which today is the commercial centre of the city), East Maitland (established by the colonial government) and Morpeth (also a private town founded by Lt Close a Peninsular War veteran) each of which were separate municipalities. The present city was proclaimed in 1945 with the amalgamation of the three local government areas. The city's boundaries have been increased by incorporating parts of other local government areas since then (most notably Kearsley Shire which from 1946 to 1949 was the only local government area in Australia's history to have a Communist majority of councillors).
Several prominent Australian theatre and film artists were born in Maitland. They include Ruth Cracknell, John Bell, Nick Enright, David Berthold, and Abbie Cornish. The town is also home to the All Saints College, the foremost Catholic secondary school of the area. Recognised as a key educational institution and for its controversial "four-day week".

Employment

Maitland has a highly skilled and stable local workforce for the business sector to draw upon. Local managers, technicians and tradesmen are able to provide the manufacturing sector with the necessary skills and training to ensure the smooth running of an enterprise new to the region. Plus, since Maitland is only 25 minutes away from the University of Newcastle, a good percentage of the local workforce possess the tertiary skills needed for high tech industry. The predominant areas of employment are currently wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing and community services with the highest proportion of workers being tradespersons, and semi skilled.

Schools

Maitland has twenty eight Primary Schools and five High Schools, including the Hunter Valley Grammar School and Maitland Christian School. There are also numerous Pre-school and Day Care facilities available.

Living

With the prices of housing and land in Sydney reaching unattainable levels, Maitland on the other hand offers the investor a wide selection of realistically priced homes and land.
In addition to a healthy market of existing homes, there are a number of new residential estates on offer, including one to five acre semi rural plots located within 5 minutes of Maitland's centre. There are also large blocks for executive living in Thornton, Bolwarra, Aberglasslyn and Oakhampton and numerous other suburbs. New "towns" are currently being developed with the first of these - Thornton North - soon to be home for 10,000 new residents.

Education

Maitland has training facilities that you would normally only expect to find in capital cities. These include short course vocational training schools to international standard Phd studies. The Hunter Institute of Technology has a campus in Maitland, as does the privately owned Hunter Valley Training Company (Australia's largest group trainer). These facilities provide excellent training in all fields, especially building and construction, engineering, mining, tourism and business administration.
A new technical college is being developed within the City.

Transport

The Lower Hunter Transport Guide provides comprehensive information about all the public transport services in the region.
The Guide has been prepared by the Lower Hunter Councils Transport Group, with seed funding from the Lower Hunter Councils, the NSW Ministry of Transport (Local and Community Transport Branch) and the Federal Government Department of the Environment and Water Resources (Australian Greenhouse Office).
The Guide has been prepared with the co-operation and support of the Ministry of Transport, State Transit (Newcastle Bus and Ferry Services), RailCorp (CityRail), private bus and coach companies in the Region, Newcastle Taxis and Newcastle Airport Corporation.

Floods

West Maitland's proximity to the Hunter River has resulted in a succession of floods. The first known to Europeans was in 1806 and is believed to be the biggest, though as there was no settlement in Maitland at the time there are no accurate records. But there are stories of gum-trees (which grow to over 80 feet high) where Maitland railway station ( a distance of about 1 km from the Hunter River) is now, being submerged. In the next flood which occurred in 1820, settlers described driftwood being found in trees 62 foot above the normal river level.
There were a succession of minor floods (some of which caused loss of life and all of which had some effect on West Maitland in its early settlement) until 1893, which was the first big flood of which there are proper records, and where the cause can be properly identified (inland rain – at places like Cassillis were flooded and very heavy falls locally - Maitland had 11 inches in 9 hours and Morpeth 24 inches in a day). The backwater flow of water banked up in the creeks that flow into the Hunter River, swept over the levy banks surrounding the town and back into the river sweeping away houses in Louth Park (a southern suburb) and in Victoria St (which runs from the railway station to the West Maitland Town Hall). Nine people died. One farmer found one of his horses safe on the top of the Maitland Park grandstand.
After a long drought which affected all of Australia between 1895 and 1910, the next flood was in 1913 when houses in Mount Pleasant Street and in Horseshoe Bend were destroyed. Some other floods followed: in 1927 (this severely affected Wollombi, a town to the south of Maitland where records show only the church steeple and the hotel roof above water) and was caused by freak rain, and again in 1930 and 1931.
There was a succession of floods after years of extreme drought (the Hunter was dry for 20 miles in places). The first was in 1949, when heavy rain produced a major flood in days. The flood covered the lower end of the High Street. The next, in June 1950, was really three floods (there were 3 separate peaks) in twelve days in which 600 homes flooded and people were evacuated. Floods struck again in 1951 and 1952 (which again was really 2 floods, there was a total greater volume than in the 1955 flood).

1955 floods

Main articles: 1955 Hunter Valley floods

The 1955 Hunter Valley floods is the best known and the largest since the foundation of the town, which resulted in the commercial district inundated, over 100 houses destroyed and from which the town took many years to recover. The railways between Sydney and Brisbane, and the North West of New South Wales which meet at Maitland were cut for a week and as a result of the flood the dykes protecting the town were considerably enlarged and strengthened.

2007 floods

Main articles: 2007 Hunter region and Central Coast storms‎

A low pressure system that devastated the City of Newcastle and triggered what has been dubbed "The Thirty-Year Storm",^[3] caused major flooding in Maitland area during June 2007.
Floodwaters, which were expected to reach a peak of 11.3m at Maitland's Belmore Bridge, inundated homes in Branxton, Louth Park and Raymond Terrace but failed to flood central Maitland.
The flood has been compared to the devastating 1955 Hunter Valley floods, which claimed 14 lives in Maitland alone.
The Hunter flood mitigation scheme is responsible for what has been called "Maitland's Miracle"; the levee banks at Maitland protecting the city from submersion and ultimately saving lives.
However the flooding caused major problems; the railway was cut for eight days, the New England Highway for four, and surrounding villages isolated for varying times, crops were ruined and the cleanup after the flood had subsided is expected to take weeks and cost the town heavily.

Festivals

Hunter Valley Steamfest is an annual festival celebrating the history of steam power. It was established in 2005 in response to the temporary closure of the extensive South Maitland Railway network to Cessnock.
The Morpeth Jazz Festival is an annual music festival held at the popular historic riverside port of Morpeth. It is a celebration of music, wine and food.

See also

★ Maitland Gaol

★ South Maitland coalfields

★ Maitland Grossmann High School

Business in Maitland

★ About Time Computer Solutions - Tech Support

★ Optic Empire - Small Business Web Hosting

★ Apple Tree Mortgage

★ Pipelining & Coating - Cement Lined Pipes

External links

★ Maitland City Council

★ Hunter Region

★ History of the Maitland Mercury - State Library of NSW

References