THE Hunter River must flow through writer Wayne Patfield's veins.
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Some time ago, I labelled this Morpeth maritime author the 'Herodotus of the Hunter' for his bold bid to document the whole saga of our forgotten Lower Hunter Valley riverboat fleets, including on the Paterson and Williams rivers. It seemed a brave, impossible task.
Why? Well, memories fade, old timers who knew the curious vessels pass on, photos and records vanish in floods or through neglect and all that valuable knowledge disappears forever. Or so, I thought.
Patfield gained his moniker back in 2008, but that was two books ago and now he's published his third and probably most ambitious, heavily-illustrated work entitled Morpeth's Steam Ships 1831-1946. And it's only number three to leave the slipway in a planned series of six.
So, when the passionate historian starts talking, it's worth listening to learn about the interesting material his research has uncovered.
For a start, up until probably the 1890s, inland Morpeth (or Greenhills) was a far more important port than Newcastle. It was the deep-water port of Maitland and much earlier on, was the second most important port in NSW, after Sydney.
From January 1 until June 30, 1870, for example, Morpeth exported 22,714 bales of wool compared to 9320 bales from Newcastle.
While the old river port of Morpeth is today a sleepy backwater where tourists roam, hundreds of vessels once regularly used the river system as a major highway to get into and export from the colony's interior.
Most vessels arriving at Morpeth had passengers, with the larger steamers carrying more than 150 in first class and steerage.
Earlier on though, there were many problems with the onboard accommodation as the other cargo being hauled could include horses, cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens carried on deck.
Besides steam-powered craft once clogging the now peaceful Hunter waters, there were sailing ships (under tow), punts, tugs and even dredges.
Patfield was encouraged to start the mammoth district research for his books about 25 years ago.
"That's when (fellow Hunter historian) Jack Sullivan lit a fire under me to get me moving. He told me that if I didn't do it, probably no one else would tackle it," Patfield says.
The ships engaged in the river trade first had timber, then finally steel hulls and were often very big. In between though, ships had wrought iron hulls and that caused an unusual problem.
"Would you believe, the shipowners found such hulls caused leaks," he says.
"The heads of wrought iron rivets in the hulls, being relatively soft, were being worn off by the river silt. They sheared off.
"So, it was off to the patent slip in far-off Sydney for repairs. This was an ongoing problem until steel hull vessels came on the scene around 1878.
"One company, the Hunter River Steam Navigation Company (later the ASN Company), built a small graving dock at Duckenfield (near Morpeth) on the John Eales estate for its Hunter River fleet," he says.
"It also had a much larger slipway in Pyrmont, Sydney, to repair their own ships.
"(But) when the hulls of its competitors' vessels started leaking, the ASN Company would not allow any of these companies to use their facilities.
"So, ships were sailed to Melbourne instead to wait for a position on the slipway, thus keeping them away from the Morpeth trade for some time and in the process losing trade and lots of money.
"Then different company ships and crews attacked other vessels by 'accidentally' ramming them when at the wharves at Morpeth. You could also be blocked in."
Patfield says when the British-built paddle steamer Sophia Jane arrived in NSW in 1831, it was a game changer. Besides being the first ocean-going stem ship in Australian waters, it heralded the start of steam-powered vessels along the coast and steam tugs operating along the Hunter, Williams and lower Paterson rivers.
The pioneering PS Sophia Jane itself also made at least 630 weekly trips to Morpeth. Then in 1832, the original, Clarence Town-built PS William the Fourth became a competitor.
The tugs enabled very large sailing ships of the day to be rowed upstream to Morpeth in about seven hours instead of seven days sailing!
The ships could then load cargo and be towed back to Newcastle and then out to sea.
With the arrival of the much larger iron steamers in 1841, ships such as the Rose, Thistle and Shamrock created other unique problems.
To steer effectively, they had to marginally increase their speed to around nine knots but in confined, winding rivers, there were accidents and collisions with smaller sailing vessels as well as riverbanks collapsing due to bow waves.
People were also chopping all the trees down, creating more erosion.
Silting of the Hunter River suddenly became an urgent problem. With the continued flooding of the river system as well, the iron ships found themselves pushing through silt and becoming stuck at low tides. Dredging then began from the 1840s until the 1930s.
Patfield says another factor to river shallowing was ships dumping ballast overboard once at Morpeth.
His latest book provides details of 72 steamers once running to Morpeth over 115 years. But there may have been another 20 operating. By the early 1840s, Morpeth boasted of having four wharves for steamships.
The last commercial sea-going visitor was the twin screw steamer Doepel in July 1946. Road transport and shifting river channels had long sealed their fate.
Inside Morpeth Museum today a large model of the paddle wheeler Sophia Jane is featured beneath a map listing 13 wharf sites once along the historic waterfront.
The museum's former curator, Sue Thomas, says the amount of research undertaken by Wayne Patfield for his latest book was "quite staggering".
Besides listing technical details, service history and the eventual fate of each vessel listed, Patfield has amazingly located rare photos or artworks for most of them, plus supplied a comprehensive index.
The retired Port Waratah Coal supervisor says the longest steamer to ever visit Morpeth was the steel-hulled PS Newcastle, measuring 264 ft (80 metres) long.
"Today it's hard to imagine ships of that size ever berthed at Morpeth," Patfield says.
This short-lived trader was built to compete with the popular PS Namoi (1883-1933) which was the heaviest (and earliest) of the Morpeth paddle steamers weighing 1416 tonnes gross.
Today it's hard to imagine ships of that size ever berthed at Morpeth.
- Wayne Patfield
It also offered an overnight passenger service to Morpeth and Newcastle.
A rather revealing fact emerging from Patfield's book is the fickle Hunter River. In the 1840s the river was extremely winding. Between Morpeth (the head of safe navigation) it was about 17 miles (27 kilometres) by a twisting river to Maitland.
The river then changed course many times in floods, cutting out bends, so by 1955 the river length from Morpeth to Maitland was only 5.5 miles (or nine kilometres) long.
Patfield's book sells for $30 and is available in Maitland, Morpeth and at Paterson. Proceeds go to the Paterson Historical Society.
For lovers of early Hunter Valley maritime matters or family histories this book is a must read.
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