Port Macquarie (locally /məˈkwɒri/ mə-KWO-REE), sometimes shortened to Port Mac and commonly locally nicknamed Port, is a coastal city on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, 390 km (242 mi) north of Sydney, and 570 km (354 mi) south of Brisbane, on the Tasman Sea coast at the mouth of the Hastings River, and the eastern end of the Oxley Highway (B56). It had a population of 47,974 in 2018, and an estimated population of 51,965 in 2023.
History
Indigenous
Port Macquarie sits within Birpai (Biripi, Bripi, Biripai, Birrbay) country, and the Birpai people are recognised as the traditional custodians of the land on which Port Macquarie is located. Port Macquarie was long known to the Birpai people as Guruk. The Birpai Local Aboriginal Land Council provides positive support, information and responsible governance for the Aboriginal community, while also cultivating strong links with the broader community.
Before British colonisation, large clans of Birpai people resided in and around Port Macquarie, particularly at places such as King's Creek, Blackman's Point, Camden Haven and Rolland's Plains. They lived in large domed huts which provided protection against the region's heavy rains and were capable of accommodating up to ten people.
British exploration
The first documented visit to the site of Port Macquarie by the British was in 1818 when an expedition led by John Oxley reached the Pacific Ocean from the interior, after his journey to explore inland New South Wales. Oxley named the location after the Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie.
Oxley noted that "the natives in the vicinity of the port appeared very numerous...were all handsome, well-made men, stout in their persons, and showing evident signs of good living...were evidently acquainted with the use of firearms...their dread of its appearance", and that "the port abounds with fish, the sharks were larger and more numerous than I have ever before observed...the forest hills and rising grounds abounded with large kangaroos and the marshes afford shelter and support to innumerable wildfowl. Independent of the Hastings River, the area is generally well watered, there is a fine spring at the very entrance to the Port."
Convict settlement
In 1821, Port Macquarie was founded as a penal settlement, replacing Newcastle as the destination for convicts who had committed secondary crimes in New South Wales. Newcastle, which had fulfilled this role for the previous two decades, had lost the features required for a place for dumping irredeemable criminals, that being isolation, which was lost as the Hunter Region was opened up to farmers, and large amounts of hard labor, which had diminished as the cedar in the area ran out and the settlement grew in size.
Port Macquarie, however, with its thick bush, tough terrain, large military presence and Indigenous Australians such as Bob Barrett (also called Monunggal) who were employed as 'bush constables' returning escaped prisoners for tobacco and blankets, provided large amounts of both isolation and hard labour to keep the criminals in control. Under the various commandants, such as Francis Allman who was fond of flogging, the convicts had limited liberties and punishments regularly included whippings of up to 50 lashes at a time and hard labour in double leg irons.
The penal settlement lasted from April 1821 to June 1832. The settlement peaked with 1500 convicts by 1825 but by 1828 this had fallen to 530. The commanders of the settlement were:
Captain Francis Allman, April 1821 – April 1824
Captain John Rolland, April 1824 – November 1824
Lieutenant George Carmac, November 1824 – December 1824
Captain Henry Gillman, January 1825 – February 1826
Captain Samuel Wright, February 1826 – November 1826
Captain Archibald Clunes Innes, November 1826 – April 1827
Lieutenant Thomas Owen, April 1827 – October 1827
Captain Francis Crotty, October 1827 – June 1828
Captain Henry Smyth, November 1828 – June 1832
During the 1820s, merchants such as Simeon Lord and Solomon Wiseman utilised the convict labour to extract large amounts of cedar and rosewood timber upriver from Port Macquarie. Governor Ralph Darling later sent there many 'specials' or literate convicts with a decent education who had voiced negative views about him. As the penal settlement was wound down from the late 1820s, disabled convicts began to make up a significant proportion of the population. One-armed men would be grouped together and required to break stones, men with wooden legs would become delivery men, and the blind would often be given tasks during the night which they performed more skilfully than those with sight.
In November 1821, Port Macquarie became the site of the first sugar cane to be cultivated in Australia. James Williams, an Afro-American convict from Antigua with knowledge of cane-growing, was placed in charge. This colonial government funded plantation worked by convict labourers was later expanded to the nearby Rollands Plains and Ballengarra areas under the management of Thomas A. Scott. Flood, drought and fire caused the plantations to be abandoned by 1831. Scott later lived near Gosford, where the suburb Tascott is named after him.
St Thomas's Anglican Church is a Georgian building designed by Francis Greenway and built, under the supervision of military engineer Lieutenant T. Owen, by convicts from 1824 to 1828. This church is among the oldest in Australia and one of the few remaining convict-built churches. Inside there are red cedar box pews that were peculiar to that period in church architecture. The Walker pipe organ is the only one of its type in the Southern Hemisphere. The castellated tower permits excellent views of the coastline, town and river. This church is now classified by the National Trust of Australia (NSW) and has been registered on the National Estate heritage list.
In 1830 Major Archibald Clunes Innes built Lake Innes House which grew over the next decade into a luxurious establishment and attracted many notable visitors. It is now a ruin and is managed by the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service.
Frontier conflict
As the British encroached into the region from 1821, bloody conflict between the colonisers and the resident Indigenous people occurred. The first recorded incident happened in November 1821 where a convict cedar-getter was killed upriver from Port Macquarie. In 1823, an exploratory party of soldiers shot down two groups of Aboriginal people near Telegraph Point and Ballengarra, causing those who survived to afterwards have great fear of the redcoats.
In 1825, after two convict shingle-splitters were killed at Blackman's Point, a detachment of soldiers from the 3rd Regiment of Foot were sent out on a punitive expedition. They shot dead a great number of Aboriginal people, afterwards raping then killing the captured females. This has become known as the Blackman's Point massacre.
In 1830, a stockman was killed by Aboriginal people at Rollands Plains, leading the commandant at the time, Captain Henry Smyth, to issue an edict prohibiting 'the natives' from carrying anything resembling weapons near the British settlements on pain of death. In 1837, further violence occurred at Kogo where three cedar-getters were killed. Several Aboriginal men, including Wombarty and Terrimitchie were arrested for the crime. Terrimitchie was later found guilty and hanged in Port Macquarie. Frontier conflict in the region appears to have ended by the 1840s.
Free settlement
The region was first opened to settlers in 1830 and soon after the penal settlement was closed. Settlers quickly took advantage of the area's good pastoral land, timber resources and fisheries.
The first land grants along the Hastings River were assigned in 1830 to people such as Jeremiah Warlters, William Cross and Matthew Mitchell.
Township of Port Macquarie
A town plan of Port Macquarie was produced by F. R. D'Arcy in 1831 and most of the first allotments were given out in the same year to military men associated with the penal colony such as Lieutenant Matthew Mitchell and Major A.C. Innes.
In 1840 the Wool Road from the Northern Tablelands was under construction to enable wool and other produce to be shipped from the port. Port Macquarie was declared a municipality in 1887, but the town never progressed as a port owing to a notorious coastal bar across the mouth of the river.
Over 20 shipwrecks occurred in the Tacking Point area before a lighthouse was designed by James Barnet and erected there in 1879 by Shepard and Mortley. Tacking Point Lighthouse is classified by the National Trust of Australia (NSW).
Writer Louis Becke was born and grew up in the town in the 1860s and later recalled those days, saying Port Macquarie was an
old-time town ... a quaint, sleepy little place of six hundred inhabitants, who spend their days in fishing and waiting for better times. There are two or three fairly good hotels, very pretty scenery along the coast and up the river, and a stranger can pass a month without suffering from ennui – that is, of course, if he is fond of fishing and shooting; if he is not, he should avoid going there, for it is the dullest coast town in New South Wales.
Modern development and events
In the 1970s, Grace Easterbrook, a retired secretary from Scotland, began a campaign against the high-rise developments which were multiplying up the coast. She led a group of citizen activists in lobbying against a large development on Windmill Hill and in other efforts to conserve the coast. In 1974, residents of Port Macquarie requested that the Builders Labourers Federation place a green ban against the construction of high rise buildings on beach head and water front. Easterbrook died in 1984, before the culmination of her conservation efforts, the beautiful coastal walks, were completed.
Severe flooding occurred in March 2021 when the Hastings River flooded during a severe weather event affecting much of New South Wales.
Heritage listings
Port Macquarie has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
Port Macquarie First Burying Ground
Port Macquarie Government House Site
Hastings Historical Society Museum
Overseers' Cottages Remains
Old Port Macquarie Courthouse
Port Macquarie Second Burying Ground
St Thomas' Anglican Church
Lake Innes House Ruins
Population
In 1847, the population was 819, of whom 599 were males and 220 were female. The gender disparity was probably due to the penal station there at the time.
According to the 2021 census, there were 50,193 people in Port Macquarie urban area and 86,762 in the local government area.
The estimated urban population of Port Macquarie has grown 1.8% on prior year and from 41,496 over the prior decade. Port Macquarie is expected to be the fastest growing place in New South Wales. The town is expected to grow from an estimated 43,655 people in 2009 to 58,888 in 2027.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 5.3% of the population.
80.9% of people were born in Australia. The most common countries of birth were England 4.5%, New Zealand 1.6%, Philippines 0.6%, India 0.6% and South Africa 0.5%.
90.1% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin 0.3%, Nepali 0.3%, German 0.2%, Spanish 0.2%, and Tagalog 0.2%.
The most common responses for religion were No Religion 37.7%, Catholic 21.7% and Anglican 18.0%.
General
Port Macquarie is a coastal destination, known for its extensive beaches and waterways. The town is also known for its koala population, being the home to the Billabong Zoo (a wildlife park and koala breeding centre) and the Koala Preservation Society's Koala Hospital, caring for koalas injured through bushfire, dog attacks and collisions with vehicles.