West Maitland was lush, heavily wooded, virgin ground in 1818 but by 1820 the area was at the centre of a Royal Commission into the brutal treatment of convicts.
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The lash reigned supreme and crime was rampant at Wallis Plains.
Convict gangs were brought from Newcastle to clear the densely wooded brush and the stories of the brutal treatment meted out to those unfortunate wretches at the hands of their taskmasters are a reflection upon humanity.
Men and women who had been transported for political offences and for others that would today attract a fine, were regarded as less than human by their inhuman masters.
Commissioner JT Biggs who conducted the inquiry denounced the treatment and remarked: “I have never visited a convict settlement or seen arbitrary power carried to such an extent.”
Fifty years later in 1872, Biggs wrote how he had not forgotten the impression the treatment had made on him and how it seemed very “un-English”.
“The settlers at the Plains are, with the exception of the storekeeper, surgeon, and the military, all prisoners under long sentences to the Coal (Hunter) River.”
Between 1812 and 1818 authority was given to officials at Newcastle to farm land at the junction of the creek and the river and several small farms were being worked in 1815 at the Plains.
John Tucker was a government storekeeper at Newcastle and also Wallis Plains farm owner.
Tucker, John Eckford, William O’Donnell and John Smith took up land in the locality then called The Camp.
Captain James Wallis, commandant at Newcastle, gave authority for the well-conducted convicts to go onto the land and cultivate it for their own benefit and these men, despite the stigma of conviction, proved worthy pioneers.
The Camp then became known as Wallis Plains.
Molly Morgan arrived here in 1819 and built a hut almost opposite the site of the Town Hall on the boundary of the Royal Hotel and Congregational Church properties.
William O’Donnell built a slab cottage near the junction of the river and the creek, almost opposite Abbott Street.
The cottage stood until a few years ago and the iron bark slabs were quite sound.
There was another slab hut on the slope at the back of the site of the Angel Inn and these were the only inhabitants of Wallis Plains at the time.
Source: Coalfields Heritage Group
