East Maitland, unlike West Maitland, was created as a planned town. It originated from an order in 1829 by the NSW Surveyor-General, Sir Thomas Mitchell, to George Boyle White: White was to 'lay out' a town which would be the principal administrative and commercial centre of the Hunter Valley. White did the job, but Mitchell's objective was never realised.
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The convict farming settlement of Wallis Plains had, by 1829, become a bustling little town centred on a small but busy port at the site of today's Maitland Regional Athletics Centre. It was highly flood prone: after the arrival of the first settlers in 1818 there had been two floods in 1819 followed by a very big one in 1820 which inundated farms. More floods followed in 1821, 1826 and 1827 and others again, not recorded, may have struck in other years. Mitchell sought to relieve the economic and other difficulties caused by floods by establishing a new centre on higher ground.
The town laid out by White to the east of Wallis Creek was intended to become that centre, and it was given the name 'Maitland'. In 1835 Wallis Plains became West Maitland, and 'Maitland' East Maitland, on the orders of Governor Sir Richard Bourke. East Maitland was slow to take off as a centre of activity and population. Land was not made available there for private use until 1833, and growth was sluggish. Water supply was problematic on the clay hill, although there was a lagoon just below what is now Melbourne St, and people did not relish the long commuting times involved in travelling by foot or horse and sulky to and from West Maitland where the bulk of the work was to be found at the port and in the businesses along what was becoming High St.
Nevertheless there was private investment in East Maitland, including by 'Gentleman' John Smith who established a three-storey flour mill at the lower end of Newcastle St in about 1834. Smith also built a hotel, shops and several houses nearby. By the early 1840s, though, growth was occurring in East Maitland. The census of 1841 recorded a population of 1022, more than half the number enumerated in West Maitland at the same time.
White had made provision for a grid network of streets, public buildings (including a courthouse) open spaces, churches, a school, a glebe, a cemetery, a gaol and police barracks. Some of these public uses had become established by 1841, and in 1844 the building of the gaol began. The town had become the official 'government town', quite distinct from West Maitland which was at times referred to as the 'people's town'. There was substantial private-sector commercial development along Melbourne St which was to become a shopping strip. Small businesses operated from houses nearby. East Maitland became an 'overflow' centre when West Maitland was unable to expand further except onto the most flood prone land. In due course, most of the population growth in the region came to be focused on the high ground of East Maitland as originally envisaged by Mitchell and White, but it was to be well into the 20th century before East Maitland had more residents than West.
