Whyalla. Scaled model of the Iron Monarch. Built at Whyalla shipyards. In the Whyalla Maritime Museum.
Image by denisbin
Whyalla. Population 21,200.
Hummock Hill was sighted and named by Matthew Flinders in 1802 and soon after given French names by Captain Baudin. The first pastoral runs were taken out here in the 1850s as it had the Middle Back ranges, coastal access and Port Augusta not too far distant. One of the early pastoralists was James Patterson who took out the Iron Knob leasehold of over 160 square miles in 1854 near Iron Knob. To the north and west of his leasehold was that of James Loudon who took out Caroona station in 1862. Other leaseholds in the region of Whyalla were Point Lowly, Pandurra and Middleback. In the early 1870s Loudon sold Caroona to Sir Samuel Davenport and Sir John Morphett and it was Davenport, with his interest in minerals and mining, who sent the first ore samples to England in 1878 for analysis. This resulted in a mining lease taken out in 1880 by Ernest Siekman. The lease lapsed as he did not pay the annual rental. BHP took out nine mining leases in 1896 and the future of iron Knob and the future Whyalla began. BHP began taking iron ore for smelting to Port Augusta in 1899 which took bullock drays two days. The Hundred of Randell which covered this area was declared in 1895 as interest in the ore deposits increased.
In 1896 the government released land fronting Spencers Gulf for lease. One of the first to take up land where Whyalla stands was Humphrey Cowled who leased 30,000 acres on the gulf which he called Nonowie. The town of Hummock Hill emerged in 1900 after BHP developed their ore leases. The ore was used for flux in the Port Pirie smelter and it was shipped across Spencers Gulf. Most of the early settler families at Hummock Hill also came by ship across the gulf from Port Pirie. These families remained the backbone of the Whyalla population until World War Two. In 1900 BHP proposed to the government of SA to enact a bill that would allow them to build a tramway from Iron Knob to Hummock Hill on the coast with a permanent leasehold of the route. Port Augusta Council opposed this as they wanted the tramway built to Port Augusta and its already existing port. There was some logic in this opposition as a tramway to Port Augusta would be 46 miles in length whereas the tramway to Hummock Hill was about 35 miles, not a significantly shorter distance. The government enacted legislation for a BHP tramway to Hummock Hill in 1901 and BHP had developed a small jetty and port by 1903. At the same time the town of Hummock Hill emerged partly on BHP leasehold land. By 1905 the settlement had its first school, a general store and a tin Institute in which the school was conducted. Church services were also held in the hall. In 1903 the community was pleased when Mr Delprat, the general manager of the Broken Hill mine visited Hummock Hill and Iron Knob. The first hotel opened in 1905 on the site that later became the Whyalla Hotel 20 or so years later. The beer was shipped to the hotel from Port Pirie. The isolation of Hummock Hill was reduced when a telephone service began in 1911. Gradually stone houses replaced early tin and timber houses and the town took shape. The government officially surveyed and changed the name of the town to Whyalla in 1914 which means “sound of the sea” in a local Aboriginal language. The new solid Institute was opened in 1920 by Mr Delprat the BHP manager in Broken Hill. At the time Whyalla had a population of around 1,000 people with sporting clubs, RSL, banks, and commercial enterprises. Water was shipped from Port Pirie when necessary. BHP established a dairy to provide milk for the residents and a small desalination plant was built to provide additional fresh water. The impressive red ironstone buildings, often in the Art Deco style were erected in the late 1930s or early 1940s as the city’s industrial base expanded to steel making and ship building. The iron stone Whyalla Hotel opened in 1933. It was enlarged in 1940. This was a company town run by BHP with the exception of the Post Office, the School and the Police Station run by the government and the commercial enterprises of the town. BHP was a paternalistic employer and during the Depression of the 1930s as work slowed BHP found other jobs for married male employees such as re grading the tramway from Iron Knob etc.
During World War One Mr Delprat had suggested a steel furnace and steel works in Whyalla but this did not happen. The steel industry in Australia began with a small furnace and plant at Lithgow in the Blue Mountains in 1901. This plant was superseded by the bigger steel works in Newcastle in 1915 and Whyalla jetty was then expanded to ship iron ore direct to Newcastle. The third steel plant in Australia was established at Port Kembla (Wollongong) in 1928 and Iron Knob ore was also shipped there. With the rise of Hitler and Third Reich in Europe in 1933 and the ominous threat of world war Australia began to be concerned about its future as it was clear we were no longer isolated from the rest of the world. In 1937 the SA government passed legislation for the Morgan to Whyalla Murray River water pipeline to ensure water reliability for Whyalla and this was an essential for the first production of steel by BHP. The 1937 act set aside 1,000 acres for BHP to establish the plant and adjacent harbour. Progress was not hasty and the furnace and harbour began in 1939. After the outbreak of World War Two work progressed quickly. The first steel was produced in 1941 and called pig iron. Port Kembla also produced pig iron or steel and its export to Japan in 1938 led to the Attorney General Robert Menzies being called Pig Iron Bob by striking wharf unionists. The union slogan at the time was “No scrap for the Jap.” At that time Japan was fighting the Sino-Japanese War and needed more steel. The industrial dispute at Port Kembla ended in January 1939 when the waterside workers loaded the ships at Port Kembla. In 1940 the Royal Australia Navy asked BHP if they could build ships in Whyalla and this became urgent with the war and work began in 1940 on the hulls of several ships before the steel blast furnace was completed. The town grew rapidly with an influx of new workers and the construction of the hospital, an abattoirs, the Spencer Hotel, and the establishment of a Whyalla newspaper in 1941/42. During the War the population rose from 1,350 in 1937 to 7,900 in 1944. During most of World War Two BHP employed around 2,500 men and women with a peak of 2,750 employees in 1941. During the War BHP also established an ammunitions annex to produce shells for war arms. In a couple of years Whyalla produced 748,000 shell cases. The Combined Unions Council negotiated with BHP for workers’ wages and conditions. The newly employed women to offset the war time labour shortage were employed in the war effort in the shell annex, the tool room and in ship building. The women received 90% of the men’s wages for the same job.
The first ship was launched in 1941 and named the HMAS Whyalla (650 tonnes) which is now part of the Information Centre and Maritime Museum. It was one of four corvettes made in Whyalla for the Royal Australia Navy and they mainly worked as minesweepers and surveillance. During and after World War Two Whyalla built 36 ships for the Australian Navy, four for Indian navy and 20 for the British Admiralty. After the War most of the ships built in Whyalla shipyards were mainly cargo and iron ore carriers. A total of 63 ships, one oil rig and two barges were built in Whyalla by 1978 when shipbuilding was closed down. Most of the corvettes manufactured in Whyalla had South Australian town names- Whyalla, Gawler and Pirie. Whyalla also built the Kalgoorlie corvette for the Royal Navy. Other SA named corvettes built interstate were the Kapunda, the Glenelg and the Wallaroo. After the war BHP built commercial ships and eventually in 1958 they decided to build an integrated steel works in Whyalla (completed 1965) to process the ore into steel. Railway lines and ships were among the steel products produced.
As a shipbuilding site and producer of ammunition shells Whyalla needed special consideration and defence during World War Two. Defence installations were erected on Hummock Hill during the Second World War (1942) as Whyalla was a potential Japanese bombing target. Four anti-aircraft guns were on the ready at Hummock Hill. Other defence installations were built south of Cowell at Port Gibbon to forewarn of a Japanese attack. Complacency about war threats was overturned when German shipping mines were discovered in Spencers Gulf in 1940 designed to impede BHP ore carriers to Newcastle and Wollongong. Across the Gulf Port Pirie produced half of Britain’s lead so it too needed special protection. A survey recommended special defences for both Iron Triangle cities but only Whyalla got special protection. As the threat of Japan increased anti-aircraft guns were sent to Hummock Hill and arrived on 4 February 1942. Ten days later (14 th February) Singapore fell to the Japanese and on 19th February 1942 Darwin was bombed and partially destroyed by the Japanese. The hummock Hill anti-aircraft guns were operational by 23rd March. One Royal Navy ship guarded the entrance to Whyalla for most of the War until 1944. Search lights were installed at Hummock Hill late in 1942. But no threat emerged during the War. Air raid practices were conducted by BHP from time to time warning people to take cover when the BHP siren sounded. Despite the practices and preparations no raid occurred but the need for precaution was not unfounded. Three of BHP’s merchant ships were sunk off the coast of NSW on their way to or from Whyalla with a total loss of 85 lives. By early 1944 Australia’s home defences were known to be out of danger but gunners at Whyalla had been withdrawn in August 1943 and their tasks taken over by civilian defence.
By 1943 Whyalla had a population of 5,000 people and people began to query the lack of local government as the city was run by BHP. Local government was instituted in 1944 with three elected and three BHP appointed councillors. 1944 was also the year the Morgan to Whyalla water pipeline was completed. In 1960 Whyalla became a city as it had around 14,000 residents. The Commission system of local government was ended in 1970 when locals could finally elect all councillors to their city. By 1976 Whyalla had 33,000 residents, the largest city outside of Adelaide but with the loss of shipbuilding in 1978 the city’s population declined to about 20,000. BHP sold their Whyalla works to OneSteel in 2000 which changed its name to Arrium. Sanjeev Gupta bought the insolvent Arrium steelworks in 2017 and has revitalised it albeit with recent difficulties. The Whyalla steel works are critical to the whole of Australia as steel is only made at Whyalla and Port Kembla. Whyalla is the only plant to make steel rail for all sorts of uses not just railways. In late 2024 Whyalla steel works employed 4,800 people directly and countless more indirectly in other firms. (Port Kembla employs around 3,000 people.) Perhaps the future of the city will be revitalised even more if the hydrogen hub proceeds. Whether that happens or not billions of dollars of investment are needed to move Whyalla steel works away from coal fired furnaces to gas or hydrogen fired furnaces. On the way to Hummock Hill lookout in Gay St. we pass the Whyalla Institute with a classical façade with the date as 1920. This was also the site of the first timber Institute opened in February 1905. The first Whyalla School opened in this Institute in April 1905.The current port of Whyalla exports iron ore and steel mainly. Port Bonython 16 kms north of Whyalla mainly exports crude oil and liquid gas from South Australia’s Cooper basin.
