Wonthaggi coal miners in Victoria. Wonthaggi -- 150 kilometres from Melbourne -- worked the state coal mine from the town's birth in 1909 until 1968, when the mine closed.

Coal was discovered by explorer William Hovell at Cape Paterson in 1826, and was subsequently mined from the Powlett River fields in the region, between 1859 and 1864. However transporting the coal by whale boat through the surf to larger ships anchored offshore proved costly and dangerous and mining activity was soon curtailed.
Much of the coal for the colony of Victoria was sourced from Newcastle and the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, along with local supplies from private and co-operative coal mines at Outtrim, Jumbunna and Korumburra in Gippsland. After the 1909-1910 strike by coal miners in the Hunter Valley, the Victorian colonial government were determined to ensure stability in local supplies of coal. The State Coal mine and the town of Wonthaggi came into being in 1910 to supply coal for the steam trains in Victoria. The construction of the Wonthaggi power station in 1912 resulted in the mining complex becoming the first electrified mining operation in the southern hemisphere.

Described as one of the largest and most dangerous collieries in Australia, the mine took 80 miners' lives over its time but "bred a solidarity that made Wonthaggi the proud heart of the Miners' Federation". Wonthaggi was opened by the Victorian government as an emergency mine when a strike disrupted the supply from NSW's coalfields, which the rest of Australia depended on. Despite the "geological nightmare" of the underground mine, with thin seams and extreme faulting that made it so dangerous, around 2000 former gold miners flocked there within weeks, establishing the town.

 Wonthaggi had become a "Tent town."

Despite state ownership of the colliery, conditions were far worse than in many of NSW's private mines. They were kept that way by the state government, which maintained contracts for coal with NSW mines to avoid giving Wonthaggi miners a strategic lever to improve their situation. The mine was run by the Railways Department, which had no experience of mining, and, worse, by Robert Menzies, who was the state railway minister during the '30s. Despite this, the Wonthaggi miners made the site into a centre of militant industrial unionism. During the '30s they defended miners' jobs when management tried to select who would be put off in the depression, targeting the weakest and the most political miners. A tremendous five-month strike followed in 1934, which Menzies aimed to break. The threat of a nationwide strike by miners eventually forced him to back down. He threw up the "Communist bogey", creating the story of red Wonthaggi. The old miners interviewed say it was only partly true; there were a small number of communists, but the rest were no less interested in fighting to improve safety and conditions in the mine, and in defending their right to militant unionism.

 In the Cage.

Finally, the inevitable happened. On the morning of February 15th, 1937, the miners had gathered on the steps of the Union Theatre for a stop work meeting to protest the continuing lack of safety in the mines. The meeting was about to begin when a violent explosion rocked the town; 20 shaft had blown up. That morning 13 maintenance men had descended the shaft. Tragically, all 13 lost their lives, and that morning in February became etched in Wonthaggi's memory. The tragedy resulted in a successful national campaign to improve conditions for all Australian miners.

In 1938, the miners won an award including safety standards after a six-week strike provoked by a whitewashed inquiry into a disaster that took 13 miners' lives. The "bogey" was raised again in the 1949 national coal strike to extend the Wonthaggi conditions to other collieries. Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley sent the army in against the strikers and raided Communist Party offices. Leaders of the Miners' Federation were jailed for refusing to hand over union strike funds. The strike was broken when the NSW miners eventually voted to return to work "after two men were given seats in parliament" said a miner from Wonthaggi, where the strike continued for a time. In 1968, 10 years after the government first tried to close the mine, Wonthaggi was shut.

The miners' legacy to coal miners elsewhere was a militant example, and the holiday pay and sick pay won through striking, which other miners later won.  The first women's auxiliary was established at Wonthaggi during the 1934 strike, and it remains a part of the miners union today.

On the 20th December 1968, the familiar whistle that ran the lives of so many sounded for the last time. It was the State Mine's last working day. In 59 years, the Wonthaggi mines yielded over 16 million tons of coal, and claimed at least 80 lives in accidents. However, the legacy of Wonthaggi lives on. Wonthaggi miners and their families wielded a degree of industrial influence that far outweighed their numbers. Many of the benefits and conditions that we enjoy today have their origins at the Wonthaggi coal face.

 A replica Poppet Head has been built in the park near the Wonthaggi Hotel and everyday at 12 noon the whistle sounds, a reminder to all of Wonthaggi's mining history.