Sport
Sport is and always has been a popular past-time on the coalfields. Football (soccer), cricket, tennis, horse racing and lawn bowls – all popular sports in the Hunter – originated elsewhere. Early immigrants to the area brought these sports with them, influencing our leisure time down to the present.
There are some activities we can enjoy today that the early immigrants could not. Daylight bathing was outlawed in the early 1900s, but by the summer of 1907/1908 Newcastle had its first Lifesaving Club.
In the slide show below you can see some of the photos from our collections showing the sportsmen and women of the past.
