Migration Heritage Project

24/08/2026

In this month’s MHP Newsletter:

Personal stories of leadership nurtured across generations, to community milestones honouring decades of migration, and reflections on the housing challenges faced by newcomers in the post-war years as well as update on the development of the Museum of People Country and Industry.

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14/07/2026

Housing solutions of the past – Hostels and Boarding Houses

Much like current FIFO workers – large employment sectors in the Illawarra attracted workers and new migrants by offering accommodation to them and their families. Built in 1936 the current Open Hearth Hotel in Warrawong was a boarding house for steel workers, later a hostel and finally converted to a hotel.

Brayton (Campbell St) and Breadalbane (Kembla St) in Wollongong were examples of more formal boarding houses while the Filippi boarding house in Cringila and a boarding house established by two Macedonian friends Kole Savkulov and Cane Kostevski in Port Kembla were examples of more informal options.

Source: Wollongong Migrant Heritage Places Study First Accommodation for Post-WW2 Migrants in the Illawarra (link in comments or in bio for Instagram users)

Feel free to share this post but please do not copy, store or send any individual images as they are subject to copyright. Photos supplied from private collections © Baart, Filippi and Savkulov families, Wollongong City Libraries Illawarra Images, M. Walker for MHP

08/07/2026

Housing solutions of the past - Tents, Garages and Caravans

In the 1950’s building standards and regulations weren’t as rigid as they are today so many people were able to build their own homes and live in temporary accommodation while it was being constructed. Many lived in garages, caravans or tents on site or in nearby camping grounds. Stuart Park was in fact a major camping ground where people could camp for up to 3 months while they found more permanent accommodation.

Source: Wollongong Migrant Heritage Places Study First Accommodation for Post-WW2 Migrants in the Illawarra (link in comments or in bio for Instagram users)

Feel free to share this post but please do not copy, store or send any individual images as they are subject to copyright. Photos supplied from private collections © van Gils, Deroy, van Duin and Jansen families and M. Walker for MHP Place Project

06/07/2026

solutions of the past – Prefabricated houses

With housing supply and affordability in the media recently, we dug up some of the ways people in the 1950s resolved the issue.

The Tenkate family bought 2 pre-fab homes and put them together to create one larger family home in Bulli. A few years later they sold it to the Schelle family to accommodate their 10 children.

While in 1951 the van Gils family bought a prefabricated house from Sweden and constructed it in Figtree.

Source: Wollongong Migrant Heritage Places Study First Accommodation for Post-WW2 Migrants in the Illawarra (link in comments or in bio for Instagram users)

Feel free to share this post but please do not copy, store or send any individual images as they are subject to copyright. Photos, supplied are from private collections © Schelle, van Duin family van Gils families and the National Archives of Australia

29/06/2026

75th Anniversary celebrated by the Illawarra Maltese Community

The Maltese Community was the first community group to be approached by MHP when in 2004 the George Cross Falcons Club at Lake Avenue Cringila hosted a preserving your local history workshop. Over a weekend in May 2004 two MHP committee members spent time with the community and recorded memories surrounding personal objects, many hand-made, that held a special connection and evoked memories of their homeland. The MHP were also given permission to scan photos held in the club’s photo albums as a means of recording and preserving migrant heritage in the Illawarra.

When the Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural NSW provided funds for an exhibition to highlight the heritage of a migrant community in the Illawarra, the MHP asked the Maltese Community and Club in appreciation of not only the hospitality and generosity shown, but in recognition of the one of the first, if not the first, club established by a migrant group in the Illawarra post WW2. In September 2006 the exhibition “George Cross Falcons Maltese Australians in the Illawarra” was held in the foyer of the Wollongong City Council Administration Building.

Congratulations to the Maltese Club on their anniversary and for their achievements over the past 75 years. Here is a look back at some of the photos taken during that May weekend and the exhibition.

More can be read about the Maltese community on the MHP website
https://www.mhpillawarra.com.au

28/06/2026

Congratulations to the Maltese Club at Cringila who recently celebrated their 75th anniversary

25/06/2026

WILLIAM GARTLEY (BINKS) MCGILL, BALGOWNIE HOSTEL, 1952
A letter written home to Scotland in 1952 lets you in on a migrant coal miner’s experience from the voyage to Australia staying at Bonegilla and then at Balgownie Migrant Hostel, working in the mines (and the weather), the pay and cost of living. Read on.

“Dear Hugh,

You will be thinking our boat went down since it’s about 3 months since I left, however at last we are half settled.

Well Hugh, the boat journey is a great one in every way but you need a lot of money and as you know we had very little but we managed in a sort of way but with about £50 it would be the best holiday anyone could wish for. The food is marvellous; breakfast 4 courses lunch 4 course plain tea at 3.30 then dinner at 7p.m. 5 course and believe me it was a dinner. Steak, chicken, roast lamb, duck, turkey everything money couldn’t buy at home, fruit everyday.

Well we landed in Melbourne on 18th of June had a 7 hour train journey to the reception centre at Bonegilla in Victoria, we were supposed to be there for 5 days but we were held 2 weeks due to rain. Then we travelled 22 hours by train to this camp its 50 miles from Sydney, but a lovely place, very comfortable 2 bedrooms 3 single beds and a cot for Yvonne, all brand new and soft as feathers, plenty warm blankets. We have a sideboard, 3 chrome chairs, 2 easy chairs, 1 table, bath for baby, bedpan, pail, shovel, brush, mop, 1 big carpet, 3 small ones, nice big stove, 2 wardrobes, 3 set of drawers, everything you need. The food here is good, an odd day it’s nothing to rave about but all in, it’s alright.

Well I started work (what a laugh) money for old rock. The pit I’m in is the day wage system for everybody - experienced men Grade 1, unexperienced Grade 2. I’m a head yin. Grade 1. My wage is 35 shillings a fortnight. We’re paid every 2 weeks. If you work 10 full days you’re paid 11 as bonus. There’s very little overtime, union limits it to 1 shift per week, no more or less. I was unlucky I’ve been off a week with a bruised rib so I get £7 compensation so I’ll get by. That’s as much we got on oncost at home for working. The cost of living is not dear as the shirts, shoes are even cheaper than at home. I got a lovely pair of brown shoes off my first pay, real good ones. £2.19.6, good sport shirts that will wash and iron lovely 15 shillings. Dress shirts, two collars 25 shillings any colour.

Well Hugh, 7 minutes takes us to the beach from here it’s lovely the silver sand stretches for miles and a slow gradient into the water.

Wollongong is our nearest town and in the bus about 6 miles, a lovely shopping centre, pictures, dancing, and all sort of amusement, the goods are cheap in comparison to wages, furniture cheaper than at home.

This is sunny Australia and it’s raining again now and has been for the last 48 hours non-stop and when it rains it rains! Never seen nothing like it. It’s ten times worse than I ever seen it at home, but not very cold although it’s their winter.

Yvonne was 1 year old last Sunday and she’s thriving like a wee mushroom considering her age and the journey she’s been a wee marvel she was the youngest baby on the boat, and even coming through the Red Sea it was red hot - we had to sleep on deck she was great just had a touch dysentery for 5 days caused by water on the boat it was horrible to drink.

Well write soon Hugh - I’ll write you more news next time.

Your loving brother Binks
###xx

P.S. Hope you are all well as it leaves us at present.
Cheerio just now.
Tell all I’m asking for them”

William Gartley (Binks) McGill sailed to Australia from Scotland on the Ship Chitral that departed London on 14 May 1952 and arrived in Australia 13 June 1952 on the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme. The photo is the letter he sent home to Scotland while he and his family were living at Balgownie Migrant Hostel 2 months after he left for Australia. The letter had been kept by niece.

Reproduction and transcription of the letter is courtesy of Charles McGill, nephew of William Gartley (Binks) McGill and can also be viewed on the MHP website © Charles McGill and MHP, October 2019

23/06/2026

My grandparents, A Ma (阿嬷) and A Gong (阿公) were born in China during a time of poverty and famine. In the 1940s, when travel between China and Vietnam was still possible, they moved to Vietnam to seek stability and opportunity, hoping to better support their families back home. However, after 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was established, borders became restricted. What had once been temporary separation became permanent. A-Ma and A-Gong were suddenly unable to return to China, separated from their eldest children and family.

They eventually settled in Vietnam and raised their younger children there, but the conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s forced them into displacement once more. My parents and I had already fled Vietnam as refugees and arrived in Australia in 1980. The Sisters of Mercy in Grafton supported us with early settlement. Sister Marg Bray explained, “Part of the Catholic Church in Grafton sponsored 3 Families from Pulau Bidong Island. In Grafton the retired Sisters taught English at night and people in the Parish Community helped: housing etc. as there were no employment opportunities so the families moved to the city. A link has been maintained with Grafton people since 1981 and we are so proud of the sacrifice these parents made for their children, all of whom are well educated Australians."

Eight years later, we were able to sponsor my grandparents to join us and begin a new chapter together. When I look back at childhood photos with them, I see more than memories. I see resilience across generations. People who kept going, kept rebuilding, and kept holding onto who they were.

For me, culture and identity live in the everyday moments we shared as a family. One of the strongest memories I hold is our tradition of “bak chang”, which means making zongzi (粽子) Every year, my mum would stay up late into the night, carefully wrapping and preparing these sticky rice parcels after dinner. I would try to help, but most of the intricate, skilled work was guided by her hands. Close to midnight, A Gong would wake as the smell of the chang filled the house, always eager to taste one first. These are the moments I remember most about him - the quiet anticipation, the joy, and his oversight as he guided and gently corrected our techniques.

Our family’s chang was a mix of sticky rice, marinated pork, mushrooms, dried shrimp, Chinese sausage, and mung bean and carries a history of many generations. Traditionally made for Ngou Gyeh Jit (五月节) it symbolises remembrance, protection, and care. For me, it also symbolises continuity. Even through migration, separation, and starting over, our culture endured.

Because of A Ma and A Gong’s strength, I have the life I do today. Their story reminds me that being a refugee is not just about hardship. It is about courage, adaptation, and the ability to rebuild while holding onto identity. My Teochew culture lives on in the traditions we keep, the language we speak, and the love that continues through recipes shared across generations. Traditionally at this time of the year, my mum would make dozens of chang, always making enough to share with family and friends. This is the first year she hasn’t, as she’s getting older so perhaps it’s now my turn to carry this tradition forward.

Author: Loan Nittel, photos from private collection courtesy of Loan Nittel © 2026

Photo:
1. A-Gong, Anh (my mother), Sister Juliana Dwyer, Sister Marg Bray. (back row); John (my brother), Phung (my sister), myself, A-Ma (front row)
2. "bak chang" the tradition of making zongzi, sticky rice parcels

20/06/2026

Trauma, war, escape, leads to a 'beautiful life' in Wollongong
Every year, 20 June marks World Refugee Day, the international day to honour people who have been forced to flee. Today, through sharing this story, The Illawarra Flame is proud to champion their right to seek safety
By Jeremy Lasek, courtesy of The Illawarra Flame

Every year, 20 June marks World Refugee Day, the international day to honour people who have been forced to flee. Today, through sharing this story, The Illawarra Flame is proud to champion their right to seek safety

17/06/2026

A migrant reception centre that many of the post WWII Illawarra migrants experienced before they were sent here, starting with the displaced persons under the 1947 International Refugee Organisation agreement and followed by those selected under assisted migration schemes.