SUSSEX INLET

In November 1880, a Danish-born seaman and fisherman, Jacob Ellmoos, crossed the bar at the entrance of the Sussex Inlet on a fishing trip that had started from near the Cape St George Lighthouse. Soon thereafter he received a grant of 1,200 acres of land in the area.

In 1886 he and his mother, father, brother and his family started building a home near what later became the township of Sussex Inlet. In 1890 they opened a guest house – the only one on the NSW South Coast between Port Hacking and Twofold Bay. It was called ‘Christian’s Minde’ (‘To the memory of Christian’, Jacob’s father). To reach it, visitors took a horse-drawn coach to Pelican Point (to the west of St Georges Basin township) and then an open sailing boat on a nine-mile voyage across St Georges Basin.

Despite its remote location and the challenges of reaching it, the business prospered.

In 1915 the Commonwealth government acquired land around Jervis Bay which became part of the Australian Capital Territory. The Ellmoos’ freehold land was swapped for Federal leaseholds and eventually Jacob was compensated (evidently, not willingly because the Commonwealth government seemed to believe they could take away the Ellmoos’ land and business because Jacob was ‘a foreigner’).

Jacob then bought a large tract of the land that remained part of NSW upon which the town of Sussex Inlet slowly developed. On a part of this land Jacob established another famous guest house ‘Heimdall’ - on the opposite side of the inlet to ‘Christian’s Minde’ - which he and his family ran until the site was purchased by the Sussex Inlet RSL Club.

‘Christian's Minde’ continued to be run as a popular holiday resort until the late 1940s, after which it was converted into self-contained flats.

In 1916, Jacob and ten local men cleared a road (today Sussex Inlet Road) from Wandandian to Sussex Inlet. It opened up Sussex Inlet to development as a tourist and fishing resort.

The first telephone service in Sussex Inlet was connected to ‘Christian’s Minde’ in 1906. A post office was opened in 1920, at which time the population of the town was around 50, although about 150 visitors were also accommodated in boarding houses at any one time during summer months. After the area was subdivided in 1935, numerous holiday homes were built and the area became popular with retirees.

During World War II, ‘Christian’s Minde’ was used by the crews of flying boats that were based at St Georges Basin.

Wreck Bay (which received its name in 1850), on the coastal side of Sussex Inlet, was a particularly notorious part of the South Coast coastline. At least 16 ships were wrecked in the Bay between 1835 and 1922, among them the Hive (in December 1835) that was transporting 252 Irish male convicts to Sydney and which became the only convict ship to be wrecked on the Australian mainland.