TOMERONG

The word ‘Tomerong’ is Aboriginal for ‘tall timbers’.

The village of Tomerong developed on the original Terara (which pre-dated Nowra) to Ulladulla road, at a road junction leading to Jervis Bay.

The first Tomerong land sale was in April 1855. One of the purchasers, a timber-getter named John Parnell, opened the Traveller’s Rest Hotel at Tomerong in 1857 catering to locals and to those using the main South Coast road. It, or its replacement building, was to operate for the next 54 years.

Most of the early settlers in the surrounding area were subsistence farmers, using their land for dairying or grazing livestock or for planting crops, particularly potatoes. In later years apple and pear growing also became lucrative.

A Tomerong Creamery Company was established in October 1895. It was to operate until February 1902 by which time a decline in the number of local dairy farmers had occurred. When the naval college at Jervis Bay was being built around 1912, one of the remaining local dairy farmers supplied milk to the workers there.

By 1862 the village had evolved that soon included a school and a post office. A church was constructed in 1877 and a general store opened for business about 1882.

In the 1860s and 1870s, horse racing became very popular and Tomerong races were held every year on Boxing Day. These races were revived for a few years from 1902.

In December 1906, Tomerong became the centre for the new Clyde Shire with council chambers being built in the village. (The Clyde Shire, together with Municipalities of Nowra, Berry, Broughton's Vale, Ulladulla, South Shoalhaven, and the Cambewarra Shire were amalgamated in 1948, together becoming the Shoalhaven Shire.) The town’s School of Arts was built in 1926. It served as a military post for two years during World War II.

Timber getting became a major activity in the area in the 1870s. By 1879 at least two sawmills were operating, and a number of timber mills were to function in the town or surrounding areas until the mid-1980s. Charcoal production, eucalyptus oil distilling, and wattle bark stripping were other forestry-based activities that were undertaken on a small scale in the Tomerong area.

Around 1919 an axe handle mill was opened, utilising Spotted Gum that grew in abundance in the area. It burnt down in 1924, one of the owners’ family commenting ‘The brand name of those axe handles was ‘Sterling’ and they (the proprietors) should have ended up wealthy men, but there was not a businessman amongst them and no one with any marketing knowledge, so they never made very much out of the axe handles, even though there was a lot of them sold’.

In 1995 the Princes Highway was upgraded and bypassed the village. This resulted in Tomerong transforming principally into the low to medium density residential community that it is today.