The British connection!

Went to newcastle fort this afternoon after I had lunch with edwina. This was set up by the British late 1800s.It's named after a guy named Colonel Scratchley.On this site there was the first coal mining in Newcastle as the famous explore John Shortland found a few sample of the coal at the foothill of the current site. Over the 130 years history the fort was never actually was used as fort but rather at the begining a misconcieved light house then a firing station to ships which tried to leave the harbour with out paying tax to the British.

When it was first set up all the guns came from England and they had to be sent back to england to be repaired because there was no gun factory of that sort in then colonies (Australia, was yet to be born)!All that fuss for shooting at escaping ships!Ha haa

Only time the guns have actually been used for purpose was during the second world war when Japanese I 21 tried to attack newcastle.Aparently the Japs fired 21 bombs but only 3 worked. This was later found that this was due the fact that the Japs submarine used bombs that were faulty and out of date ones bought from the British! What else could you expect?

What I found most amazing thought that Newcastle had a connection with Bengal since the inception of this town. When John Shortland found coal it led to establishment of coal mining in this town leading to it's first shipment to Bengal in 1799!wow.. I am sure that it was all needed to run the huge railway network that the British had set up in India to run the subcontinental part of the empire!

Anyway, I was amazed by this connection.At least one thing the British did, they connected the whole world for the sake of trading!!!haha