Creator H.F. Cotterell Auctioneer Bulli in conjunction with King & Humphrey Sydney

Date 1912

Real estate poster promoting land sales at the seaside suburb of Austinmer, promoting: ⁣⁣⁣‘Beautiful Sandy Beach for Sea Bathing, The ideal of the Surfer… Fronting the Ocean, Close to the Railway Station. Magnificent Residential and week end Camp Sites’.⁣⁣⁣.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣.⁣⁣⁣It seems obvious today that people would want to make their homes on the spectacularly beautiful Illawarra coast, and on one of its best beaches, but only a few decades before, Austinmer was a coal miners’ village serving the North Illawarra Coal Company. ‘The ideal of the surfer’, too, seems remote given that there was a ban on daylight bathing until 1903. New possibilities arose with the commuter railway opening to Sydney, an hour away. At the turn of the century, the eight-hour day movement brought more leisure to the lives of working families, and people began to embrace the recreational pleasures of ’beautiful sandy beaches’.⁣ Austinmer wasn't a fashionable seaside resort yet, but it would be!.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣.⁣⁣⁣For those who wanted to build, but were unable to afford a block of this prime seaside land, agents were quick to point to the option of ‘week end camp sites’. Welcome, the great Australian weekender!⁣⁣⁣.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣

Source: National Library of Australia