Baddeley Park

Baddeley Park in Vincent Street, South Cessnock is an important sportsground for rugby league, soccer, hockey, cricket, dog obedience and community events. It is also the location for Cessnock Sportsground, a premier facility which has hosted the Australian Wallabies training camps.

But how did the park get its name?

John ‘Jack’ Baddeley was an English-born coal miner who rose up the ranks almost to the top of NSW politics. He immigrated to Australia as a child and in his 20s moved to Cessnock, where he worked at Aberdare Extended and Neath Collieries. When not working underground he was an enthusiastic sportsman excelling in cricket and football where he played at first-grade level.

Always a political animal Baddeley moved from Secretary of the Aberdare Extended miners’ lodge up to become the Northern District President of the Colliery Employees’ Federation in 1914. Baddeley was also a Councillor on Cessnock Shire Council as well as serving on the boards of the local Co-operative Store and Cessnock District Hospital.

In 1915 he became the first President of the Australasian Coal and Shale Employees’ Federation (known as the Miners’ Federation), a significant union which brought all Australian coalminers into one powerful union.

State politics beckoned and Jack Baddeley become a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly in 1922, firstly as member for Newcastle and from 1925 until 1949 as the member for Cessnock. He was continually re-elected as the locals held him in great affection and saw him as one of their own. Baddeley held power during a significant social and economic period in Australian history, which saw two world wars and an economic Great Depression.

Baddeley was strongly associated with the coal industry, from working at the coal face as a miner to eventually being a member of the Federal government’s Coal Industry Special Tribunal. Given this it is surprising to know that in his personal life Jack Baddeley was a lover of the environment, a keen gardener and student of natural history. He was the principal mover behind the Fauna Protection Act (1948).

In 1926 the South Cessnock Progress Association lobbied successfully for a local park to be re-named Baddeley Park in his honour. The park was extended and developed and officially opened three years later. In 1931, as part of the park’s improvements, a large fernery was built on the grounds, it seemed a fitting nod to the nature-loving coal miner.