Houtman 400 celebrations in Geraldton, Western Australia | Festival
Houtman 400 celebrations
Locality: Geraldton, Western Australia
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23.01.2022 28. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: CAMPBELL ISLAND Archibald James Campbell, born 1853, died 1929, was a Customs Officer with the ...Victorian and after Federation Australian Government. It would seem an unlikely situation from which to ultimately have an island on the other side of the continent named in honour of your contributions to ornithology. From an early age Archibald was passionate about egg-collecting and he was further inspired by John Gould’s magnificent illustrations and details of Australian birds. In pursuit of eggs and to observe and learn about birds he travelled throughout Australia, including to the Houtman Abrolhos Islands in December 1889, inspired by the accounts of Gilbert from 1843. He spent three weeks on Rat and Pelsaert Islands, assisted by Mr Beddoes, manager of the guano works, who also took a keen interest in the bird life. Campbell was overwhelmed by the scene on Rat Island, writing Words fail, utterly fail, to even convey an idea of the marvellous scene: Why, the whole place is actually alive with birds, some breeding on every bush, some breeding under the bushes, and some breeding beneath the bushes underground. Words fail, utterly fail, to convey a simple idea of the marvellous scene. The birds are perfectly fearless of our presence. We make our way between the dark-coated noddy terns, which cover the saltbushes as well as the ground in all directions, making defiant bark like notes. Others just move out of the way with croaking sounds, exposing their single egg on a secure platform nest of seaweeds. Prolonged guttural screams issue from underneath the bushes from sooty terns, likewise sitting upon a single egg, but on the bare ground the enraged mates flying about our heads, fill the air with squeaking notes of anger, and me being rude enough to strike our bats, while higher still overhead is a cloud of sooties bachelors probably- calling "wideawake" everywhere. The term wide awake as applied to these birds is a sailor's name. In conducting practical investigations in such a fascinating field of natural history, there is just one drawback to contend with, namely, the showers of live guano that fall from the clouds of birds above. Locomotion over the ground is rendered extremely insecure, owing to its honey-combed nature caused by countless burrows of petrels, or so-called mutton birds. Frequently, placing your feet upon apparently solid ground, down you sink to the knees in the dry, loose earth, which runs into your boots like water, so when you return to the [guano] station you are a pretty sight, head covered with new guano, boots filled with ancient guano. [‘Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds’ p 845] His made a rough calculation of the numbers: Rat Island contains approximately 350 acres; deducting 50 acres for the station and cleared portions, and talking the lowest estimate of one bird for every square yard, the total would be 1,452,000 birds for this island alone." Thirty years later the combined effects of guano mining and egg collecting (for food) had reduced this number to zero or nearly so. Campbell was a pioneer bird photographer and took what are possibly the first photographs of the birdlife on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, as shown below. Some of his photographs and the eggs he collected at the Abrolhos are among the thousands he donated to and which are still held by Museums Victoria, evidence of his indefatigable passion for ornithology and nature in general. He was a founder of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) in 1901 and served as its President in 1909 and 1928 and for many years editor and co-editor of the Union's journal, The Emu. He was also a founder of the Bird Observers Club in 1905 and active in the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria from its inception in 1880, leading pioneering expeditions and also writing for their journal. Campbell’s research, travels and collections were brought together in his classic field guide to oology in Australia: Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, published in 1900 in an edition of 600 copies (one of which I am lucky enough to own, with its many references to the Abrolhos). In over 1100 pages he details not only the nests and eggs of 765 Australian birds but waxes lyrical about their behaviour and other details, as quoted above. The eggs of all species are illustrated with coloured plates. In the early decades of last century, when collecting birds’ eggs was a prevalent pastime, it was a popular tome. An interesting side-note is that with the advent of Federation in 1901, Campbell, who was also intensely interested in Australia’s flora, began campaigning for a wattle to become the national floral emblem, given there are over 1000 species. A 'national' Wattle Day was celebrated in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide in September 1910 and two years later the wattle was incorporated into Australia’s Coat of Arms. The official proclamation of the Golden Wattle Acacia pycnantha as Australia’s floral emblem did not occur until the Australian Bicentenary celebrations in 1988. Campbell received international recognition, including being invited to be a Colonial Member of the British Ornithologists' Union in 1902 and an Honorary Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1904. These were great honours in ornithological circles. No doubt he would also have been chuffed to know one of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands is named after him, for as he wrote after a day roaming Pelsaert Island, finding nesting roseate terns (giving him a first in collecting their eggs), and boarding the UNA for the sail back to Geraldton: So ended my last day on that romantic collecting field Houtman’s Abrolhos truly a wonderland for breeding sea-birds.
23.01.2022 31. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES DAKIN ISLAND The name Dakin Island acknowledges another eminent biologist, in fact the first Pro...fessor of Biology at the University of Western Australia, William Dakin. English-born Dakin took up the appointment in 1913 after degrees at Liverpool and studying oceanography in Germany, Italy and Ireland. Almost immediately after his arrival, perhaps taking up Saville-Kent’s 1897comments that these Abrolhos reefs will constitute one of the happiest and most productive hunting grounds and fields for biological investigation, Dakin acquired funding from the Percy Sladen Trust (established to honour a prominent starfish biologist) for an expedition to the Houtman Abrolhos Islands. In November 1913, with Wilfred Alexander of the Perth Museum, he spent 3 windy weeks aboard the fishing boat QUEEN, collecting and making biological and geological observations on land and in the sea. A second Percy Sladen Trust Expedition in October 1915 chartered the fishing lugger 'Ada' and four weeks were spent amongst the islands, a great deal of it in dredging. The collections of vertebrates, sponges, echinoderms, polychaete worms, crabs, sea-slugs, isopods (sea lice) and other groups were sent to experts around the world and the first comprehensive reports and scientific papers about the Abrolhos were produced. Dakin’s conclusions regarding the formation of the islands and the ecology have mostly stood the test of time. Dakin took up the ‘Derby Chair of Zoology’ at Liverpool in 1920 (a position linked incidentally to the Earl of Derby who had the specimens from the Abrolhos collected by Gilbert). He returned to Australia as Professor of Zoology at the University of Sydney in 1929 continuing an incredibly active and productive career. He published zoology textbooks (1918 and 1927) and a history of whaling in Australia in Whalemen Adventurers (1934), but it was marine biology that engrossed Dakin. He published the pioneering Plankton of the Australian Coastal Waters off New South Wales (1940) and investigated the life cycle of commercial prawns. During World War II he became technical director of camouflage - an important tactic in warfare - for the Ministry of Home Security, developing camouflage specific to Australian conditions. His publication Art of Camouflage (1941) drew heavily on his observations of camouflage in marine life. The fisheries laboratory of the Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research at Cronulla was partly his creation. He was a trustee of the Australian Museum, Sydney, president of the Royal Zoological Society and the Linnaean Society of NSW, constructed syllabuses in general biology and zoology for high schools, and presented 'Science in the News', for the ABC. Dakin received world-wide recognition and many honours for his teaching and achievements. Many marine enthusiasts would remember his book Australian Seashores, completed after his death in 1950 by his two long-term assistants Isobel Bennett and Elizabeth Pope. It was a fitting epitaph for, as he wrote, for over thirty years the study of the Australian seashores and seas has been my life work. The naming of an island in the Abrolhos is a fitting tribute for it was there that much of his enthusiasm and passion began. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] Can I suggest you investigate these opportunities to visit the Abrolhos on which I have the privilege of being your guide! 5-day ECOABROLHOS Discovery Tours (the ones marked with an asterisk* 4 of these in Sept/Oct 2020): https://www.ecoabrolhos.com.au/cruise-calendars/
22.01.2022 Latitude Gallery - Flotsam and Jetsam 2020 The Batavia Coast Maritime Heritage Association has been delighted to again sponsor a prize for Latitude Gallery’s Fl...otsam and Jetsam art competition. It is remarkable to see what people see in the objects thrown up by the sea, the stories they tell. There were three that stood out as addressing the theme for our award, The rich maritime history of the Batavia Coast. You will see the entries and each artist’s blurb on their piece below: ‘Help’, by Lynda Howitt, ‘Wrecked Dutch Trader Batavia 1629’ by Rosalyn Kelly and ‘The Fremantle Sardines’ by Drew Strickland. Drew’s entry was selected as the winner, particularly as it stepped away from well-trodden themes to capture some of the broader scope of our maritime history. Whether Drew had in mind Andy Warhol’s famous ‘Campbell Soup’ artwork we don’t know, but in its simplicity it captures, as his blurb says, some of the reality and hardship of the pioneer fishermen at the Houtman Abrolhos Islands. As early as the mid-1840s fishermen ventured from Fremantle to the Abrolhos to catch fish and sea cucumbers and dig guano. It was a tough life, and even sailing back to Fremantle could take ten days or more. Canned sardines became a staple, something you could store for long periods and even eat while at sea when cooking in rough conditions would not have been possible. The advertisement [The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal Saturday 18 July 1840 p1] indicates ‘sardines in tins’ were available as early as July 1840 in Perth. WA did have its own canneries later: Tuckeys in Mandurah in the 1880s, canning mullet, Heywards with rock lobster at Port Gregory around 1905 and 'the Cove Cannery' at the Abrolhos in the 1930’s and 'the Red Tail Cannery' in Geraldton during the war years, had some success. Hunt's cannery at Albany and more recent enterprises indicate there is still a demand for canned seafoods. Congratulations Drew, and Pia Boschetti with the Latitude Gallery team and all involved in this year's event! BCMHA look forward to sponsoring a prize again in 2021 so get your thinking caps on! All entries in the exhibition can be seen at Latitude Gallery, Marine Terrace Geraldton until late July. See more
20.01.2022 33. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES HALL ISLAND Robert Hall (1867-1949), a Melbourne ornithologist, first came to Western Australia ...in the 1890s, reporting on useful and noxious small birds for the Government. He later accompanied a Norwegian expedition to the isolated Kerguelen Island in the Southern Ocean as naturalist in 1897. In 1899, between Sept. 23rd and Nov. 8th, he returned to WA to collect bird specimens between Albany and the Abrolhos. He spent a week in Geraldton before hitching a ride on guano-miners’ Broadhurst and McNeil’s cutter WANDA. He was rather impressed by what he found: The Abrolhos are coral-islands which sea-birds haunt in abundance. A cruise through them will ensure success to the explorer. Our cutter-yacht, the ' Wanda,' sailed into an anchorage off Rat Island on the afternoon of a fine day. We immediately walked a few hundred yards along the beach to a ''rookery that contained some 2000 Sooty Terns, each of which had deposited or was depositing its single egg under a salt-bush. At least a thousand of them must have been whirling immediately above us, with many others still higher in the air. Never have I experienced such a sensation of the marvellous as when I heard that extraordinary din of bird-voices. Freshly-laid eggs were a popular delicacy back in Geraldton and Hall reported: Certain fishermen and others had been out collecting those of the first laying (Oct. 20th), for which they eagerly look out. Their visit was to a distant "rookery" (in which I had previously -wandered), and they had taken from a portion of it about eight hundred eggs, leaving some two hundred, and giving the birds the opportunity to lay again undisturbed. He noted that cats had been introduced to deal with the rats on Rat Island: The day of the vast flocks referred to by Gilbert in Gould's 'Handbook' is past [Gilbert visited in 1843]. When guano-workers cease to frequent the islands, and the introduced cats allow the lizards alone to work havoc there, the former state of affairs may return. In his report he included, along with his observations and some nesting-data, a list of 48 birds found at the Abrolhos. Two lists had been previously published one in 1890 by A. J. Campbell, a second in 1898 by R. Helms’. Hall added the Rufous Song-lark and the rarely-seen-since Red-capped Robin and Sacred Kingfisher. Hall continued his avian preoccupation, writing A Key to the Birds of Australia and Tasmania (1899) and Insectivorous Birds of Victoria (1900), and then worked (1901) at the Queensland museum. He became most famous for his year-long expedition in 1903 with R. E. (Ernie) Trebilcock to Siberia, via Japan, Korea and Manchuria, to solve the puzzle of the wading birds found in the wetlands of south-eastern Australia; they were known to migrate north to breeding colonies, but exactly where was unknown. Neither the British Museum nor any major museum in Australia or Russia had skins of the birds in their distinctive breeding colours and Hall thought they might pay handsomely for them if he could obtain them, and thus finance his expedition. It took five months to reach their goal, travelling by ship, train, horse and cart, small boat and barge from Vladivostok down the 4,500km Lena River, the easternmost of Siberia’s 3 great rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, Hall shooting the birds and Trebilcock preparing the skins, taking photographs and writing a diary. The cold, the mud and the mosquitoes made for a difficult journey: [The mosquitoes] settle on the gun barrel so thickly that you can't see the sight, wrote Trebilcock. They finally located a breeding ground of the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper on an island at the mouth of the Lena River. Hall’s expedition confirmed that the waders, many weighing as little as 30-40 grams, make the 25,000 kilometre return journey each year. The predicable rich food supplies of the northern hemisphere’s short summers make these a preferred breeding location, rather than the irregular seasons of Australian wetlands. Trebilcock remarked on the breeding plumage: The plainest of the wading birds as we see them are now (in Siberia) very beautiful. Australia does not know them in their summer dress of the northern hemisphere. On his return journey home via England, Hall sold his collection of 402 Manchurian and Siberian specimens of 90 species to the Rothschild Museum. Back in Australia with their exotic stories about both birds and people, both Trebilcock and Hall gave entertaining lectures, illustrated with lantern slides. Some of Trebilcock’s images can be seen online at the State Library of Victoria. Hall was impressed by what he had seen in overseas museums and became an influential advocate of nature study in schools, writing that Nature is the true foundation of the finest education'. In 1908 he became curator of the Tasmanian Museum and Botanical Gardens, and later an orchardist south of Hobart, promoting various short-lived, eccentric schemes including possum-farming. He continued as a prolific writer for nature journals and published Australian Bird Maps in 1922, adding to his contribution as a foundation member and president of the RAOU, member of the Zoological Society of London (1903), a fellow of the Linnaean Society (1903) and a colonial member of the British Ornithologists' Union (1908). Parts of his private bird and egg collections are held at the Tasmanian Museum and the National Museum, Melbourne. Hall Island is a rather miniscule scrap of land on the eastern edge of the Beacon Platform, home to a few pairs of breeding Little Shearwaters and Pied Cormorants. He would be pleased to know the rats and cats have been eliminated from Rat Island and the Sooty terms are returning in their thousands, as he had hoped. This brings us to the end of that group of island names proposed in 1986 by WA Museum ornithologist Ron Johnstone: Alexander, Bynoe, Campbell, Dakin, Gibson, Gilbert, Hall, Helms, Saville-Kent, Serventy and Stokes. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected]
17.01.2022 Today 4th June 2020 marks the 391st anniversary of the wreck of the BATAVIA on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, ten years after their discovery by Frederick de Hou...tman on 29 July 1619. This roll call of those who died on the voyage, in the wreck and in the tragic aftermath is based on the available accounts and records. It requires no embellishment as representing the most astonishing saga of shipwreck, massacre, survival, rescue and retribution in maritime history. Pause for a moment to reflect on those who innocently lost their lives. Before 4th June 1629, 10 died of scurvy. (1 - 10) Unknown 1. Unknown 2. Unknown 3. Unknown 4. Unknown 5. Unknown 6. Unknown 7. Unknown 8. Unknown 9. Unknown 10. 4-12 June 1629: 45 soldiers/sailors drowned at the wreck. (11-55) Unknown 1. Unknown 2. Unknown 3. Unknown 4. Unknown 5. Unknown 6. Unknown 7. Unknown 8. Unknown 9. Unknown 10. Unknown 11. Unknown 12. Unknown 13. Unknown 14. Unknown 15. Unknown 16. Unknown 17. Unknown 18. Unknown 19. Unknown 20. Unknown 21. Unknown 22. Unknown 23. Unknown 24. Unknown 25. Unknown 26. Unknown 27. Unknown 28. Unknown 29. Unknown 30 Unknown 31. Unknown 32. Unknown 33. Unknown 34. Unknown 35. Unknown 36. Unknown 37. Unknown 38. Unknown 39. Unknown 40. Unknown 41. Unknown 42. Unknown 43. Unknown 44. Unknown 45. 8-9 June 1629 10 died of thirst on Batavia’s Graveyard/Beacon Island (56-65) Unknown child 1. Unknown child 2. Unknown child 3. Unknown child 4. Unknown child 5. Unknown child 6. Unknown child 7. Unknown child 8. Unknown child 9. Unknown woman. 3-8 July 1629 8 murdered on/near Batavia’s Graveyard/Beacon Island (66-73) Hendrick Jonas. Thomas Wensel. Jan Cornelis. Egbert Roeloffsz. Warner Dircxsz. Hans Radder van Dansig. Jacob Groenewald. Gilletgien Hardens, child aged 6. 9 July 1629 13 murdered escaping Traitor’s Island (74-86) Pieter Jans. Pieter Jans’ wife. Pieter Jans’ child. Claas Harmansz. Claas Harmansz’ wife. Glaudine Patoijs. Glaudine Patoijs’ child. Cristoffel Quist. Wouter Joel. Nicolaas Winckelhaak. Paul Barentsz. Bessel Janssz. Pieter Arentsz. 10 July 1629 10 murdered in sick tent on Batavia’s Graveyard/Beacon Island. (87- 97) Jan Pinten. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. 12-14 July 1629 8 murdered on Batavia’s Graveyard/Beacon Island (98- 105) Passchier van den Enden. Jacob Hendricxsz. Unknown boy, sick. Unknown, sick. Unknown, sick. Unknown, sick. Unknown, sick. Andries de Vries. 15 July 1629 18 murdered on Seal’s/Long Island. (106- 123) Gabriel Jacobsz. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. Unknown man/boy. 18 July 1629 19 murdered on Seal’s/Long Island. (124- 142) Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Unknown cabin boy. Geertien Willemsz. Maijken Soers (pregnant). Jannetgien Gist. Laurentia Thomas. 20-21 July 1629 11 murdered on Batavia’s Graveyard/Beacon Island.(143-153) Suckling child of Maijken Cardoes. Maria Schepens, Predicant’s wife. Roelant Gijsbertsz, Predicant’s son. Predicant’s child #2. Willemyntgien Gijsbertsz, Predicant’s daughter. Predicant’s child #4. Predicant’s child #5. Gijsbert Bastiaensz, Predicant’s son. Wijbrecht Claes, Predicant’s maid. Maijken Cardoes. Hendrick Denhjs. 25 July- 16 Aug 1629 8 murdered on Batavia’s Graveyard/Beacon Island. (154- 161) Hendrick Jansz van Purmerent. Obbe Jansz. Jan Gerritsz van Leijen. Anneke Hardens. Andries de Bruyn, boy. Frans Jansz van Hoorn, (East Wallabi). Stoffel Stoffelz. Cornelis Aldersz. 28 Sept-13 Oct 1629 (154- 161) Jan Dirxcsz, soldier, shot by Mutineers. 5 missing on small boat presumed drowned: Jacobs Jacobsz, Skipper of the Sardam. Cornelis Pietersz. Adrien Theuwissen. Unknown. Unknown. 40 unaccounted for.(168-208 ) Unknown 1. Unknown 2. Unknown 3. Unknown 4. Unknown 5. Unknown 6. Unknown 7. Unknown 8. Unknown 9. Unknown 10. Unknown 11. Unknown 12. Unknown 13. Unknown 14. Unknown 15. Unknown 16. Unknown 17. Unknown 18. Unknown 19. Unknown 20. Unknown 21. Unknown 22. Unknown 23. Unknown 24. Unknown 25. Unknown 26. Unknown 27. Unknown 28. Unknown 29. Unknown 30. Unknown 31. Unknown 32. Unknown 33. Unknown 34. Unknown 35. Unknown 36. Unknown 37. Unknown 38. Unknown 39. Unknown 40. 341 souls departed Holland, October 1628. 51 left the Houtman Abrolhos Islands on the longboat 73 survivors departed on the Sardam. 4 mutineers were killed in fighting on West Wallabi Island. 7 mutineers were executed on Seal’s/Long Island. 2 mutineers were marooned on the mainland. 4 mutineers were executed in Batavia. 208 innocently lost their lives, 115 of them murdered. You may find a historical reconstruction of the wreck and the subsequent events in LUCRETIAS BATAVIA DIARY [www.westralianbooks.com.au]
16.01.2022 Getting ready for another big day of accepting artwork for Latitude Gallery Jewellers Flotsam and Jetsam Exhibition all artwork entries need to be in by 29th Ma...y . Contact us to arrange a time for you to drop off your entry to Karl Monaghan Photography as we are photographing everything for the exhibition. See more
16.01.2022 22. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: Batavia’s Kerckhoff/Batavia’s Graveyard/Goss’s Monument Island/ Goss Passage/ Beacon Island We ...told a little of the origin of the name Batavia’s Kerckhoff/Batavia’s Graveyard that came to be used following the marooning of 180 unfortunate souls there in 1629. It has had a couple of changes since and the name it has ended up with - Beacon Island was previously applied to an island in the Easter Group. It all gets a bit confusing and the explanation that follows is a bit long so bear with me. The name Batavia’s Graveyard was not known to the colonial-era fishers who ventured to the Abrolhos and Wickham and Stokes’ conclusion that the wreck was in the Pelsaert Group was taken as correct. Indeed the Wallabi Group was still barely known in 1857 when in late December the schooner FAVOURITE, launched in 1856 and the first Lloyd’s registered vessel in Western Australia, stranded on a reef there, as the Inquirer reported: The FAVOURITE, we are sorry to hear, was wrecked at a reef on the Abrolhos, on Tuesday, 15th ult. [December 1857]. The sails, spars, &c, were saved, and, as far as could be ascertained, she had received but little damage. She was so high upon the reef the crew could walk around her at low water. The captain (Henry Goss) and some of the crew started in a whaleboat on Saturday 19th ult., and got as far as King's Table Hills, when they were forced to bear up for Port Gregory, at which place they were on the 20th ult., and would leave as soon as wind permitted for Fremantle. The FAVOURITE has lost her false keel, her main keel is splintered, and some bolts and trenails have been started. Three men were left on the island, who have another boat in their possession, and sufficient stores to last three months. The owner of the FAVOURITE, Mr J. Bateman, proceeds to the Abrolhos as soon as the whaleboat arrives from Port Gregory. [Inquirer and Commercial News 6 January 1858] Port Gregory, as well as being the closest settlement to the Wallabi Group, was at that time used to export lead from the Galena mines on the Murchison and there were two whaling enterprises underway just to the north at Pakington, one by Bateman and the other by Harwood. Exactly why the FAVOURITE was at the Abrolhos is unclear, perhaps sent in search of the NORA CREINA which had gone missing earlier in the year, thought either wrecked or stolen by the crew. Captain Henry Goss had an interesting background which, given he is immortalised in the name GOSS PASSAGE between Beacon Island and Long Island, is worth relating in some detail and also because so much history swirls around this story. Goss had come to Australia as a soldier in the 99th Regiment but had ended up as a coxswain of the Fremantle Harbour Master’s boat, in that role acquiring sufficient knowledge of the anchorages off Fremantle to be appointed a Pilot in June 1853. [Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News 28 October 1853, page 3] This didn’t go too well as just a week later, while he was piloting the JOHN PANTER from Owen's Anchorage into Gage's Roads, she grounded on Scott's Ledge. An inquiry revealed there was great negligence on Goss’ part, taking the vessel on the wrong side of a buoy which lay in her course between these two anchorages, so he was dismissed and sent back to the 99th regiment. [Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News 4 November 1853, page 2] Goss redeemed himself early in early January 1855 when he rescued the Rottnest Pilot Capt. Back and his crew, as again the press reported: Capt. Back left Fremantle on Monday last to return to Rottnest with a tremendous South-Westerly gale, and having overshot the usual landing place at the jetty, was carried against the Duck Rock, where the boat was dashed to pieces and the crew narrowly escaped a watery grave by scrambling with difficulty on to the rock, which barely afforded a space of twenty square yards at low water. Captain Back and his crew remained in their perilous position for about six hours, when they were fortunately descried by Captain Back's son, who lost no time in giving the alarm to Captain Goss, of the pilot service, who promptly rendered assistance with a small dingy, the only boat on the Island. The dingy happened to have only one oar, and it was requisite to use a portion of her lining to assist in propelling her through the boisterous element, and Capt. Goss was aided in his humane endeavours to assist the shivering soaked party by Capt. Elliot, J.P., of the 99th Regiment who fortunately happened to be on the spot. We hear that Capt. Goss and Capt. Elliot made five several trips through a boiling surf and were on their last trip nearly drowned in consequence of the dingy capsizing,.. [The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and 12 January 1855 p 2] Captain Back was dismissed and Henry Goss was appointed Pilot in his place. Again, this did not go so well as in May, 1955, while Goss was piloting the convict ship STAG, she ran aground on Success Bank. After an inquiry he was again sacked. Thereafter we find Goss as master of trading vessels such as the cutter HENRY AND MARY and the schooner PRESTON up and down the West Australian coast, sometimes on sealing voyages to Middle Island off the south coast. Following Goss’ stranding of the FAVOURITE it was successfully refloated by its owner, Mr Bateman, and is reported soon after plying the coast again, often carrying guano from the Abrolhos to Bunbury, albeit without Goss as Captain. So Captain Goss would appear to be the likely source of the Goss’s Monument Island today’s Beacon Island and the deep channel alongside, Goss Passage. The ‘monument’ evidently refers to the stone cairn on that island. Did Goss or his crew build it? We find a reference to Goss’ Monument in reports about the stranding of the ALBERT nearby in August 1867. The ALBERT had been sent to search the Abrolhos for any trace of the BROTHERS (6 aboard) or the EMMA (42 aboard) which had gone missing in early March when a cyclone battered the coast. The ALBERT ran aground somewhere in today’s Goss Passage, a report by the police officer aboard recording: 11th [August 1867]. - At 5.30 a.m. vessel struck on a reef, wind blowing hard from the southward. Lowered the sails and got the boat out. Sounded on the reef, and found there was sufficient water for the boat to reach the island, distant half a mile. We then loaded the boat with water and provisions, and landed them on the island. It was then about 7 a.m. We returned and took ashore the remainder of the provisions and water. Finding that the vessel was uninjured, we commenced discharging ballast, with a view of getting her off. There being too heavy a break windward of the vessel for the boat to carry the anchor, we carried it as far as we could, and dropt it, then hove the chain tight, and left her for the night; weather moderating. 12th. - Returned to the vessel at daylight, and tried to heave her off, but could not move her. Left her at noon. This afternoon we rigged a tent ashore with spare sails, on the island that we had previously landed the provisions on. We named it "Albert Island," Goss' Monument being about E. by N., distant half a mile Was ‘Albert Island’ today’s Traitors Island? The details are a little too imprecise to be certain but it would appear so. Goss or his crew may have built the stone cairn called Goss’s Monument but I think it dates back to Pelsaert’s time there in 1629. After he returned to the disaster that had unfolded in his absence of 3 months, he spent the next 2 months putting the murderers on trial and salvaging treasure from the wreck. Pelsaert camped on ‘Batavia’s Graveyard’, while the SARDAM was anchored safely in Recruit Bay, perhaps its mast-tops visible over ‘Seal’s Island’ to the north-west. One can imagine Pelsaert set up a flagpole as a signal marker as we saw on Van Styne’s chart of the ZEEWIJK wreck site and Gun Island a flag pole held erect by a cairn of stones. Goss’s Monument Island is on the charts drawn in 1931 and used into the 1940’s. Those charts also show a Beacon Island in the Easter Group, today’s Sandy Island. Both the latter, it would appear, assumed local names when the rock lobster fishery expanded in the 1950s, and these have since become official. Hopefully the attached charts help illustrate the changing names. The drawing of the FAVOURITE is courtesy of Ross Shardlow, marine artist extraordinaire. It is painful to even think of this beautiful, relatively new schooner stranded on the coral reef of the Abrolhos, but worse was yet to come. On the 24th November 1867 while heading out of Port Gregory through Hero Passage, she was thrown by a big wave onto the reef and became a total wreck. The manager of the Geraldine Lead Mine who had just disembarked, later commented: In as much as there were no lives lost there was no great public loss. The old tub was literally alive with cockroaches and every sort of domestic insect, and the smell below decks was frightful. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] Images: The FAVOURITE is courtesy of Ross Shardlow; The cairn on Beacon Island today; Van Stynes’ chart showing the flagpole on Gun Island in 1727; Wallabi Group chart from 1931 showing the Goss Monument Island. Easter Group chart from 1931 showing Beacon Island, today called Sandy Island.
16.01.2022 26. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: SERVENTY ISLAND In 1986 WA Museum ornithologists Glen Storr, Ron Johnstone and Philip Griffin c...ompleted a comprehensive survey of the birds of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands. Many of the islands they visited did not have official names, so they sought approval from the Lands and Survey Department to name eleven of them in honour of the ‘naturalists’ W. B. Alexander, B. Bynoe, A.J. Campbell, W.J. Dakin, C.G. Gibson, J. Gilbert, R. Hall, R. Helms, W. Saville-Kent, D. L. and V.N. Serventy and J.L. Stokes. We have already looked at the contributions of Stokes and Bynoe, so the stories behind the others beckon. In the last post [25] looking at ‘Trigg Lump’ we noted the visit of Vincent Serventy to Trigg’s Hut on Pelsaert Island in 1940/41, but he was not the first of his family to do so. His older brother Dominic, at age 20, and his sister Lucia were founding members of the WA Naturalist Club in 1924 and they organised a club birding expedition to the Abrolhos in 1930, basing themselves at Trigg’s Pelsaert Island hut. Dom’s later work with CSIRO’s Division of Fisheries and time at sea led to him becoming an expert on seabirds and famous for solving the mystery of the shearwaters (mutton birds) that disappeared each year after breeding on Bass Strait Islands. Patsy Adam-Smith in her book ‘There was a Ship wrote that he had slept among the grass tussocks with the sky for a roof, on lonely, uninhabited Bass Strait islands, walked hundreds of kilometres over rock peaks, and pushed through scrub where two metre tiger snakes curled.. Dom banded tens of thousands of birds, enabling them to be tracked on their migration to the North Atlantic and back. ‘The Flight of the Shearwater’ by Vincent tells much of this story. Dom visited the Abrolhos again in 1943, and with H.M. Whittell wrote the ‘Handbook of Birds of Western Australia’, a key reference for decades. Later, with brother Vincent and John Warham he wrote the definitive ‘Handbook of Australian Seabirds’. Vincent Serventy, after two visits in 1940/41 and 41/42 and working for CSIRO and as a teacher, returned to the Abrolhos in the early 1950s. In his autobiography ‘An Australian Life’ he explains it thus: Passed over for a lectureship at Teachers Training college I knew I deserved in the early 1950s, I resigned in fury, throwing off the dust of an ungrateful education department. For five years I wandered the world living by writing; spending a year in Europe, studying seabirds on an island in the Abrolhos, .. The Abrolhos! How that word rings in my ears. It brings back only the happiest memories. One of the best times of my life I spent as a scientific beachcomber on these low islands of sand and limestone. I stayed on the Abrolhos for six months, earning no pay and living in a tourist camp on Pelsaert Island. My duties were light. If the visitors could not fish I took them reef walking or birdwatching and in the afternoon I speared fish for a barbeque. The rest of my time was free for studying seabirds and marine life. It was an idyllic existence. In 1956 Vincent bought a movie camera and began making documentary films which later led to Australia's first television environment program, Nature Walkabout (1967). On ABC radio’s ‘The Argonauts’ program he was ‘Tom the Naturalist’ for a while, a program I grew up with in the days before television. I have his ‘Australia’s Wildlife Heritage’ magazine series and indeed met him a few times at NSW Nature Conservation Council meetings in the 70s. He published more than 70 books and contributed passionately to numerous organisations with a natural history or environmental focus. As a leading figure in many conservation battles in Australia, Vincent has justly been called the ‘father of conservation in Australia’. His archives in the National Library amount to 440 boxes! Siblings Lucia and John Serventy and Vincent’s wife Carol were also significant contributors to nature conservation causes, particularly with the WA Naturalists Club. Dominic would be pleased to know that the island named Serventy Island has breeding colonies of Bridled Terns and Sooty Terns, and nests of White Breasted Sea Eagles, Caspian Terns and Pacific Gulls, with many other visiting seabird species. It has also been the subject of quite a deal of geological study, providing clues to the genesis of the coral rubble islands, with some of its ridges of coral shingle dating back to over 5,500 years. It is most fitting that a Houtman’s Abrolhos’ island bears the name ‘Serventy’. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected]
13.01.2022 23. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: Half Moon Reef, The Bankeena, The Porticello, The Horseshoe Skirting the southern edge of the P...elsaert Group is a 20-kilometre reef. William Saville-Kent in 1897 described it as a massive breakwater between the placid waters of the lagoon and the tumultuous billows, which break unceasingly and with a sustained roar mightier than that of Niagara, upon the precipitous edge of the outer barrier. Columnist Chas. Conigrave waxed equally lyrical in 1909: Inside this line of reef is comparatively shallow and calm water, but beyond the great barrier there isbe the weather rough or calma continual thundering of waves. Day in and day out the ocean rollers pound against this reef whose whereabouts can always be seen, when from miles away one sees the wide line of white foam which betokens the battling of the elements. The wreck of the Dutch VOC ship ZEEWIJK in 1727 on that reef left us with another remarkable survival story without the murder and mayhem of the BATAVIA wreck 98 years before but no names. The journals and charts of Skipper Jan Steyns and Second Mate Adriaen van de Graeff give a detailed account and remarkably accurate sketch of the scene and events, but despite their nearly nine months stranded while they built their escape boat, no names are recorded. Even their new vessel doesn’t seem to have had a name; the idea it was called the ‘Sloepie’ has been scotched by recent more accurate translations and ‘Tortelduif’ seeming more likely. I have been unable to find the name ‘half-moon-reef’ in those accounts, although others say it is there. Hugh Edwards called his book of the events ‘The Wreck on Half Moon Reef’, perhaps taking it from a line in a letter Jan Steyns wrote to the VOC in which he says: . The reef against which the vessels struck, is surrounded by a very high and heavy surf, and runs in the shape of a half moon. Half Moon Reef is an appropriate name but I can’t find it used until the 1940s where it appears in some news articles. Others call it the ‘Western Reef’ at that time. No doubt someone will know the answer to this conundrum! There are three areas along the reef where local names have become permanent. In the far northwest hook of the reef is an area called the BANKEENA. It probably was given it by the Italians who fished this area from the early 1900s, ‘banchina’ or ‘bankina’ meaning a quay, and anglicised to ‘Bankeena’. Nancy Stone (nee Basile), whose grandfather was one of the early Italian fishers there, relates that he called it that but exactly why is unknown, for ‘quay’ does not seem relevant. The PORTICELLO would appear to come from a small fishing village described as a hidden treasure on the west coast of Sicily, but exactly why it was given to this little pocket in the reef is unclear. The Horseshoe is presumably more straightforward, referring to the shape of the gaps in the backreef at that point. Half Moon Reef claimed further notoriety snaring the OCEAN QUEEN in 1843 and the WINDSOR, loaded with sandalwood, in 1908, each with remarkable ensuing stories of survival. A boiler from the steamship WINDSOR still sits where cast up on top of the reef, along with nearby massive lumps of reef, testament to the powerful swells from the southwest. So these place names all come with no certainty as to their origin, only speculation, although I am keen to be told otherwise! Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] Images: Portion of 'Half Moon Reef', Location of the places mentioned, a vessel similar to the Ocean Queen, The Windsor loading sandalwood at Fremantle, the Windsor boilers and other wreckage cast up on Half Moon Reef, Porticello in Sicily.
13.01.2022 20. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: Traitor’s Island, Batavia’s Kerckhoff/Batavia’s Graveyard [Beacon Island] The wreck of the BATA...VIA on Morning Reef in the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, and the subsequent murder and mayhem that followed has left us with just one name today. As day dawned following the grounding of the BATAVIA and their dire predicament became more obvious, some hope came for the terrified crew and passengers as dry land appeared, low islands nearby and higher ones off in the distance. The Predicant later wrote: we have sailed onto the shallows near the Southland on 4th June, 1629, the second day of Whitsuntide, where on the same day I, with some others exclusive of my wife and children, have been set by means of a boat or sloop on an island which after that time is named Batavia’s Graveyard; and also to another island, called the Traitors Island, .. Some 180 were transferred first to the nearest little island (TRAITOR"S ISLAND) then next day left marooned on ‘BATAVIA’S GRAVEYARD today’s ‘Beacon Island’. Commander Pelsaert with the two boats from the ship sailed away to search for water on the mainland, leaving a note on the nearby little island telling of his intentions. Those left behind called him a traitor for deserting them, and hence the name TRAITORS ISLAND that remains today, resurrected, as far as I know, following the discovery of the wreck site in 1963. Not surprisingly, the name is not used by Pelsaert in his journal of the events that unfolded. In those first few days following the wreck those marooned began to die of thirst. As the dead were buried others could foresee the island becoming a graveyard for them all and hence they dubbed it BATAVIA’s KERCKHOFF, translated as the Churchyard or Graveyard. Ten died in the first week, life-saving winter rain saving the rest, but worse was to come and the island lived up to its name with many of the 115 murdered by Jeronimus Cornelis’ mutineers buried in its shallow patches of sand. Howard Gray Images: Woodcut showing survivors being ferried to the nearby islands; aerial view over the Beacon Island platform; Traitor’s Island where 180 survivors spent their first night ashore; one of the more than twenty skeletons uncovered by archaeologists on Batavia’s Graveyard/Beacon Island. LUCRETIAS BATAVIA DIARY is the one Batavia book you should read, available at WestralianBooks.com.au or contact me direct. As usual, your comments and contributions are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind more recent names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected]
13.01.2022 Membership was due 01.09.2020. Sorry for being late. $20single, $30family, $15concession. BSB# 066 512, ACC# 102 703 07Membership was due 01.09.2020. Sorry for being late. $20single, $30family, $15concession. BSB# 066 512, ACC# 102 703 07
13.01.2022 17. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: White Banks (Coral Patches), Hummock Island After surveying North Island, Wickham and Stokes le...ft Houtman’s Abrolhos on May 23rd 1840, headed for Sharks Bay, but not before checking they had not missed any other parts of the archipelago: From Record Hill [on North Island] we had perceived that the sea was quite clear to the north and west beyond the reef, and being satisfied that we had reached the extremity of Houtman's Abrolhos, we weighed [anchor] in the morning, and passed about a mile and a half from the reef to the north of the island in 26 fathoms; and hauling up South-South-West, along the western side of the reefs, gradually deepened the water to 42 fathoms over a rocky ground, . We then had no bottom with 50 and 60 fathoms until noon, when we had 122 fathoms, sand and coral; To ascertain if there were any more reefs to the westward, we now steered West-South-West, sounding occasionally with 200 and 220 fathoms unsuccessfully. After running thirty-two miles without seeing any indication of further dangers, of which, moreover, the long ocean swell rolling in convinced us, we steered to the northward. So at last, two hundred years after discovery by Europeans, the Houtman Abrolhos were delineated on the charts, accurately enough to be the key navigational guide for another century and more. Apart from the names already mentioned as given by Wickham and Stokes, two others that appear on the charts are the WHITE BANKS and HUMMOCK ISLAND. White Banks lies on the north-east corner of the Pelsaert Group and today are known as the Coral Patches. It is not always easy to trace when and why these name changes came about, but as the images attached show, it is a most appropriate name. Such sights were not seen by the Englishmen from aboard their ship so perhaps they can be excused. The Coral Patches are now part of a Reef Observation Area, protected from fishing. A dive trail follows some of the beautiful coral edges of the shoals - Hummock Island lies a little further to the north-east, a low rounded island, 4-5 metres at its highest, expectantly looked for by those heading to the Abrolhos as an indicator the low islands of the Pelsaert Group are not far away. Howard Gray As usual, your comments and contributions are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind more recent names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] Images: Portion of the ‘Houtman Rocks’ chart of 1845; the Coral Patches (Google Earth Image), the Coral Patches Dive Trail (Dept.Fisheries); The Hummock (Google Earth Images); Underwater images of corals at the Coral Patches (Howard Gray).
12.01.2022 In case you missed it, here is a brilliant piece by Robert Drewe in his regular Saturday column in the West Australian 09/05/2020. The Other Side Cooking the ...Books Unlike the country's most vigorous James Cook booster, Scott Morrison (unsurprisingly the Federal MP' for an electorate named Cook), I found Australian history confusing and unfair as a child. I still do. Chiefly because most people said then (and continue to say, even in high places) that in 1770 "Captain Cook discovered Australia". And we West Australian kids knew better than that. I'm not a Cookphobe. By all means let's celebrate his voyages. Brilliant sailor, good at combating scurvy with lemons. But even ignoring the basic point that the land that became Australia wasn't exactly: lost or mislaid, and was already settled, and that what interested historians was only its "discovery" by white people, the Cook first-past-the-post myth-isn't true. Thanks to our standard history book, Australia Since 1606, by G.V. Portus, we Perth kids learnt about Dutch explorers landing ages before Cook. We also had proof: two of them, Dirk Hartog in 1616 and Willem de Vlamingh in 1697, had thoughtfully left souvenir dinnerware behind in Western Australia. But we were simultaneously steered towards an Australian history dominated by British explorers; intrepid characters who, tiring of inventing the Spinning Jenny, or inserting small children down mines and up chimneys, or developing the slave trade; had launched themselves, not always sensibly clad or well-provisioned for the climate or terrain, on every wilderness they could find. (Hello, Burke and Wills.) Forgetting the many other white explorers involved since the first European arrival in 1606 (when Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed on Cape York peninsula), including the Portuguese, French and Spanish, and 29 other Dutch navigators in the 17th century who had dubbed the continent New Holland, and ignoring the Aboriginal people who had arrived tens of thousands of years, before, and the Asian fishermen and traders who'd visited the North West ever since, it was deemed that-the English had "discovered" the place: However, having taken this English "discovery" theme aboard, we were then puzzled over William Dampier's role, seeing he was also English, and a great navigator, and he'd beaten Cook to Australia by almost a century without any recent history-book applause. Why not? Dampier seemed an interesting fellow, a former pirate turned natural historian and author (indeed the world's first travel writer) who, incidentally, preferred not to cover his head with a powdered wig. To this then eight-year-old, gazing at Dampier's picture on the classroom wall alongside those of Cook (of course(, Clive of India and the Queen, he resembled not Captain Cook so much as Captain Hook of Walt Disney's. Peter Pan. While Dampier and the Dutchmen would be sidelined, even Cook's rank became rhythmically wedged into his name, although he wasn't really yet a captain when he landed on the east coast. In 1770 he was till Lieutenant James Cook, which doesn't have the same ring to it. Even in WA, which Cook never visited, we chanted playground rhymes about this: 'Captain Cook/ chased a chook/ all around Australia. Lost his pants/in the middle of France/and found them in Tasmania". There were no schoolyard ditties about Hartog, Vlamingh and Dampier, the first Europeans.to land on the West Australian coast. Something dawned on us: Dampier, Hartog and Vlamingh had stepped on to the wrong coast for history-book recognition: To the text books, Australian history was east Australian history. So amid the present 250th anniversary Cook-landing fanfare, it's worth remembering William Dampier, who in 1699, 71 years before Cook, led the first scientific expedition to Australia, landing at and naming Shark Bay. Dampier's work in charting the Australian coast and making the first scientific records of our plants, animals and people, would strongly influence his better-known successors: Cook, Joseph Banks and Matthew Flinders. He'd already set foot on Australian soil a decade before, circumnavigating the world during the 1680s as a buccaneer and in 1688 landing near what later became the Dampier Peninsula, north of Broome, on the privateer Cygnet. While the Cygnet's crew careened the ship over several weeks, Dampier took detailed notes about Australian flora and fauna and the peninsula's Barth Aboriginal people. The publication of his adventures in 1697 at a time when book-reading and interest In the outside world was developing, made Dampier a celebrity. The success of his A New Voyage Round the World led to his promotion from pirate to Royal Navy commander of the Roebuck. No one should deny James Cook's reputation as a great seaman and the historical importance of the Endeavour voyages. But let's also hear it for William Dampier, particularly since he's our sort of explorer. Let's face it, the role of successful pirate has been a popular and consistent one in West Australian history ever since.
11.01.2022 29. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: SAVILLE-KENT ISLAND William Saville-Kent was born on 10 July 1845 at Sidmouth, Devon, England, ...the youngest of ten children of Samuel Savill Kent, sub-inspector of factories, and his first wife Mary Ann. His mother died when he was just seven. His father married the children’s nanny, with whom he had been having an affair during his wife’s illness, and three more children were born. William was educated in boarding schools at Bath, Worcester and Gloucester. Just before William’s 20th birthday, his toddler half-brother disappeared from his bed in the middle of the night. A search eventually found his body dumped in a disused latrine, his throat cut. His nursemaid was arrested and then released. William’s 16-year-old sister Constance was detained, but she too was released. William studied at the University of London and at the Royal School of Mines under the famous T. H. Huxley, and from 1868 worked at the British Museum. In 1870 he received a grant from the Royal Society to conduct a dredging survey off Portugal. Five years after the murder of the child Constance confessed to the crime. William was suspected as an accomplice, but no charges were ever laid. Constance was sentenced to twenty years in prison. Many thought the confession doubtful. When Saville-Kent’s first wife died and he married again, he added an ‘e’ to Savill, and later hyphenated the two, perhaps to distance himself from the family dishonour. Public aquaria were being constructed in a number of British cities and William became resident naturalist at the Brighton Aquarium, and later at several others before returning to Brighton. His ambition was to establish a national marine research laboratory. While at the Brighton he witnessed a lobster lay eggs and charted the growth and development of the offspring and he aimed to see lobster and other species farmed. His comprehensive 3-volume work Manual of the Infusoria [Protozoa] came out in 1880-82. Following work at the Great International Fisheries Exhibition in London in 1883, Huxley recommended him to the Tasmanian government to restore badly depleted oyster beds and he was appointed superintendent and inspector of fisheries, introducing many management measures to ensure sustainability across all fisheries. From 1889-92 he was Commissioner of Fisheries for Queensland and developed a particular fascination with the Great Barrier Reef and in pearl oyster fisheries, fish, bêche-de-mer, corals, sponges, dugong and turtles. He was a pioneer, like Archibald Campbell we told of last time, of photography as a recording device. His magnificent book, The Great Barrier Reef, was published in 1893, with 49 photographs and 16 beautiful colour lithographs created by artists from Saville-Kent’s original watercolour sketches. As Commissioner of Fisheries for Western Australia, from 1893 to 1895, he undertook scientific surveys of the Colony’s fish stocks and looked into fisheries laws, the economics of the industry and the marketing of the catch. He visited the Abrolhos twice and was fascinated by nearly every aspect, so much so that he devoted a whole chapter of his 1897 book, The Naturalist in Australia, to the Houtman Abrolhos Islands. He was intrigued by the tropical marine life present and had synchronised temperature measurements taken at the Abrolhos and the mainland. He introduced pairs of shells brought from Shark Bay to the Pelsaert lagoon to begin a pearling industry, the shells surviving for some years before lost. Back in England from 1896 to 1904, he endeavoured to gain support for a pearl culture experiment. In 1906 he began to culture pearls in the Torres Strait. He is acknowledged as the first to succeed in producing both blister and spherical pearls of commercial quality, pioneering pearl culture, later patented by Dr. Tokichi Nishikawa of Japan, who had heard of Saville-Kent's techniques. In mid-1908 he returned to England suffering a bowel obstruction and following surgery, died on 11 October. His grave in All Saints' churchyard, Milford-on-Sea, Hampshire, was decorated with corals, which now, since the churchyard has been redeveloped, I understand are in a local museum. There are numerous specimens collected by Saville-Kent in the British Museum of Natural History. As the most important 1800s figure in Australian fisheries, one of the first professional fisheries scientists in Australia, and given his fascination with the Abrolhos, it is fitting that Saville-Kent Island at Morning Reef in the Wallabi Group is named in his honour, perhaps its small size countered by its heart-shape. A research facility opened at Rat Island in 2003 to support operational and research capabilities by the Fisheries Department and other agencies was named the Saville-Kent Research Facility, acknowledging his recognition of the opportunities the Abrolhos presented for systematic scientific investigation. Given Saville-Kent’s perception that the Abrolhos waters were suited to pearl oysters and his invention of the pearl-seeding technique, disrupted by his early death, he would be pleased to see pearl-farming thriving at the Abrolhos today. I can highly recommend the book ‘Savant of the Australian Seas’ by A.J. Harrison (there was an extended online version but I could not trace it in recent searches). And a happy ending: In 1886, following her release from prison, William met his sister Constance in England and took her to Tasmania. She adopted the name 'Ruth Emilie Kaye' and, after accompanying her brother to Victoria and Queensland, trained as a nurse at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, moving to Perth and finally NSW. She was appointed sister-in-charge at the Coast Hospital, Little Bay. From 1898 to 1909, she worked at the Parramatta Industrial School for Girls and later matron of the Pierce Memorial Nurses' Home at East Maitland, from 1911 until she retired in 1932. She was a capable nurse and administrator, well-liked and highly respected for her work. She died in 1944 in Sydney aged 100. Her story has featured in much literature and other media. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected]
11.01.2022 30. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES HELMS ISLAND The name Helms Island acknowledges another quite remarkable character who visited t...he Abrolhos in the late 1800s, leaving us with accurate descriptions and some perceptive insights. Richard Helms arrived in Melbourne from Germany as a 16-year-old in 1858, beginning a diversified career working as a tobacconist, then in New Zealand as a dentist and later watchmaker and self-taught zoologist, avidly collecting insects and shells many of which are named after him. In 1888 he became a collector for the Australian Museum and in 1891 was appointed naturalist to the east-west ‘Elder Expedition’, a party of 8 white men and 5 Afghans with 44 camels which started from Warrina, South Australia, in May and with great difficulty crossed the Great Victoria Desert to Fraser’s range, surviving with almost no water for the men and none for the camels for a month. At Annean Station near Meekatharra in the Murchison, Helms and the other men resigned, basically because the expedition was not exploring new country but traveling too closely to known routes. They walked to Geraldton, 300 miles on foot over a fortnight. The results of the expedition were disappointing, but Helms made important collections of fauna and 800 plant specimens and wrote a paper on anthropology. The collections made by Helms were the chief source of knowledge of the fauna of the dry interior regions of WA at the time and added considerably to knowledge of the flora. In 1896-99 he was appointed biologist to the WA Dept. of Agriculture. He wrote papers on his studies of the honey-bee, ticks and other parasites, noxious weeds, plant diseases, exotic birds and on his excursions to the East Kimberley and the Abrolhos Islands. It was the latter that has provided us with a comprehensive account of the Abrolhos from the period. While William Saville-Kent had been focussed on the marine aspects, Helms described the landscapes, flora and fauna, listed 39 species of bird with much detail of their behaviour and gave a good account of the guano mining operations: A Visit to the Abrolhos Islands [‘West Australian’ 4 December 1897]: Mr. R. Helms, the biologist to the Bureau of Agriculture, who recently spent a little over a week on the Abrolhos Islands, as the guest of Mr. Broadhurst, has returned to the city. He reports that the group of islands is a very interesting one, and the guano obtained on them of a high value, some of it containing over 70 per cent, of phosphates, while none that contained under 50 per cent, was exported. At present, Mr. Helms states, the proprietor are working the deposits on Gun Island, as the best of the deposits, for which they have numerous orders, are situate on that island. Large quantities, he adds, are being shipped to Germany, Africa, and New Zealand. This guano, he thinks, is probably the best phosphatic guano known, being rich in phosphates, and in that respect differing from the Peruvian article. Mr. Helms explains that the guano is loaded at the wharves on the islands into small cutters drawing only five or six feet of water, and then transferred to the trading vessels lying, safely at anchor between the reefs and the islands. In the concluding remarks to his report of his visit Helms wrote: An area in every respect suited to and offering the greatest opportunities for comprehensive biological studies, situated a short distance from the shore of the mainland and to be reached from Perth, with existing means of conveyance, in 86 hours, should be more frequently visited by students of nature than at present is the case. When our adopted country has advanced to the stage when her education becomes an obligatory duty of the State, I have no doubt that much material for investigation will be furnished by these islands and their surrounding seas and reefs, and it may then be that one of them will be chosen for a biological station, as probably few spots on the surface of the globe would be better suited for such a purpose. Helms returned to New South Wales in 1900, changing his speciality again to work as a bacteriologist in the Department of Mines and Agriculture, publishing many papers in the Agricultural Gazette and other journals. He retired in 1908 and worked on his extensive collections and made further excursions. On a visit to the Solomon Islands he caught a chill and died in Sydney in 1914. The State Library of NSW has an extensive collection of his papers and journals and the specimens he collected are in most museums around the country. His collection of bird’s eggs is in the WA Museum. As one of the most versatile and diligent natural scientists in Australia, it is fitting that Helms Island bears his name. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] Can I suggest you investigate these opportunities to visit the Abrolhos on which I have the privilege of being your guide! 5-day ECOABROLHOS Discovery Tours (the ones marked with an asterisk* 4 of these in Sept/Oct 2020): https://www.ecoabrolhos.com.au/cruise-calendars/ 1-day ABROLHOS ADVENTURE cruise 23 August: https://www.abrolhosadventures.com.au/
09.01.2022 25. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: TRIGG LUMP An interesting name that appears on some charts off the eastern tip of Wreck Point i...s TRIGG LUMP, well-known to fishermen. Nearby on Pelsaert Island many reports of the 1930s also mention Trigg’s Hut (and that is shown on maps too unfortunately Murphy’s Law has decided that I can’t find one just when I want to use it!). WaIter Trigg was the Geraldton Manager for Winter Brant and Co., a large firm with deep sea fishing fleets and market outlets in the city and goldfields. His father William Trigg built many of the early public and private buildings in the Geraldton district, including the first school in 1861, a little stone building in Marine Terrace, now the Missions to Seamen. In 1929 an ‘Abrolhos Board of Control’ was formed with the idea of promoting the Abrolhos as a tourist destination and Walter was elected Secretary. The Board worked hard but had little success in its endeavours, and its attempts to raise funding by placing a levy on crayfish proved a failure, the fishermen proving uncooperative and refusing to pay. The sea crossing, then as now, also proved a deterrent to many would-be holiday-makers. In February 1931, Trigg was given permission to erect a 'little shelter and tanks to conserve water during the coming winter' on Pelsaert Island. It was located where the land had been cleared by guano miners in the late 1800s near the southern tip, a blustery place with the deafening thunder of breakers on Half-Moon Reef in winter or the screeching of the millions of terns that nested nearby in early summer. Trigg’s Hut of corrugated iron with six bunks, described by Malcolm Uren as standing 'lonely and gaunt, like a monolith on a parched flat', provided a refuge for visiting fishing parties, often groups of men then as now heading out for a few days. Transport to and from Pelsaert Island was provided by Frank Burton's fishing lugger the WATER WITCH with the little yacht LILY owned by Bill Burton (Frank's son) as a tender to get ashore. One group that used the hut was the naturalist Vincent Serventy who with photographer Axel Poignant and journalist Norman Hall visited over Christmas in 1939/40 and 40/41; the latter two shown here inside Trigg’s Hut. Poignant took one of my favourite photographs of a young osprey and in his later career it featured in his exhibitions around the world. We will hear more of Vincent Serventy and his siblings next time. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected]
08.01.2022 32. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES ALEXANDER ISLAND The name Alexander Island commemorates Wilfred Backhouse Alexander (1885-1965) ...who visited the Abrolhos in 1913 as part of the Percy Sladen Trust Expeditions led by Professor Dakin. While Dakin was particularly interested in the marine life, Alexander concentrated on the terrestrial life and later wrote up the vertebrate fauna collected and collated the reports on specimens sent to specialists around the world. Alexander had a long, varied and fruitful career following training as a botanist at Cambridge. He moved to Australia in early 1912 to take up the position of Assistant at the Western Australian Museum, which he held for three years before being made Keeper of Biology at the museum. He was active in ornithological associations and wrote comprehensive histories of zoological research in Western Australia. In 1920 prickly pear was taking over vast areas of subtropical eastern Australia, at its height infesting 24million hectares of farmland). It had been introduced in 1788 by Arthur Phillip with the first fleet to start a cochineal dye industry the red carmine colouring used for dying food and fabrics and still used in food and lipstick - E120 or Natural Red 4). A Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board was formed to seek a method of control and Wilfred Alexander was appointed biologist to the Board. The project took him on visits to North and South America in search of a suitable insect control and in 1924 he was promoted to Officer-in-charge. The result of these overseas investigations was the spectacularly successful use of Cactoblastis moths as a biological control measure, On his many ocean voyages, Alexander’s interest in birds turned to the oceanic seabirds and he spent 1926 at the American Museum of Natural History preparing the pioneering field guide Birds of the Ocean: A handbook for voyagers and for dwellers at the seaside containing descriptions of all seabirds of the world, with notes on their habits and guides to their identification. He returned to England and continued a notable career in ornithology. Alexander’s contributions are deservedly acknowledged. He might be interested to know the prickly pear was introduced to the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, presumably for its fruit and hardiness in such an environment. Despite efforts over many years, it still appears on Rat Island, apprehended along with other exotics by groups such as Geraldton TAFE students studying land management. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] If anyone can provide information regarding the stone structure on Alexander Island as seen in the 1980s image attached that would be appreciated!
07.01.2022 21. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: Seal’s Island [Long Island], High Island [East Wallabi], Wiebbe Hayes Island [West Wallabi] Ac...ross the deep channel to the west of Batavia’s Graveyard is a long narrow island where the survivors found many seals (Australian Sea Lions), a welcome and easy to bludgeon food source. They named it, as Pelsaert records in his account, SEAL’S ISLAND. Like Batavia’s Graveyard it became a place of murder and retribution: two score or more of men, women and boys were killed there by the mutineers, seven of whom - after trial and torture - were executed on gallows, including Jeronimus Cornelis, their leader. Again, with all trace of the Batavia shipwreck story concealed below the waves of Morning Reef or beneath the sands of Beacon Island, fishers and guano diggers who visited these islands in the 1800s and 1900s until 1963, had no idea this was where the wreck and its aftermath took place. The picture was further confused by Wickham and Stokes assuming from wreckage in the southernmost group that that was where the wreck occurred. Pelsaert’s Seal’s Island stands out as a long narrow island and so, being referred to as such by local fishermen, it became today’s LONG ISLAND. In Pelsaert’s account of the Batavia tragedy and its aftermath, he refers to the high island quite often, without capitalising it as he does with Seal’s Island. It’s used rather imprecisely but seems to be applied to today’s East Wallabi Island as where they searched for water, where Jeronimus marooned the soldiers and where he first went looking for survivors when he returned in the SARDAM. Wiebbe Hayes Island has been used by some authors for West Wallabi Island, although Pelsaert doesn’t actually give it a name. While the original Seal’s Island has been renamed, a small island on the south-eastern edge of the Wallabi Group is now named SEAL ISLAND, again from local usage, it being a place where they haul-out to rest. This is the northernmost extent of the range of ‘Neophoca cinerea’ and given the numbers killed by shipwreck survivors, sealers, ‘sportsmen’ and others, it is wonder there is any left at all. They are an endangered species. Howard Gray As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind more recent names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected]
07.01.2022 27. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: GILBERT ISLAND In September 1842, the 268 ton wooden barque OCEAN QUEEN, sailing from Launcesto...n to Bali in ballast, ran on to the southern fringing reef of the Pelsaert Group (Half Moon Reef) in the early morning. The ship was thrown on its side and the bilge holed, the crew of 14 escaping in the ship’s boats to a nearby ‘large island’, presumably Pelsaert Island. They recovered there for two days (Capt. Farrington burying the ship’s money box on the island) and then set out to row back to Fremantle. After 9 days, exhausted by the contrary wind and currents, they ran the boats ashore, then set out to walk the rest of the way, foraging for birds and shell fish on their way, reaching Fremantle 12 days later in a very bad way. One man had been left about 100 kilometres back, fortunately still alive when found by a rescue party. Capt. Daniel Scott, the Harbour-Master at Fremantle, bought the wreck of the OCEAN QUEEN and in January 1943 went with two vessels to the Abrolhos to salvage the mail, stores, anchors, rigging, and anything else of value. The money box could not be found then, nor since. Capt. Scott took with him John Gilbert, a highly experienced field ornithologist who was in the Swan River Colony collecting specimens for the English artist and naturalist John Gould. During his lifetime Gould produced 41 large volumes depicting Australian mammals and birds with some 3000 coloured plates, and many would be familiar with ‘The Gould League of Bird Lovers’ which honours his work. Gilbert was on his second trip, having previously travelled the eastern side of Australia, impressing Gould with his collecting and notes and loving Australia so much he said he would work for free if necessary, to be paid later if possible. Gilbert explored all of the Houtman Abrolhos Island groups and, even though he had travelled so widely, was awestruck, writing to Gould I have seen many vast flocks of birds, but I confess I was not at all prepared for the surprise I experienced in witnessing amazing clouds, literally speaking, of these birds when congregating in the evening while they have their young to feed. He likened the flocks of Lesser Noddies to the vast flights of the Passenger Pigeon in northern America. Gilbert made notes on many natural history aspects and shipwreck material found on Pelsaert Island. Observing great numbers of 'seals' and trepang/beche de mer, he suggested there was commercial potential, and made one of the first records of rock lobster at the Abrolhos, remarking There are many holes near the seaward side of the reef, in which are numerous crayfish .... Gilbert’s extensive collections were sent back to Gould in England who, having completed the drawings, often sold them to obtain funds for his publications. Many were bought by the 13th Earl of Derby, Edward Smith-Stanley KG, of Knowsley Hall in Lancashire, a politician, peer, landowner, builder, farmer, art collector and naturalist. In 1851 the Earl donated his enormous natural history collection to the town of Liverpool for a museum, now part of Liverpool’s World Museum. One of the museum’s retired curators, Clem Fisher, is writing a biography of Gilbert’s exploits and has tracked his Abrolhos specimens to museums in Britain, the USA and the Netherlands. They include 58 bird specimens (mostly seabird skins), 20 mammal skins and skulls, 38 reptile specimens, 26 fish, 5 echinoderms and many shells. Several are the type specimens for new species. Following his western Australian collecting Gilbert travelled to Sydney and overland to the Darling Downs where he joined a party led by Ludwig Leichhardt that was aiming to ride to Port Essington at the northwest tip of Arnhem Land. On the night of 28th of June 1845 near the Gulf of Carpentaria, after two Aboriginals with the party had molested some local women, the expedition's camp was attacked by tribesmen. Gilbert was killed by a flying spear. He was buried nearby. His field notebooks, diaries and collections survived and were used extensively by Gould in the text for The Birds of Australia. Gilbert's name is commemorated on a range, a river, and a township in Queensland, by a tablet erected by colonists in St James's Church, Sydney, and in the scientific names of several Australian animals and plants including Gilbert's rat-kangaroo (Potorous gilberti). Appropriately, as the first to make scientific observations of the remarkable seabird colonies, Gilbert Island at the Houtman Abrolhos Islands is named after him. Howard Gray [Post script: My great-grandmother, Mary Clarke, lived with the family of the 13th Earl of Derby at Knowsley Hall with its collections including some of Gilbert's Abrolhos specimens. Mary’s father, a shooting companion of the Earl, had apparently expressed concern to the Earl as to what might happen to his family if he died, and the Earl promised he would take care of them should such eventuate. Mary’s father did die and true to his word the Earl supported the family thereafter at Knowsley Hall. Mary married Christopher Parrah Gale in 1852 and they migrated to Australia, Christopher later losing his life in the wreck of the HELEN McGREGOR crossing the bar at the mouth of the Clarence River in northern NSW. It is likely my second name Stanley derives from the Earl, Edward Smith-Stanley, as his benevolence to the fatherless family was a frequently-told fragment of family history. It is remarkable to think that my great-grandmother may have grown up playing around the specimens Gilbert collected from the Abrolhos in 1843.] As usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected]
07.01.2022 24. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: JON JIM ISLAND During the 1940s through until the early 1980s freezer boats were an important b...ut controversial part of the crayfish industry. Regulations introduced in 1948 restricted onshore processing to the mainland so processing plants could not be established on the Abrolhos but larger vessels with freezer capacity could process crayfish, i.e. remove, package and freeze the tails, ready for export. Some took in the catch of other boats as well. They still had to comply with other regulations such as pot numbers and size limits, but as larger self-sufficient vessels they could operate far from ports - and Fisheries Inspectors - and, until 1958, escape State regulations by operating outside the three mile limit. One lucrative opportunity was to ignore the legal size of 2 inches that applied to the crayfish carapace, for that part was discarded over the side. As long as it weighed 5 ounces a tail could be exported as a midget grade, and there were ways to make a ‘cacka’ meet that weight. Fisheries Inspectors found a dramatic decrease in midget grades when they were aboard vessels, and found undersize carapaces on the ocean floor when they dived in to check. When they secretly marked undersize crays with fluorescent dyes over 90% of them turned up in the processed catch. There were also reports of decks running red with spawn brushed from breeding females, another illegal practice. As the number of boats and pots increased continuously in the 1950s and early 1960s, the ‘cacka problem’ became serious. There were 44 freezer boats by 1969, so in 1970 the Government introduced regulations allowing the larger vessels to divide up their licenses into smaller more saleable lots. The older vessels, many commandeered as ex-war service vessels or from other fisheries were being replaced by purpose-built faster vessels and onshore processors started up at what were previously remote anchorages, changing the industry. The last freezer boat operated until 1982. It is interesting to have that part of the crayfishing industry’s history captured in the name JON JIM ISLAND - not that there is any suggestion that anyone associated with it was engaged in illegal activity! On the 16th of July 1961 the 56-foot (17 metre), 37-ton wooden freezer boat, a converted Danish trawler owned by Hunt’s Canning Co., went aground on the reef at Wreck Point at the southern tip of Pelsaert Island. Skipper John Roberts and the crew of three got to safety. Storms washed the vessel further up the reef preventing salvage. Local fishers (the Basile’s, Vince Merendino, Sid Liddon and others) formed the ‘Mangrove Island Syndicate’ to strip the Gardner engine and other useful materials. The hull was burnt to salvage the metal fittings and to prevent floating debris becoming a hazard to other vessels. It would be good to learn a bit more about this particular wreck, so as usual, comments, additions and corrections are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] Howard Gray If you would like to read about the remarkable history of the rock lobster fishery check out The Western Rock Lobster A History of the Fishery’ available from the WA Museum Geraldton and Fremantle or online at westralianbooks.com.au
05.01.2022 18. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: Turtle Dove Shoal We began this series with the BEAGLE at the Easter Group on April 11th 1840, ...so we shall backtrack to April 6th as Wickham and Stokes sailed towards the Abrolhos. The Dutch charts from the 1600s showed a shoal some thirty kilometres south of the Abrolhos, in latitude 29 11' S. It is presumed to have been discovered by and named after the VOC ship the TORTELDUIF which arrived in Batavia [Java] in June 1623. It appeared on a 1627 chart by Van Keulen and several charts thereafter, but not all. Phillip Parker King marked It on his 1820 chart but noted he had not actually observed it from aboard the BATHURST and suggested it was perhaps the southern edge of the Abrolhos that others had seen. Wickham and Stokes could not find it either: "... [At] noon we were in lat. 29 11' S., on the position assigned to a reef called the Turtle Dove. From the masthead I could see nothing indicating a shoal. Captain King passed near this position, and also remarks not seeing it. The Colonial schooner CHAMPION, in beating to the southward, has passed over and near its assigned position, and I think we may fairly infer that there is no such reef as the Turtle Dove, and that probably it originated from the south end of the Abrolhos reef, ten miles N.N.W. of it, being seen." Thus the ‘Houtman Rocks’ chart of 1845 shows it as ‘the Turtle Dove of Van Keulen’. The 1860 edition of that chart has an added comment by Surveyor-General J.S. Roe: A shoal has been seen by several Whalers & coasters who place it S.21 E(true) dist. 26 miles from S. end of Pelsart I. and consider it to be the Turtle Dove. The shoal does exist, not too far south of where first plotted, at 29 22' S, rising to within 10 metres of the surface. On most days it appears as a lift in the ocean swell, not breaking and so not so readily apparent. When a big swell does arrive from the southern ocean massive breakers result, featured in the movie Storm Surfers 3D (2012) featuring Aussie tow-surfing legend Ross Clarke-Jones and two-time World Champion Tom Carroll. The images courtesy of Jamie Scott attached give you some idea. It is a remote and little-studied area, so who knows what intrigues might lie around it reefs. I suggest you check out Jamie’s brilliant professional photography at https://www.jamiescottimages.com/ Howard Gray As usual, your comments and contributions are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind more recent names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] Images: Turtle Dove Shoal breaking bad by Jamie Scott https://www.jamiescottimages.com/ [note earlier pics replaced] Portion of Van Keulen’s 1627 chart; PP King’s 1820 chart; PP King’s 1842 amended chart; Wickham and Stokes’ 1845 chart; The note of JS Roe on Wickham and Stokes’ 1845 chart as amended in 1860; Bathymetric chart;
04.01.2022 19. THE HOUTMAN ABROLHOS ISLANDS THE STORIES BEHIND THE NAMES: F Houtmans Abrol hos, Houtmans Abrolhos, Batavias Kerckhoff, Dangerous Rocks, Houtman’s Rocks, ...Houtman Abrolhos Wickham and Stokes’ 1840 chart naming the archipelago as HOUTMAN ROCKS a name still used on the official British Admiralty chart until at least 1950 was a little at odds with previously used names and the conventions of the times. Usually the names applied by the Dutch or the French were retained by Cook, Flinders and others but, in this case, ABROLHOS was replaced by ROCKS. It is not a bad interpretation of the meaning of the word ‘abrolhos’, the sailors of many nationalities aboard a ship understanding that it meant keep your eyes open for sharp rocks or hazards in the sea. It might also have come from a sketchy map produced by Captain Daniel of the English ship LONDON which passed by in 1680, labelling the islands DANGEROUS ROCKS. The HOUTMAN acknowledges Frederick de Houtman who recorded his sighting of the low islands in 1619. He noted that he produced a map and although no trace of it has been found, it probably was the basis for the 1622 chart of Jodocus Hondius labelling them as F HOUTMANS ABROL HOS. There was already an island group off the coast of Brazil named ‘Abrolhos’ and so the prefix ‘F Houtman’ served to distinguish this newly discovered hazard. In 1658 Samuel Volkertz labelled them as DESE EYLANDEN BATAVIAS KERCKHOFF the islands of Batavia’s Graveyard. The BATAVIA shipwreck saga was still very much in Dutch minds, the 1647 book Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia (Unfortunate voyage of the ship Batavia) telling of the wreck and its bloody aftermath a best-seller in Holland, and especially for Volkertz as he was searching for survivors from the VERGULDE DRAECK the Gilt Dragon wrecked near Ledge Point in 1656. P.P. King labelled them HOUTMAN’S ABROLHOS in 1820, and apart from the Admiralty chart aberration of ‘Rocks’, that name has been in general use since. (The Geographical Names Board decided back in 1966 that no Australian place names should contain apostrophes maybe because signwriters could never get them in the right spot.) To locals, this island chain is usually ‘the Abrolhos’, shortened by the Geraldton Fishermen’s Cooperative to ‘Brolos’ as their marketing name. I try to encourage the ‘Houtman’ prefix, as it adds a layer of history. When I starting asking the question Who was Houtman? an almost unbelievable story was revealed, the earliest days of the Dutch VOC spice trade to the East Indies, with Frederick in the thick of it! His remarkable life and this remarkable period of history is in SPICE AT ANY PRICE. Check it out! Howard Gray As usual, your comments and contributions are most welcome and appreciated. If you know the stories behind more recent names of islands or features, PM or email me at [email protected] SPICE AT ANY PRICE is available at WestralianBooks.com.au or contact me direct. Images: Portions of the charts showing the various names: 1622: F Houtmans Abrol hos Jodocus Hondius 1627: Houtmans Abrolhos - Hessel Gerritsz from Caert_van't_Landt_van_d'Eendracht 1658 Dese Eylanden Batavias Kerckhoff (The Islands of Batavia’s Graveyard)- Samuel Volckertz, 1681: Dangerous Rocks Capt. Daniel aboard the LONDON 1753 Houtmans Abrolhos - van Keulen 1820: Houtman’s Abrolhos - PP King 1840 Houtman Rocks Wickham and Stokes
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