Whale on the flensing deck at Tangalooma (Photo Stan Kenwrick)
“I worked for six months at Tangalooma Whaling Station on the flensing deck where the whale carcasses were cut up into chunks of blubber ready for boiling. As you can imagine, the smell was horrendous. After the whales had been killed, their carcasses were towed into the Bay to the whaling station at Tangalooma. Large sharks would follow them in. When the carcasses were winched up onto the flensing deck ready to be cut up by me and my mate, there would sometimes still be a huge shark still attached to the flesh on which it had been feeding. When it did finally let go, it would thrash around on the flensing deck with its teeth snapping. We made sure we kept well clear of it!”
‘Snow’ Port with jaws taken from a shark at Tangalooma
Bob Emmett adds: ‘Whales were everywhere round Moreton. Once in the “Heath” we had to heave to between Comboyuro Point and Tangalooma because the water was so thick with them. Also, the chasers sometimes didn’t have to go even as far as North Point before catching their full complement of whales. They wouldn’t even get outside the bay. I’ve seen the whaling station break down, and 16 whales left rotting. They were absolutely putrid, and they had to tow them out to sea and blow them up. When the station was operational, the smell was pretty bad anyway, and if you walked along the beach near Tangalooma, the water’s edge was always oily.’
Liverpool born Jessie Hill first went to Moreton Island in 1903 at the age of four. As daughter of the assistant lighthouse keeper at Cape Moreton, she recalls the school lessons with a dozen other lighthouse children from four families at Cape Moreton and one at Yellowpatch. On Sundays, the children were taken for a picnic down to the beach. After eating, everyone would collect the week’s firewood in the horse and cart.
Jessie’s father later transferred to the Department of Harbours and Marine for whom he kept the Cowan Cowan light from 1911 until it became automatic in 1927. He then took charge of the Cowan Cowan signal station.
In 1931 Jessie met a young Lancashireman, Harry Wadsworth, who was then holidaying on Moreton Island. The child of a mill weaver, Harry had been raised in the poorer area of the industrial town of Oldham. During World War I he had been a signaller, and later in civilian life became an instrument maker. In 1927, fed up with the tough conditions that existed in England, he migrated to Australia.
With the Great Depression affecting Australia too, jobs were almost impossible to find, and Harry moved north from Melbourne to Sydney, and then to Brisbane. It was then that he discovered Moreton Island and Jessie, and fell in love with both.
Harry’s World War I experience as a signaller was to prove useful at Cowan Cowan, and he would often help out Jessie’s father at the Signal Station. After numerous temporary jobs, Harry landed a full-time job with the Harbours and Marine Department in 1934. As relief lighthouse keeper for the Howard Range and Bulwer lights on Moreton, Harry recalls that he had to walk four miles to work, which included a 400 yard wade through a neck deep swamp while carrying a can of kerosene on his back.
Jessie and Harry were married in 1938 and in the following year Harry was put in charge of the Cowan Cowan Signal Station. The couple’s love affair with Moreton Island was to continue for the rest of their lives. It was an idyllic existence – the stuff of story books. A casual, shoeless lifestyle with seemingly endless beaches stretching away in either direction from the door of their comfortable bungalow.
Harry and Jessie Wadsworth in 1978
Although they had Moreton Island almost to themselves, theirs was not a lonely existence, for quite apart from the constant contact with shipping through Harry’s work as a signalman, Moreton Island played host to a large number and variety of people over the ensuing years.
A military fort was built at Cowan Cowan between the wars and strengthened during WWII. A naval station and jetty were also established at Tangalooma then, as well as a road across the island at that point.
After WWII a huge demand for whale oil triggered a world-wide interest in whale hunting. To help satisfy this demand, a whaling station was opened at Tangalooma in 1952. Over the next decade Harry and Jessie Wadsworth would often play host to the families of the whalers, notably for christmas dinner.
The Tangalooma whaling station had an annual quota of 600 Humpback whales. However, when vegetable oils were introduced to replace whale oil in margarine production, the price of the whale oil fell dramatically. Quotas were increased to 660 to offset the price drop but the increased cull served only to deplete the whale numbers to such an extent that in the 1962 season, only 68 whales were taken, and in August of that year Tangalooma closed down due to a lack of whales.
After WWII a huge demand for whale oil triggered a world-wide interest in whale hunting. To help satisfy this demand, a whaling station was opened at Tangalooma in 1952.
whale carcass being drawn up the flensing deck at Tangalooma in the 1950s
The Tangalooma whaling station had an annual quota of 600 Humpback whales. However, when vegetable oils were introduced to replace whale oil in margarine production, the price of the whale oil fell dramatically. Quotas were increased to 660 to offset the price drop but the increased cull served only to deplete the whale numbers to such an extent that in the 1962 season, only 68 whales were taken, and in August of that year Tangalooma closed down due to a lack of whales.
Jack Little:‘White Pointers were first attracted into Moreton Bay after the opening of the whaling station at Tangalooma on Moreton Island in 1951. They would follow the chasers back into the bay, feeding off their haul of whale carcasses.
White Pointer shark caught in Moreton Bay in 1951 by Jack Little
‘Incidentally, the photo of the White Pointer shows cuts around its mouth. These are caused by the barbs of stingrays, its main tucker. I have often seen sharks jump into the air while chasing equally airborne stingrays. Conversely, though, sharks can remain stationery on the bottom for long periods. With the influx of White Pointers into the bay, the sport of Big Game fishing was introduced by Norman Gow. Radio personality Bob Dyer was one of the best known and most successful fisherman in this class.’
Peter Ludlow: While enjoying our morning coffee at the Lighthouse Restaurant on Cleveland Point this week, we were excited to see two whales breeching in the bay about a kilometre north of Peel Island. Then on the news yesterday we saw that two whales – a mother and her calf – were stranded in the shallows off Dunwich. It ended well for the pair, which surely must have been the ones we saw a couple of days earlier.
The National Parks people say that whales come into the bay to rest on their long journey south. Incidentally, a university acquaintance, when mentioning how good it was that whale numbers were increasing, was told by an American colleague that this was a bad sign. Global warming is changing our ocean currents and forcing the creatures closer to shore. I wonder if this is why we have greater shark numbers inshore too?
Moreton Bay History 