A highway of lights

A connection between the Hyde Park Barracks immigration depot and Hornby lighthouse opened the door to a wider story about NSW’s coastal history, drawing on rich materials from the State Archives.

Among the first immigrants to stay at the repurposed Hyde Park Barracks female immigration depot (formerly a convict barracks), in 1849, was 15-year‑old Mary Kenny, from Castlecomer, Ireland. Mary travelled to Australia under the British Government’s Earl Grey scheme, designed to provide relief to female orphans during the Great Irish Famine.

Arrival

On 29 November 1849, after 266 days at sea, the Lismoyne, with Mary and 166 other Irish orphans on board, approached Port Jackson. The ship’s crew had already battled coastal gales, and to avoid the full weight of the strong southward current that runs the length of Australia’s east coast, mariners were advised to ‘hug the shore’.¹ But charting such a course also risked hazards like reefs and headlands. As the ship neared Sydney, by day Macquarie lighthouse should’ve been visible high on South Head, starkly white; by night, its oil lamps could be seen 35 kilometres out to sea in good weather. The lighthouse, completed in 1818, was designed by the convict architect Francis Greenway, who also designed the Barracks.

Entering Port Jackson in the 19th century could ‘shake the nerves’ of an experienced mariner.² If a ship arrived at night, in unfavourable conditions, the crew was advised to stay offshore until the weather improved. In bad weather, Macquarie lighthouse was hard to observe from sea level, and its value as a navigable landmark undermined because it was almost 3 kilometres from Port Jackson’s entrance. Rounding inner South Head (unmarked by a lighthouse in 1849) required a tight west-south-west heading, avoiding the reef which extends beyond the point. Even inside the Heads, the narrowed passage between Middle and inner South Head presents obstacles such as shoals – one, named Sow and Pigs, had claimed several vessels. Once inside the harbour channel, mariners relied on various observable points (including Elizabeth Bay House) to maintain a safe course.

The Lismoyne pressed ahead. By nightfall, rain and ‘dirty’ skies had set in over Port Jackson – but the ship was now safely anchored.

Disaster

Nearly a decade later, on the night of 20 August 1857, passengers aboard the Dunbar were eyeing Sydney after a comparatively brief journey from England of 81 days. Although the weather was stormy, with strong winds and heavy rain, the captain made the fateful decision to enter the Heads. The ship broke up on the rocks just beyond Macquarie lighthouse, and 121 of the 122 people on board were lost. The cause wasn’t determined, but the crew may have mistaken the Gap (a bight in the cliff face at South Head) for the harbour mouth, which lay 1.2 kilometres further north. Two months later, the Catherine Adamson was wrecked on the rocks at North Head, again at night, losing 21 souls.

These two tragedies, occurring in quick succession, prompted an outpouring of public grief and a demand for an improvement of the harbour’s lights. In October, the Light, Pilot and Navigation Board concluded that the existing harbour lights were insufficient. They recommended a new tower for inner South Head, on a low vantage point. The new Hornby lighthouse was operational by June 1858 and was painted red and white to differentiate it from Macquarie lighthouse. The lantern was reported to have been fitted with a first-order catoptric light consisting of 24 oil lamps and reflectors on an iron frame. Its fixed white light was visible up to 22 kilometres out to sea.

The Irish orphan Mary Kenny would go on to live at Hornby lighthouse with her husband, Henry Johnson, who was employed (from at least 1869) as one of the assistant light-keepers. There, she raised a family and witnessed the safe arrival of thousands more migrants who, like her, sailed into Port Jackson in the hope of a better life. Henry died at the lighthouse in 1884; Mary lived at a house in Cliff Street in Watsons Bay until her own death in 1913. By then, more than six decades after she arrived, the NSW coast had been transformed into a highway of lights.

Transformation

By 1903, the NSW Department of Navigation claimed there were 24 ‘highway lighthouses’, running from Fingal Head in the far north of NSW down to Green Cape near the Victorian border. Establishing the infrastructure cost the state an estimated £300,000.

Inland, too, through the various harbours and waterways, was an expanding system of inner-harbour lighthouses, floating gas-operated buoys, lightships and land-based guiding lights. Flagstaffs and an ever-improving telegraph network enabled communication. This intricate life-support system was designed to guide ships, protect cargo, and ensure passengers reached their port.

It is impossible to overestimate [the lighthouses’] value [to] safety of life and the prevention of the loss of millions sterling …³

Each coastal light had a sequence and, over time, the lights were illuminated using different energy sources – oil, high-grade American kerosene, gas and electricity. The Department of Navigation regulations required the lamps ‘to be lighted every evening fifteen minutes before sunset’ and maintained until sunrise. Lightkeepers like Henry Johnson maintained a ‘perpetual watch’, working in shifts. A chair was permitted in the watch room, but not a sofa – falling asleep was an offence punishable with dismissal. Daily life was dutifully recorded in logbooks: weather, shift times, cleaning undertaken, stocktakes and oil consumption.

Accidents still occurred. In 1895, the steamer SS Catterthun, sailing at night in terrible weather, hit a reef within sight of the Seal Rocks lighthouse on the Mid North Coast of NSW. More than 50 lives were lost. Yet owing to the weather conditions, the lightkeepers saw and heard nothing; news of the incident apparently reached them from Sydney two days later.

Solitude

Some lighthouses, such as those on South Solitary and Montague islands, were kilometres offshore. Others, such as Seal Rocks, were built precipitously on a headland. Whatever their location, isolation was a key feature of life for the men – and sometimes families – who staffed these silent sentinels:

In these lonely places, surrounded on three sides by silent scrub-lands, on the fourth by the open sea, a message from a passing ship asking for a tug on arrival at Sydney is almost an epoch.⁴

Supplies were often brought by sea. Steamships, sailing out of Sydney, were the needle that threaded the network together, although bad weather could hinder delivery.

Life on the ocean’s edge was hazardous. Men were swept off rocks in heavy swells, or drowned at sea while fishing, and young children sometimes became lost in coastal scrub. Distance from medical care meant that treatable conditions such as fever or broken bones could be fatal. Feuds developed between co-workers, and their families. Bizarre scenes also occurred. Once, the Seal Rocks lighthouse boat rowed out to a paddle-steamer to retrieve a dress for the wedding of the light-keeper’s daughter. The small boat was caught in the ship’s paddlewheel and flung high into the air. Luckily, all the crew survived – and the wedding dress escaped unscathed.

Legacy

In 1915, two years after Mary Johnson (nee Kenny) died, the federal government took control of the nation’s coastal lighthouses. Over the following decades, new technology meant that the need for the steady hand of a light-keeper would slowly fade. But most of the original lights still shine brightly today – a reminder of our coastal histories and an enduring signal of safe passage for those at sea.