Eddystone history reflection

• Shad and dad John Denman reminisce on the steps to the Eddystone Lighthouse.

By Tony Scott
October 26, 2022

Stories of maritime daring and drama and simple family fun have been shared at an open day at the Eddystone Point light station.

The last lighthouse keeper at the site John Denman and son Shad were on hand to relate a personal insight on life at Eddystone before it was automated in 1994.

Mr Denman senior worked for the Lighthouse Service for 26 years – the last 12 years and two months of those at Eddystone.

He concedes life was a little easier by then than in the days when 18-month-old Walter Kirkwood died and was buried in the shadow of the light tower in 1898, just nine years after the light was commissioned.

“We had a flying doctors kit on hand and had to use it a few times mainly on injured or sick fishermen to guard against blood poisoning.

“One day we had to put to sea in a dinghy to pick up a young bloke who’d got his leg badly smashed up after he kicked a rope on a scallop dredge.

“We laid him across the back of the boat, but he was in real agony till we got him ashore and the ambulance was there to give him some morphine.”

Son Shad boarded in St Helens to go to school but remembers times like holidays especially that Eddystone was a great place to grow up.

“We could go fishing, even catch crayfish from the rocks.

“I was pretty popular when the school excursions came up here and I could show everyone what to do.”

They also described the summer cricket matches on the mowed hollow in front of the main keeper’s house. 

“It was good for after lunch because the ball would roll back down the hill, so we didn’t have to run as far to field it,” John Denman said.

There was even a “rough” nine-hole golf course, where challenges were held against golfers from Ansons Bay.

Renovations to some of the heritage infrastructure at Eddystone Point have been welcomed by a group of history buffs, who have lobbied for years for the improvements.

Friends of Eddystone Point invited interested people to inspect the recently completed works and, coming only a couple of days after a national lighthouse conference in Devonport, visitors included people from as far away as Cairns and South Australia.

During the open day they inspected the resplendent lighthouse itself from the outside only, the auxiliary beacon, the grave of a toddler and mainly the renovated Clerk of Works building.

The corrugated iron building, above the modern boat ramp was built around 1886 before work got underway on the lighthouse, which was first lit-up in March 1889.

It served as home and office for the Clerk of Works and head stonemason James Galloway.

Two of the special guests were Galloway great grandchildren, Von McLaren and Iain Watson, who appreciated the work done.

“It looked a bit daggy before,” Mr Watson said.

“Having it open to the public will give people an understanding of what went on here and give people like fishermen and tourists some shelter in bad weather.”

The work has been completed by the Parks and Wildlife Service and includes the installation of a new toilet behind the Clerk of Works building.

President of the Friends of Eddystone Lindsay Dawe said he was determined that the European heritage of the buildings should not be forgotten with handover of control of the land area to the
Indigenous community.

He was grateful for funding from the Parks Service’s heritage section for the restoration works. 

“What we’d really like now if for AMSA (Australian Maritime Safety Authority) to agree to lighting up the prism again, even just for a special event like to commemorate its first operation on May the first.

“Other places around Australia light up their lighthouses once every few months or even once a year.”

The prism still rotates to avoid sunlight shining through it starting a fire, as with a magnifying glass.

The automated operating light is only about a quarter of the intensity of the original.

Mr Dawe understands that global positioning systems means there’s less reliance on lighthous-es.

But he says there have been at least two yacht groundings in the vicinity in recent years that may have been averted with a stronger light.