Whalemen Adventurers

The authorities of those days, having had some experience, knew all about the smell of a whaling-station, and had evidently a little more care for the comfort of their community than one might have expected. They decided that anything of the kind would have to be on the north shore of Sydney Harbour, and that the most suitablt places were Neutral Bay (still called by that name), and Great and Little Sirius Coves. Both Mosman and Bell selected land at the inner end of Great Sirius Cove, and took possession on 1 January 1831. The spot is wonderfully sheltered; not even a gale would disturb ships anchored there. The total area taken up at first was only about four acres. Later on, Mosman purchased Bell's land and the other allotments until he had as much as one hundred and eight acres. And so Great Sirius Cove came later on to be called Mosman's Bay.

Wharves were erected on the shores of the Cove and in 1833 we hear of them in use. Blubber was "tried out" ; one can easily imagine the activity in progress. It was not fresh blubber, either - how it must have smelled! Seagoing whalers were also careened and cleaned there, whilst their cargoes were transhipped to other vessels.

Both Mosman and Bell were interested in the Bay whaling that was now commencing on the New Zealand coast. Bell describes how in 1831 there were six vessels and three shore parties from Sydney on one section of the coast, and two vessels there from Hobart. Mosman himself lost property, huts, and fifty barrels of oil, through attacks from Maoris at Cloudy Bay in 1832.

If we had been in Great Sirius Cove in 1842 we should have looked upon this whalemen's harbour at its busiest. We should have seen a wooded creek with thick bush covering the shores where today there are brick and plaster and, above all things, poles - telephone poles, electric-light poles and tram poles. Stone wharves limited the margins of the cove where the deep-sea whalemen, countrymen of many different lands, argued, swore, and fought. Here their wooden ships were "hove down." This was a most important operation, very necessary in order to scrape the barnacles and other sea growths off the bottom of a ship, or to caulk the seams, or repair the planking. It was a tedious job, a procedure no longer to be seen in these days of docks and slips, although it may be conveniently imitated with small sailing craft in out-of-the-way places.

A whaler to be "hove down" was first brought alongside the wharf, then the topmasts were "housed" and the ship lightened of everything which could be removed. Floating very high out of the water, she would be securely moored by ropes from bow and stern to the shore. Ropes would then be taken from the mast and purchases set up with blocks and tackle, the falls being taken to capstans on shore. By steady heaving, the ship would be slowly pulled over until one side was exposed practically down to the keel. The operation would be repeated with the ship turned round the other way for the other side.

An old ring-bolt embedded in a rock still remains as the solitary relic of all this gear. It is almost a shrine to a few, but thousands pass it by daily, and have never seen it.

From 1844 onwards the Sydney Shipping Gazette records almost every week the arrival and departure of whale-ships, colonial and foreign ; colonial ships owned by Boyd and Towns and Fotheringham, and Yankee vessels from New Bedford and Nantucket. You can find long lists of ships in those pages ; but only occasionally a note that suggests a tithe of the adventures that befell them.

I append a newspaper clipping of a date thirteen years after the opening of the whale-ship refitting centre of Mosman - 21 April 1846. It exudes the atmosphere of this past industry and of a forgotten Sydney existence :

Mosman's Bay by John Mather - 1889

What tales of the deep sea must have been exchanged on those harbour shores! When business was brisk the scents of the bush must have been altogether lost in a perfect. "gas attack" from decayed whale blubber ; but this period of activity did not endure. Actually the decline of this great centre was beginning in 1846, and by 1851 Mosman's Bay was no longer a place of industry. Then in 1860, it became a pleasure spot, a delightful place to take one's sweetheart.

Now, Mosman is a residential suburb. The peculiar Sydney trams run prosaically but noisily over the ground where the try-works smoked in days long past. The nurse-maid pushes her pram where some of the hardest "cases" of the sea once lurched, and the prouder house-owners wonder what will be its future since "flat-land" has disturbed the serenity of its complacent suburbanity.

The Barn, Mosman, Sydney, NSW

One surprising relic remains - the "Barn." It was built in 1831, and the crews of whale-ships used it when their ships were being "hove down." It was then a sail loft and storehouse. It has since been a "pub," astable, a candle-factory, a Frenchman's tannery, a skating-rink, a hall for election meetings and church bazaars. Now it is a centre for Boy Scouts. The photograph shows it long ago, in the old skating-rink days of 1880. May it long remain, a relic of the pre-machine period of modern history.

This is the most suitable place to break in with a story of Twofold Bay, which is one of the most remarkable in the history of Australian settlement. The whole business was the result of one striking figure, Ben Boyd, who passed like a meteor through the life of New South Wales ; then crashed ; and finally came to a tragic end by murder on a South Sea island.

Twofold Bay is an indentation of the eastern Australian coast, almost at the border between Victoria and New South Wales. It is just a quiet, pretty spot to-day - a small summer holiday centre for a few folk with interests in fishing. Most of the bay is clothed with thick bush which descends to the water's edge. On the northern shore is the small township of Eden, a sleepy hollow, worthy of better things, and a bigger population. No railway links it up with its rich hinterland and few ships now call at its quay. Twofold Bay seems a natural centre for an important seaport between Melbourne and Sydney, a fishing-town at least, and an obvious gateway to an agricultural area. But the peculiarities of Australian settlement with the magnetism of crowded life in a few big towns, have left Eden no opportunity. Indeed Twofold Bay has never been given a chance since Ben Boyd's extravaganza ; even the railway has kept proudly aloof from it. A remarkable fact considering Australian legislation! It is said that had the weather not been very bad when Captain Cook sighted the eastern coast of Australia in April of 1770, he would certainly have seen and explored Twofold Bay. If this had happened Botany Bay might never have been chosen for the first settlement, and Sydney - and the harbour of Port Jackson might have had their development delayed by many years.

Actually, Twofold Bay was mentioned as a possible harbour by the indefatigable Flinders in 1799. He also found the skeleton of a Right whale on the beach. No doubt the natives of those parts had often enjoyed the carcasses of Right whales during a long succession of years.

With the rise of Bay whaling Twofold Bay became one of the well-known Australian centres, although after the beginning made by Raine (see Chapter 4) it was only a small station, probably visited frequently by Launceston men, until Dr Imlay entered the business. Twofold Bay is the only place on the Australian coast where whaling has been continued in the old form until almost the present day, and by descendants of one of Boyd's own men.

A Sketch from Brierly's Note-Books "James Imlay" was an aboriginal whaler in the employ of Imlay Brothers of Twofold Bay.

Brierly left Sydney on 13 December 1842 on a steamer, the Sea Horse, bound for Hobart Town. He describes the trip down the coast, illustrating his account with sketches in pen and ink. The ship was to call at Twofold Bay ; actually she broke a piston-rod thereabouts and after landing some passengers returned to Sydney for repairs. Brierly, however, decided to remain at the bay, where he states Boyd contemplated purchasing some land. Almost his first notes tell us of the active Bay-whaling station there which belonged to Dr Imlay, the owner of a large cattle station: "The natives make very good whalers, and many of them are employed by Imlay, who gives provisions, etc., in return for their services." Brierly was, in fact, so intrigued by what he saw that he sketched the native headman of the whalers, who was decorated with the title, "James Imlay, King of the Tribe and Admiral of the Fleet." The name was inscribed on a brass plate. Many of the other members of the crews also wore brass plates bearing their names and rank and supplied by the far-sighted Imlays.

A few weeks later, after journeying about the district, Brierly and Boyd were picked up by the Wanderer and went on to visit Tasmania. [footnote 4] The following year Boyd took up 640 acres of land on Twofold Bay and then proceeded in a grandiose manner to create a township, called Boyd Town. Here his steamers were to call for wool and cattle, and his whalers were to call for stores.

There were two settlements on the southern shore of Twofold Bay separated by the Kiah River. The western township was Boyd Town. East Boyd was where Brierly lived. The southern shore was chosen by Boyd for his village, church, and landing jetties, whilst on the northern side the government township of Eden was already in existence, a very small village soon to be overshadowed by its remarkable competitor opposite.

Boyd Town was built in lavish style, a brick church on a hill was included, and also an unusually extensive hotel, the Sea Horse Inn. The adjectives used in the last sentence are not by any means too strong when one considers the primitive galvanized buildings which often represent the new outback settlements of more recent years. A lighthouse tower, seventy-six feet in height, was erected at the south-eastern extremity of the bay, and was the finest tower on the Australian coast for many years. But it was never a proper lighthouse, for the Government refused to use it since Boyd would not guarantee the light. It stands to-day as a fine coastal memorial to Boyd's enterprise and it will be there for many years to come, unless vandals deliberately pull it down. The little church, whose spire could be seen twenty miles out at sea, is a ruin. Eucalyptus-trees grow from its former aisles. The hotel might well have been preserved for history's sake, but after years of neglect the ruins have recently been purchased and embodied in a new structure. Some of us would prefer the ruins!

The building of this settlement on such extravagant lines (there were brick houses, veranda cottages, a long row of store buildings and salting and boiling-down houses) was largely under the control of Brierly himself, who had become a sort of resident manager. He frequently refers to the construction of the inn in his early note-books. Boyd often came down from Sydney in the Wanderer. The hotel was slated in August 1844. What gatherings took place there in the pot-room in the years that followed! It is significant that there was an iron drop shutter which could be lowered when the patrons became too rowdy, to cut off the bar counter from the rest of the room!

At this lonely spot, isolated from Sydney by land, and inconceivably far from the rest of the world when measured by modern standards, a little band of men, women, and children constituted an outpost of the British Empire. Deep-sea whalers called on them when it was convenient, to pick up the necessaries of life. The place also became a port of call for the small vessels trading between Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart Town.

On 4 April 1846, Twofold Bay and Boyd Town were advertised in the Hobart Press; the advertisement which follows appeared every month until at least the end of that year:

Boyd's whalers were soon at work, for he plunged into the business with the same disregard for cost as in all his undertakings. And all the time the old Bay whaling still went on, right at the doors of the settlement. Boyd himself took part in a whale-chase on 4 November 1844. And Brierly often went out.

To the people of New South Wales this amazing development, and the facile style of it, must have appeared a triumph of organizing skill. Samuel Sidney, writing in London in 1852, on the Australian colonies, says that "Boyd was a man of apparently unlimited capital, an imposing personal appearance, fluent oratory, and a fair store of commercial acuteness, acquired on the Stock Exchange." It would not be difficult to find Boyd's counterpart in the last ten years, if we looked into some of the great European bankruptcies.

There is a possibility, of course, that with good luck (which in the case of the business man is often mistakenly regarded as foresight or exceptional intelligence), Boyd's wonderful scheme might have succeeded. But New South Wales was passing through a period of insolvency in 1841 and 1842, and the ill-fortune of his steamers heralded the tragic failure that was to follow. One of them, the Sea Horse, struck a rock ; this, however, was not as expensive as the insurance litigation which followed.

It might be regarded as surprising, seeing that Bay whaling was at his doors, so to speak, that Sperm whales formed the bulk of Boyd's captures. Some of the scattered remarks in Brierly's note-books indicate that, at least at the beginning, Boyd's Bay-whaling crews did not do too well. Brierly had a pretty shrewd suspicion that they were bribed by the Imlay men to miss the whale if they possibly could. It is fairly evident that there was competition in the bay. Boyd's ships were not unsuccessful, however, in the pursuit of the Sperm whale at sea ; they earned £42,000 from whale-oil in 1848, and sperm oil was always more valuable than the oil from Right whales.

Boyd became notorious, too, as one of the first men to introduce Kanakas to Australia, and there was some trouble at Twofold Bay on 9 April 1847, when an attempt was made to land a party from the New Hebrides. But these men were for his pastoral industry and not for his whale-ships. We have coupled Mosman's Bay with Boyd Town in this chapter because both places were active during the. same period ; and Boyd himself had a depot at Mosman's Bay. Further, his Sydney residence was near by at Neutral Bay. His ships were at Mosman's Bay frequently. It was the place for refitment.

From the year 1843 onwards to 1847 a growing discontent with the character and control of Ben Boyd reveals itself in Brierly's note-books. In 1847 he wrote :

This loss of esteem was the beginning of the end. Boyd knew before this that his affairs were in a condition far from favourable, and so did the shareholders in London. The crash came speedily. In 1848 the shareholders demanded his withdrawal from the company he had founded, but it seems he was allowed to retain his yacht and three of the whalers. The shareholders of the bank lost not only their capital, but £80,000 besides. On 26 October 1849, the Wanderer left Sydney for the last time, with Boyd on board, bound for America to join in the gold-hunt of California. No salutes greeted his departure! Boyd Town was soon deserted and left to decay.

Let us follow Boyd to the end. He had no luck in America and we next find him returning to the Lotus Islands of the Pacific, still with the beautiful yacht. It is said that he yet had schemes of magnitude and hoped to make a Papuan republic.

On 15 October 1851 he landed on Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands, and was never seen again. It is certain that he was murdered by the natives. After vainly searching for him, the crew sailed the Wanderer to Australia, but she was wrecked on the coast at the entrance to Port Macquarie, about 250 miles north of Sydney.

Rumours of Boyd's end kept the mystery alive at Sydney and three years afterwards two ships went in search. We read that the captain of one of them sailed away with a skull reputed to be that of Ben Boyd and for which he had given twenty tomahawks!

So ends the story of Ben Boyd. To-day, even the romance once attaching to his name is almost forgotten, except at Eden, where the ruins of the old church and the famous hotel are attractions for the few visitors from near and far. But we are not finished with Brierly. He is one of the characters who make the story of Australian whaling of wider interest.

The old note-books, practically diaries, of Brierly are amongst the treasures of the Mitchell Library, Sydney. There are several of them covering the years during which he was at Twofold Bay. The early ones were well kept, the penmanship was neat, and everything was well ordered. Later the handwriting became worse and worse; the matter was badly set down - many weeks elapsing with but little of interest. It is clear, however, from these scraps, that Brierly was intensely interested in whaling, and aimed at writing a book which should tell the world the whole story. Over and over again he describes incidents which occurred when he was present, often repeating a description of the same event.

Most interesting of all, however, is the way in which he writes notes on himself. One can almost discern his moods ; possibly the loneliness and the lack of congenial spirits at Boyd Town made him introspective. His literary intentions are set out in programme form ; he tells himself that he must write a daily journal of everything connected with whaling, and must illustrate it. Here, actually, is his plan :

And so on.

Unfortunately, only a little of the matter that was to come under these heads is given. Brierly at this time seems either to have had too much to do, or to have been troubled with an artistic temperament which set him to do things, but couldn't keep him down to them for long.

'Flurry' by Oswald Walters B. Brierly - 1865. Photo: Courtesy of National Art Gallery, Sydney.

He did, however, make sketches and paintings and later on these were to be utilized in some of his finest works. They are wonderful records of the sea. Probably no other artist has seen a tithe of what Brierly experienced on shipboard, and certainly he stands alone as an artist with a knowledge of the habits of whalers and their prey. One fine painting of considerable size depicts the whole story of the final "flurry", and no other picture in existence reveals such correct details of a whale-boat at the climax of the chase. It is in the National Art Gallery, Sydney, and is reproduced in the frontispiece. It is worthy of being better known.

Brierly said good-bye for ever to Twofold Bay on 18 April 1848, and returned to Sydney. On 18 September 1847, a certain Captain Stanley, commanding H.M.S. Rattlesnake, a survey ship, had visited Twofold Bay (in H.M. Schooner Bramble to determine the best site for a customs house and to make other surveys. He is known to have visited Boyd Town. This may explain the step which determined the whole of Brierly's subsequent career, for, a short time after reaching Sydney, Brierly was invited by Captain Stanley to accompany him on a surveying voyage to the north of Australia. He accepted, and in so doing, made an interesting contact with a young man destined to become a world-famous scientist, for Thomas Henry Huxley was serving his first appointment as assistant surgeon on this same ship. The Rattlesnake had been away from England about three years and Brierly was on board during her last voyages from Sydney to the Australian coral seas. So Huxley and Brierly must have been close messmates for several months.

HMS Rattlesnake off Sydney Heads by Oswald Walters Brierly - 1849 Photo: Courtesy of National Library of Australia

One result of this voyage was the famous painting of the Rattlesnake in a storm, carried out in pastel and water colours on the wall of a room in a friend's house in Mosman. It was twenty feet across. Unfortunately, it could not be preserved when the old house was taken down and all we have as a record is a small reproduction in colours.

It would be a pity not to continue the story of Brierly, still a wanderer, unsettled and uncertain. He came back to Sydney, and then accepted an invitation from Captain Keppel, of H.M.S. Meander, to make a Pacific cruise. After this he returned to England. Through Keppel's friendship, he sailed again on ships of the British Navy, and took part in the naval campaign in the Baltic and the Crimean War in the Black Sea. The paintings and other illustrations made on these voyages brought him great renown. His pictures were brought to the notice of Queen Victoria, and he was instructed to make a painting of the grand naval review as seen from her yacht. Thenceforward, he was a friend of Royalty, accompanying the princes on their world voyages, and was honoured with the title, "Marine Painter to Her Majesty, the Queen." He died - Sir Oswald Brierly - in London in 1894.

Probably the scattered whaling notes which fill page after page of Brierly's Twofold Bay note-books would never have reached the public eye at all, had it not been for an occurrence of considerable interest in itself.

The world-renowned anatomist, Professor Richard Owen, happened to say (in the course of some remarks on the urgent necessity of having a collection of whale specimens in London) that the Right whale was confined to the northern hemisphere. This was reported in the Athenaeum in July 1861.

Naturally Brierly (who was even then painting a picture of the Right whales of Twofold Bay) was provoked to reply. His note-books show that he wrote and re-wrote the letter until satisfied with its contents. It contained whole paragraphs from his early diaries of fifteen years before.

Professor Owen responded in academic vein, and it must be confessed that his letter was not altogether a fair retort, for he proceeded to stress the differences between the southern Right whale of Brierly, and the northern Right whale, without admitting that after all both were Right whales.

Brierly was decidedly annoyed at his tone, but his long reply in the Athenaeum of 7 September, 1861, was polite and not nearly so interesting as the first drafted sketch to be seen in his note-book, which runs as follows :

I like the last part of this!

Some of Brierly's other notes are scattered elsewhere in this book. They are valuable records from a keen observer of the past. In fact, he asserts that the men who went awhaling from ships at sea had never had the same good chance of describing the whales and their antics, as those who, like himself, fished from the shore.

It is in this connexion that he described the aboriginals of Twofold Bay feeding inside the carcass of a whale, and coming out so covered and disfigured by the visit to such an interior as to appear totally unlike anything human.