Wadjemup Lighthouse

About

Completed in 1849, the original 20-metre (66 ft) Wadjemup Lighthouse (also known as Rottnest Island Light Station) was Western Australia's first stone lighthouse and was built to provide a safer sailing passage for ships to Fremantle Harbour and the Swan River Colony. A second and larger replacement tower was built on the same site in 1896. It is the fourth oldest extant lighthouse in Western Australia and was Australia's first rotating beam lighthouse. A shipwreck that was partly caused by poor communications and misunderstood signals from the lighthouse prompted the construction of Bathurst Lighthouse on the island in 1900.

Rottnest Island is the largest and northernmost of several islands near the Port of Fremantle. It is 19 kilometres (12 mi) from the mouth of the Swan River and is generally the first land sighted by ships arriving from the west. The island is 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) long and 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) at its widest point, with a total land area of 19 square kilometres (7.3 sq mi). The lighthouse site is at the highest point of the island, on Wadjemup Hill, with the tower base 45 metres (148 ft) above sea level. It is 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of the Thomson Bay settlement and about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) south-west of the Geordie Bay settlement.

Between 1837 and 1843, Commander John Clements Wickham led an expedition in HMS Beagle with Lieutenant John Lort Stokes to chart sections of the Australian coastline. During the voyage, Fremantle was visited seven times and in the course of one of these visits on 25 March 1840, Stokes wrote in his journal:

We moved the ship to Rottnest Island, to collect a little material for the chart and select a hill for the site of a lighthouse. The one we chose lies towards the South east end of the island bearing N76°W (true) twelve miles and a quarter from the Fremantle gaol.

In October 1840, Surveyor-General John Septimus Roe, together with Wickham and Stokes published Sailing Directions for the Navigation About Rottnest Island. The document appeared in the Government Gazette and included:

- Rottnest Island... may now be distinguished from the mainland and Garden Island by a white obelisk, 15ft in height, with a pole in the middle, of the same length, which has recently been erected on its highest part near the centre of the island. This sea-mark, being elevated about 157ft above sea level, may be seen from a ship's deck in clear weather at the distance of 7 or 8 leagues, and will shortly give place to a lighthouse of greater elevation. Its position, according to HMS Beagle, is lat. 32d 0m 14s South, long. 115d 26m 6s East.

Stokes returned to Fremantle on Beagle in April 1843 and wrote:

In the forenoon of the 23rd we saw the lighthouse of Rottenest [ sic ]; and regarded it with great interest, as the work of the [Aboriginals...] imprisoned at the island.

Superintendent of Public Works Henry Trigg designed the first lighthouse and laid the foundation stone in January 1842. Perth builder Bayley Maycock oversaw construction of the tower at a cost of £500 and used labour provided by the prisoners and locally quarried limestone. Construction seemed to be quite protracted for reasons which are unclear—possibly because of resistance by the Prisoner's Superintendent Henry Vincent, who disliked outside meddling on the island.

The first keeper, Samuel Thomas, was appointed on 18 January 1849—two years before the light was lit. Thomas's duties initially included operating a system of signalling using flags and flares to indicate the arrival of ships. Different signals and flag combinations indicated ships to the north or south of the island and these were monitored from a pilot's lookout at Bathurst Point on the north-eastern extremity of the island and then relayed to Arthur Head at Fremantle. Four flagpoles were built at the lighthouse for signalling. The flags were about 9 feet (2.7 m) square. When confirmation of a ship's arrival was received, the lookout man at Arthur Head raised a blue flag for the information of Fremantle residents.

Vincent wrote to Colonial Secretary Henry Bland on 25 August 1849, that "... the Tower of the Litehous is all finesh...". The conclusion of construction coincided with the closure of the island prison establishment and the removal of inmates back to the mainland. The Aboriginal prison population did return however, between 1855 and 1931.

The tower's completed height was 3 metres (10 ft) shorter than the design, and commissioning was finally completed in 1851 when the revolving lamp and clockwork mechanism were fitted. Unusually for the period, as most lighthouse lamps and mechanisms came from England, the machinery for the revolving catoptric light was designed and built in Fremantle. Assistant Surveyor-General Augustus Gregory designed the mechanism which comprised two sets of three oil-burning lamps, each with a silvered parabolic reflector. In 1850, a contract was let to Alfred Carson to construct the revolving apparatus. The official opening on 1 June 1851 coincided with the twenty-second anniversary of the Colony and the opening of another lighthouse at Arthur Head.

The light was visible for 18 nautical miles (33 km; 21 mi) and had a characteristic five-second flash followed by a 55-second eclipse. The entire apparatus rotated once every two minutes. It was operated by a clockwork mechanism and the lamps consumed 3 gallons of coconut oil per week. In 1862, colza oil, and later in the century, kerosene were used as fuel. The octagonal lantern was 3.4 metres (11 ft) high, and glazed with 160 panes of 3 ⁄ 8 inch (9.5 mm) thick glass.

- The light will consist of two groups of three powerful lamps each; the whole revolving once in two minutes, and showing a flash of light of five seconds' duration every minute, with intervals of 55 seconds of darkness. The centre of the light is 197 feet above high water level, and at the height of 18-feet may be seen in clear weather at a distance of 7 leagues.

The now demolished lighthouse keeper's quarters and a storeroom were constructed nearby.

Thomas Carter succeeded Samuel Thomas as keeper in January 1853. The following year, on hearing that a vacancy for the keeper's position had occurred, John Duffield Senior wrote to the Colonial Secretary on 17 January asking that his son Samuel be considered. Governor Charles Fitzgerald approved Samuel Duffield's appointment as the third Rottnest lighthouse keeper the following day. Duffield, his wife and four children took up residence with an initial pay of £44 per year rising to £88 per year at his retirement in 1879 with a pension of £33 6s 8d, equivalent to A$5,547.76 in 2022. Duffield was the longest-serving lighthouse keeper at Rottnest. The lighthouse keeper lived an isolated existence, being required to be on duty at all hours. This would have been exacerbated by the absence until 1866 of a permanent road between the Thomson Bay settlement and the lighthouse.

In 1863 the Admiralty issued its first publication of the west coast of Australia in The Australia Directory Vol. 3. The light was described as revolving and flashing for five seconds in every minute, and that it could be seen for 20 nautical miles (37 km; 23 mi) on a clear day at an elevation of 18 feet (5.5 m). As to signalling, The Directory stated:

- On the approach of a vessel by day, the lightkeeper makes a signal to the pilot stationed at the north-east extreme of the island [Bathurst Point], showing whether the vessel is about to enter the channel North or South of Rottnest Island., the pilot will then proceed onboard. A vessel arriving at Rottnest Island at night, and requiring a pilot, should show her position by lights, blue lights or rockets, or by firing guns, when the lightkeeper will give notice to the pilot, who will board the vessel as quickly as possible.

Repairs to the tower were made in 1879 and a new lens from England was ordered the following year. These works totalling £100 were approved in the Legislative Council in 1880. In March 1881 a new first order dioptric lamp was fitted and in 1887 a locally made revolving apparatus was installed. However, the Harbour and Light Department described the light as being "behind the times". A first-order holophotal lantern with an estimated cost of £3,900 was ordered in 1891. The same year £6,000 was placed in the Government's budget estimates for a new lighthouse, which had been under consideration for some time.

Tenders for the new tower were accepted in October 1894 for £3,237 4s. 9d. from Messrs Parker and Rhodes, and construction commenced in March 1895. The foundation stone was laid on 25 April 1895 by the Premier of Western Australia, John Forrest and included the placement of a glass bottle in a niche in the stone, containing newspapers, coins and copies of plans of the new lighthouse. It was designed by British engineer William Douglass with construction overseen by the colony's engineer-in-chief, Charles Yelverton O'Connor. Douglass also designed the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, which was built between 1895 and 1896.