Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse

The Cape Bowling Green lighthouse, built by John and Jacob Rooney between July 1873 to October 1874, is an 'ironclad' design. It consists of a hardwood frame surrounded by prefabricated iron cladding imported from Great Britain, with softwood internal staircase and floors. At the top of the tower is a cast iron compartment called the lantern room, in which the lens is housed. Chance Brothers supplied the original third-order dioptric rotating light and the fuel system which operated on kerosene. A clockwork mechanism rotated the light, which then had a range of 14 nautical miles.

During its operational life from 1874 to 1987 equiptment was upgraded and its cladding and internal structures were replaced as they became worn or rusted. The museum continues regular maitenance to ensure the structure remains safe and accessible to the public. The lens currently in the lantern room is a third-order dioptric lens supplied by Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) in 1993, similar to the original lens which was removed in 1920 when the lighthouse was automated. Find out more in our collection. 

The Cape is today a part of Bowling Green Bay National Park. The park’s swamps provide a rich habitat for wildlife including brolga, magpie geese, ibis, spoonbills and the zitting cisticola, a species rarely observed in Australia. The Bindal People hunted for mud crabs in the mangroves, a food source that the families living in the lighthouse community also found a welcome supplement to the supplies that were delivered once a month by pilot boat. The local fauna could also pose hazards to those living on the Cape, ranging from stinging insects to more substantial threats.

In 1891 lightstation structures, with the exception of the light tower, were relocated to avoid erosion and before the light tower was moved closer to the keepers’ quarters in 1908,  tidal influxes of seawater sometimes flowed between the light tower and the other buildings in the lighthouse community. On the night of 27 August 1892, Assistant Keeper Rose was crossing to the tower when he was attacked by a crocodile. Rose escaped the terrifying encounter by climbing one of the light station’s telegraph poles, from which Superintendent Cole was able to rescue him with a dinghy. Cole mistakenly reported that the reptile involved in the incident was an alligator, but the area is a habitat for estuarine crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) – the world’s largest living species of reptile. 
 

Lighthouse keepers understood well the dangers faced by the seafarers they guided to safety - many of them had begun their careers as sailors. They shared some of the same occupational hazards, such as an inclination to alcoholism common in environments that were often remote and isolated.  Other members of the light station community also struggled with the challenges of living at Cape Bowling Green.

By 1886 the Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse was staffed by a head keeper and three assistants, who between them had ten children. The Portmaster, who managed lighthouses for the Queensland Marine Board, provided a small structure for what was designated as Provisional School Number 510 and the Department of Public Instruction  appointed Amy Gordon Eddison to the post as a teacher. Eddison was only seventeen when she took up her post at the lighthouse, boarding with one of the keepers and his family. She began her lighthouse stint in August 1886, but resigned by the end of 1887 because she could no longer tolerate the conditions at the light station, particularly the excessive alcohol consumption of the couple with whom she boarded.

The post was filled again in 1889 by Emma Reneau, who remained at the light station until mid-1890. She found some of the resident children reluctant pupils, including two who refused to attend the school at all, and eventually tendered her resignation on the grounds that “this place does not agree with my health.”  In 1891 Richard Cole wrote to the Department of Public Instruction stating  “The children here are forgetting what little they know. Will you kindly appoint a suitable person as soon as possible.” In addition to the unappealing remoteness of the location there was a general shortage of teachers in Queensland at the time that made the post difficult to fill, and despite his appeals the school never reopened.

As part of efforts to monitor the coast during the war years, the Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse was temporarily re-staffed.  On 16 October 1942 lightkeepers M.V. O’Meara and J.T. Helmers were the first to be sent to the remote outpost. 

Access was via a Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) post at the coastal town of Alva approximately 20 kilometres away. From Alva the lightkeepers rode push bikes along the beach, walking them over tidal inlets and battling sandflies and mosquitoes.  The keepers’ cottages had been dismantled when the lighthouse was de-staffed in 1920, so O’Meara and Helmers were quartered in the remaining light station structure, the tower itself. 

Space was cramped, as the ground floor was filled with acetylene cylinders and a wireless telegraph set was installed on the first floor. The men were supplied with materials for an outside galley and a small kerosene stove. A store boat reprovisioned the lighthouse every three months, and every week a lightkeeper cycled to Alva where perishable stores could be drawn from the VDC post. A total of five lighthouse keepers were posted at the lighthouse from 1942 to when they were withdrawn from the location on 18 September 1944.