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Hayman Island
HISTORY
Hayman Island
Hayman Island is the most northerly of James Cook's Cumberland Isles
as evidenced in Cook's, Matthew Flinders' and P. P. King's narratives
and was adopted as such in later official definitions of the extent of the
Cumberland Islands. The island was named in 1866 by Commander G. S. Nares, RN,
in HMS Salamander after Thomas H. Hayman, sailing master of Salamander.
During Nares' survey a landing was made on the island in February 1866. Sailing directions from Salamander published in the Port Denison Times of 13 October 1866 describe the island as scantily wooded except near the peaks, with grass so thick it was with great difficulty the party was able to get through it on their way to the highest peak to make observations.
Settlement
William Cooke and Alan Cooke 1906- 1910
The Cooke brothers, who held an occupation licence over the Molle Group
at the same time, were granted occupation licence 304 on 20 November 1906. It is
not clear to what use they put the island but their tenure ended and the island
was again opened to occupation on 14 February 1910.
Thomas Richard Abell 1910- 1916
T. R. Abell was granted occupation licence 350 on 4 May 1910, he being
the 'original' Abell who came to the mainland Jubilee Pocket area
with his family in 1904. Among his sons was another Thomas Richard Abell but the
family in 1990 say this latter had nothing to do with the islands and the
licence holder was undoubtedly 'the old man'. He was however a sick man
(he died in 1915) and his name probably appears on the licence only because
there was a family company, T. R. Abell and Sons. The island was in fact worked
by the son, Arthur Edward Abell, who ran some sheep and goats there.
Some reports say the Abells had a timber lease on the island but this is not
correct there was never any commercial timber there. The confusion probably
arises because in later years the Abell brothers had a timber camp on the beach
on Hook Island opposite Hayman Island where they cut timber for the
Townsville timber firm of Rooney & Co.
Albert Frederick Emanuel (Boyd) Lee 1916- 1935
Boyd Lee who also had a lease of Grassy Island where he lived with his
family, took over OL350 on 24 July 1916. He ran goats on the island but did not
live there. On 1 August 1930 the OL was changed to a special lease 6214
for 14 years.
Edwin Montague (Monty) Embury 1931- 1935
Monty Embury was a school-teacher from New South Wales who conducted a
series of semi-scientific expeditions to the island. He purchased the lease from
Lee in 1931 and with great expectations in mind also obtained leases over Hook, Langford,
Black, Arkhurst and Bird Islands in the next few years (see Embury
expeditions).
The Hallam brothers 1935- 1948
Herbert Octavius (Bert) and Robert (Bob) Hallam were brothers from the
Hallam family of Proserpine and Riordanvale where they had been involved in
farming and the ownership of a soft-drink factory in Proserpine.
They had been involved as boat skippers with the Embury expeditions and with the idea of expanding the tourist potential of the island from the foundation laid by Monty Embury purchased the lease in late 1935 and moved to the island. Bert at that stage was unmarried Ð Bob was with his wife Millie and their four children, Merle, Liela, Billy and Marion. (A postcard of that era from Hayman Island shows Marion as a child sitting within a large clam-shell which had been found at the island.) Bert later was to marry Irene Fallon whom he had met as a visitor during an Embury expedition and she joined him at Hayman (Marion Eaton [Hallam]).
In the Proserpine Guardian of 21 December 1935 the Hallams announced that they were ready to take bookings for the Christmas period in that year and had purchased the 12.6 metre MV June to shuttle guests to and from the mainland. They also acquired the 9 metre Dawn and the 13.8 metre Ventura.
Monty Embury's organisation in Sydney continued for a time to serve as a publicity and booking agency for the Hallams and advertisements of those days invited fishermen to join 'The Great Barrier Reef Game Fish Angling Club' at Hayman Island. As with other resorts in the area at that time, guests could choose either to travel by rail to Proserpine or Bowen or to travel by coastal passenger steamer from Brisbane or Sydney as those vessels called regularly at the resorts, sometimes providing for on-going passengers to spend some hours ashore. Transfers to and from Cannonvale or Bowen or the steamers were effected by June, Ventura and Dawn.
Monty Embury during his term at the island had erected a dining/ recreation hall and a radio shack but guest accommodation had been mainly in tents. The Hallams added to the establishment by building a number of twin-bedded galvanised-iron and fibro huts along the beach on the southern side of the island where the modern resort stands today and in November 1936 applied for and were granted a liquor licence.
In 1936 the author Zane Grey lived for a brief while at the island (actually on his boat Avalon) while shooting part of the film White Death. He left Sydney in the Manunda on May 5, 1936 with a staff of twenty who camped on the island until they left on 28 July 1936 (Proserpine Guardian 25 April 1936, 13 June 1936, 11 August 1936).
Bob Hallam returned to live at Bucasia, Mackay where he bought a general store and post office agency, leaving Bert in sole control at Hayman Island (Proserpine Guardian 13 November 1937).
In 1945 when Daydream Island was re-opened by the Moodys, Bob and Millie and their older daughters moved there. Millie became house-keeper while Bob skippered the Comorin, one of the Fairmile launches operated by the then Australian National Airways' subsidiary, The Fairmile Cruising Company, operating out of Mackay. Bob was to die in Brisbane in 1970 and Millie re-married to Bert Cooke, whose father was one of the Cooke brothers who held the lease to Hayman Island and the Molle Islands in the early 1900s.
In 1938 the shark-catcher and author, Norman Caldwell lived on the island after previously living for a while on Grassy Island (Proserpine Guardian 2 July 1938).
In October 1941 the island was declared a national park (Government Gazette 11 October 1941) and Hallam's lease was re-negotiated to SL12327 for 30 years from 1 November 1941 over 960 acres (Proserpine Shire Council Rate Book Alterations 1914- 1943, Proserpine Guardian 6 February 1948).
During World War 2 the resort virtually closed down to be re-opened in May 1945 (Proserpine Guardian 11 May 1945). Meanwhile Bert had become involved in skippering small ships between Australia and New Guinea to supply the army there. In June 1946 Bert bought the 19.5 metre MV Valkyrie as the island's cruise vessel (Proserpine Guardian 28 June 1946) and photos of the time show her laid up in Pirates Cove on Hook Island due to a temporary want of spares.
In 1948 the lease to Hayman Island was sold to the Ansett subsidiary, Barrier Reef Islands Pty Ltd, and Bert and Irene moved to Cooktown in Valkyrie where they bought the Sovereign Hotel. Bert died in Cooktown in July 1971 at the age of 65.
Barrier Reef Islands Pty Ltd 1948 -
Ansett Transport Industries (Operations) Pty Ltd.
In May 1947 R. M. Ansett of Ansett Airlines and his partner Colin Mc. Donald
of Pioneer Tours visited the area aboard G. T. Mc. Lean's boat Shangri La (
Proserpine Guardian 2 May 1947) and in late June that year Reg Ansett
again visited in a Catalina flying boat chartered from Barrier Reef Airways.
This culminated in the formation on 28 October 1947 of Barrier Reef Islands Pty
Ltd, a subsidiary of Ansett Transport Industries Ltd and the purchase by them of
the leases on Hayman and Daydream Islands in February 1948 (Proserpine Guardian
6 February 1948).
Ansett initially was interested also in Lindeman Island, but the owners of the Lindeman resort did not agree and instead Ansett applied for a lease over Goldsmith Island (including Farrier Island) and Henning Island (Ansett letter to Secretary of Health and Home Affairs 11 September 1947) but these were refused.
BRI took over management of Hayman and Daydream Islands in March 1948 (Proserpine Guardian 12 April 1948) and began a refurbishment of Hayman Island aimed at the wealthier client and in anticipation of a visit by King George V1, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret in April 1949. However because of the King's illness the trip was cancelled though permission was given for the island to use the prefix 'Royal' and for many years it was known as Royal Hayman. A luxuryhotel was built and opened on 3 July 1950 by Sir Arthur Fadden the Deputy Prime Minister (Proserpine Guardian 7 July 1950).
In 1949 talks began with the Proserpine Shire Council to build a jetty (Proserpine Guardian 25 March 1949) at the south-west corner of the resort and this was completed by mid-1950. Originally it was proposed a stone causeway be built but this was not approved by the Department of Harbours and Marine and instead a pile jetty was constructed. The jetty carried a narrow-gauge track for a miniature train which for many years conveyed guests from the jetty to the resort and vice versa.
This was to be the scene of a tragedy in June 1952 when some guests on South Molle Island's launch Crest disembarked on to the jetty during a day cruise. At the same time the train was on the jetty to receive Hayman Island guests who had arrived by seaplane and as it passed the Crest passengers on its way back to the resort three of them were forced off the jetty and fell to the reef about five metres below. One of them, Thomas Manders May, an ambulance superintendent from Coolangatta, was killed in the fall and the others were injured. Some of the remaining Crest passengers, angry at the incident, assaulted the driver of the train, throwing him over the side of the jetty and breaking his ankle (Proserpine Guardian 26 June 1952, 5 September 1952).
By the end of 1951 the resort was not fulfilling its financial promises, leading the chairman, R. M. Ansett, to tell an annual meeting it had had an extraordinarily adverse season in its first year while one shareholder suggested it was a white elephant. The resort had not attracted the wealthy overseas visitors for which it was designed and was under financial pressure (Proserpine Guardian 4 April 1952) and seeking Government assistance either by way of a Government loan or guarantee or by direct participation in the venture (letter 29 April 1952 from Minister for Labour and Industry to E. J. Riordan, Minister for Mines and Emigration). This assistance was not forthcoming, and the decision was made to set their sights on a lower strata of client and to drop the resort's 'millionaire status'. The prefix 'Royal' was also dropped as part of the strategy (Proserpine Guardian 4 April 1952, 23 May 1952). Meanwhile Daydream Island also had proved a failure and was closed.
Water for the resort had been provided by collecting rainwater and by wells, though the latter was not suitable for drinking, and by carrying water by barge from Bowen and North Molle Island. To help solve this eternal problem a dam was constructed behind the resort in late 1960.
In the late 1950s negotiations began between the company and Government for conversion of special lease 12327 over the island national park to a new basis and culminated in September 1964 in the surrender of that lease and the granting to BRI from 1 October 1964 of a perpetual country lease NCL2041 over 260 acres on the southern side of the island where the main resort was located and special lease 28894 for 30 years over most of the remainder of the island. The national park status of the island was revoked during the course of these negotiations, in October 1961 (Government Gazette 21 October 1961).
On 1 April 1965 BRI was granted a special lease 29213 for 30 years over 1 Rood of the esplanade around the island to build a helicopter landing site adjacent to the end of the jetty.
In November 1969 the various leases were transferred to the name of Ansett Transport Industries (Operations) Pty Ltd and on 1 January 1981 the three existing leases, NCL2041, SL28894 and SL29213, were amalgamated into one perpetual country lease NCL2788 over the whole island (292.4796 ha) with a condition that the public be allowed free access along the existing walking tracks which were to be maintained by the company.
In March 1983 the resort purchased the jetty for $1 from the Proserpine Shire
Council, the latter glad to be rid of it and its maintenance costs
(Proserpine Guardian 31 March 1983).
In 1987 the resort was demolished and rebuilt to luxury and exclusive status,
re-opening in December 1987. The fresh water problem was solved by the
installation of a de-salination plant. The old jetty was removed and a marina
built at the south-west corner of the island, the area being covered by a
special lease 45621 for 7 years, 7 months and 5 days from 5 May 1983. The
company was given the option of incorporating the area into its PCL2788 when
work was complete.
The Information on the Whitsunday Islands is reproduced by kind permission of Mr. Ray Blackwood from his book:
" The Whitsunday Islands An Historical Dictionary ".
Please visit his site here. It is well worth the time!