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Brampton Island
HISTORY
Brampton Island
Brampton Island was named in 1879 by Staff
Commander E. P. Bedwell, RN, in SS Llewellyn and is one of
the many names from the then English county of Cumberland he brought to the Whitsundays following James Cook's 1770
designation of the group
as 'The Cumberland Isles'. Brampton is a city in the north-east of Cumbria into which Cumberland was
absorbed in 1974. Prior to this naming, the island and its twin, Carlisle
Island, were together known as M
Island, a designation given by Matthew Flinders in 1802.
There is a mistaken story that the island was named after a Captain Brampton, who passed this way in 1793. This derives from a corruption of the account of the voyage of one Captain William Bampton (with no 'r') who left Sydney in June 1793 in his vessel Shah Hormuzeer for India via Torres Strait accompanied by the Chesterfield under Captain Matthew Alt. The two vessels sailed direct to Norfolk Island to deliver convicts and supplies and then proceeded north to pass through Torres Strait close to the shore of New Guinea. This passage through the Strait took them seventy-two days and five of their men were killed by natives of New Guinea. Thus Bampton and Alt passed some five hundred nautical miles to the east of the Whitsundays, Bampton Shoals and Chesterfield Islands near New Caledonia marking the route they took.
On 7 September 1860 HMS Spitfire on her way north to search for the mouth of the Burdekin River, was passing outside Carlisle Island when her crew heard an explosion which they thought may have been a distress signal. In the event it seems the sound must have come from a rock exploding as the island was afire at the time, presumably lit by Aborigines. To investigate, Spitfire anchored in what today is Maryport Bay, and her captain, Master J. W. Smith, RN, and G. E. Dalrymple, Commissioner of Crown Lands for the new district of Kennedy, went ashore where they found about fourteen Aboriginals and a number of bark canoes. Dalrymple examined the canoes very closely and in his report of the voyage gave a detailed description of their construction. (see Aboriginals)
In 1902 the first white 'resident' of the island was to be John Williams, the master of the China Navigation Company's Chingtu, which traded in those days between Australia and the Far East. In August 1902, while the vessel was in Sydney, Williams contracted bronchitis but nevertheless stayed with his ship when it departed for China. Once clear of Sydney Heads he retired to his cabin, his condition worsened, and on 15 August he died while the vessel was off Moreton Bay. He had expressed a wish to be buried on an island and not at sea and when the vessel arrived among the Cumberland Islands he was buried at Brampton Island where today his grave still stands as an historic feature. (Proserpine Guardian 11 July 1931) On a subsequent voyage the crew of Chingtu erected a marble cross over the grave.
A second grave stands nearby, that of Stanley Montague, a worker on the island in 1935 who developed appendicitis and, despite being taken to the Mackay hospital, did not survive the illness. His body was brought back to the island for burial.
Settlement
Joseph Michael Carnell 1907 J
oseph Carnell, from Mackay, applied for an
occupation licence on 12 March 1907, the island having been opened for
occupation on 14 July 1905.
He was given OL115 but it is apparent he did nothing with the island as the licence lapsed
and Brampton again was declared open to
occupation on 1 February
1908 (Queensland State Archives LAN/ S74 Folio 61).
William Vereker Bindon 1912- 1913
William Bindon from Auckland, New
Zealand applied
for an occupation licence on 10 June 1912 and was given OL187 (QSA LAN/ S74 Folio 133) but he did
nothing with the island and the licence lapsed in 1913. He had a boat, Florence,
with which he would visit the
island from time to time and this he sold to the Busuttin family (see below) when
he departed the scene. He also obtained an occupation licence over Carlisle Island on 18 September 1911
which he held until 1913 but did nothing with that island either. Bindon must have had a wide interest in
islands in the area for Lands Department records of the time show he also was interested in Green Island and
Prudhoe Island in the
Northumberland group.
Busuttin Family 1916- 1959
A detailed history of the Busuttin family's
time on
Brampton Island is contained in Island That We Knew by Valda
Busuttin-Winsor, and below is given only a
brief outline of that era.
In 1907 Joseph Busuttin and his brother, Consiglio Victor Lawrence (Charles) Busuttin, began an island life by leasing St Bees and Keswick Islands to the south of Brampton Island, where they first bred chinchilla rabbits and later horses and sheep. On 1 January 1916 they obtained a 20 year pastoral holding lease 2304 over Brampton Island in the name of Consiglio Busuttin and began raising chinchilla rabbits there for their fur. By 1922 however these had been replaced by horses which were bred for the Indian army although this trade faded out when that army became mechanised.
In the early 1930s the Whitsundays were beginning to attract tourists on an increasing scale and the Busuttins decided Brampton would be an ideal location for a resort, its access and beaches being better suited to the role than those of either St Bees or Keswick Islands. In 1933 Joseph Busuttin's sons, James Arthur, Victor John (Mick) and Joseph Vincent (Pidge), took on the project and began building facilities behind the beach facing Maryport Bay where the main resort still stands today. In December that year the first tourists arrived on the Howard Smith vessel Canberra, to be off-loaded into launches and ferried ashore. On the return trip from the north the process was reversed.
During this period Arthur Busuttin was mainly occupied skippering the Woy Woy, a former State Government pilot vessel which he had bought as a service and tourist vessel and guests on the island were tended by the other two brothers and Mick's wife, Irene. However the pastoral holding was transferred to Arthur in March 1934 and in July he and his wife Jess took up permanent residence on the island and took over its management.
On 11 April 1936 the island was gazetted as a national park, though there were to be further gazettals over the years as the area of the park varied with changing lease structures. On 1 July 1936 a new special lease 9160 was issued over the whole island (1280 acres/ 518 ha) for 20 years in the name of Arthur Busuttin and as was usual in those days, contained clauses to protect the national park status. On 9 July 1954 this lease was transferred into the names of Arthur and his wife Jess.
During World War 2, in common with most resorts in the area, Brampton closed
down except perhaps for
the odd guest at times, but at the end of the war they re-opened the resort and
began a refurbishment, adding
new units and getting the tourist ball rolling again. At the expiration of
SL9160, a new special lease
22169 in the name of Arthur and Jess was issued for 20 years from 1 December
1956, again over the whole
of the island but excluding a coastal esplanade resulting in a leased area of
1010 acres (409 hectares).
Carapark Motels Ltd/ Motels of Australia Ltd 1959- 1964
In November 1959 Carapark Motels purchased the resort and special lease
22169 from the Busuttins and
asked them to stay on, which they did under a five year sub-lease of their dwelling and its grounds.
Carapark carried out renovations at a cost of $300,000, boosting the island's
capacity from fifty guests to one hundred (Mackay Mercury 6 April 1962), and
the resort received
considerable publicity when high-profile quiz-show personality, Bob Dyer and his wife Dolly built a holiday home there. However,
the resort did not
prosper and the company's assets were taken over by Motels of Australia Ltd
though the lease remained in
the name of Carapark.
As a part of Carapark's proposed development they had obtained on 13 February 1962 a special lease 26260 for thirty years over fifty acres on the north-west corner of adjoining Carlisle Island with the idea of building an airstrip there to service the resort. However, nothing was done in this regard before the sale of both the Brampton and Carlisle Island leases to Roylen Enterprises Pty Ltd/ Brampton Island Pty Ltd (see below).
After the takeover by Motels of Australia executives from the company
inspected the island, travelling there
from Mackay in one of Roylen Cruises' boats skippered by the owner of Roylen,
Tom McLean. As a result of
the inspection Motels of Australia decided they did not wish to retain an island
resort and put it up for
sale. The visit however had engendered an interest in the resort by Tom McLean
and in 1962, Roylen
Enterprises Pty Ltd became the owners.
Roylen Enterprises Pty Ltd/ Brampton Island Pty Ltd 1962- 1985
A detailed history of Roylen Enterprises Pty Ltd ownership of Brampton
Island is given in Captain Tom
by Tom McLean and only a brief outline of that era is given below.
In December 1962 SL22169 was transferred to the name of Brampton Island Pty Ltd,
the operating
company for this new venture for Roylen, and Arthur and Jess Busuttin stayed on as managers. Brampton
Island had long been one of the regular ports of call for Roylen's cruises and a
firm friendship had developed
between the McLean and Busuttin families. However, with a view to eventual
retirement, Arthur and Jess
bought a house in Mackay at the end of January 1964 but retained the sub-lease
on Brampton, which was
extended for a further five years. Thereafter they spent time both on the island
and in Mackay until in
September 1968 the sub-lease was surrendered and the Busuttins retired
permanently to Mackay.
One of the more significant events during this era was the introduction of air transport to the island by Trans Australia Airlines, later to become Australian Airlines which, in 1993, was absorbed into Qantas Airways. Consideration was given initially to implementing the plan for a strip on Carlisle Island and the lease from Carapark was transferred to Brampton Island Pty Ltd on 8 May 1964, but it was found that there was too much air turbulence at the site in south-east winds and the idea was abandoned and the lease surrendered on 31 December 1964. Instead it was decided in 1964 that a strip be built on the north-eastern shore of Brampton island to the east of the resort area. This was completed in March 1965 and opened officially on 21 March by the Minister for Civil Aviation, Senator Denham Henty. To accommodate this strip and its associated facilities, which included a substantial reclamation of the sea-front, a special lease 32323 was given to the Australian National Airlines Commission for twenty years from 1 January 1965 over 15 hectares of the foreshore. This was a sign of things to come for, in 1985, TAA were to take over the resort.
On 30 September 1968 special lease 22169 over the whole island was surrendered, and on 1 October 1968 its place taken by a perpetual country lease NCL2323 over 8.407 ha (expanded on 1 October 1987 to 10.4489 ha) covering the resort area on the north-eastcorner of the island, that area being excised from the national park. A special lease 32324 was issued for 20 years over the remainder of Brampton Island, 405 ha, which remained national park. Both leases were in the name of Brampton Island Pty Ltd. Lease 32323 over the airstrip was allowed to stand. The change to a perpetual lease/ special lease configuration was usual practice in those days, giving the lessee a more secure title over his substantial investment in the resort area.
Trans-Australia Airlines/ Australian Airlines/ Qantas 1985
To expand its tourist interests and to provide package tours TAA had, during
the 1970s and 1980s, embarked
upon a policy of buying into various island resorts along the Queensland coast
under the name of
Australian Resorts Pty Ltd. In April 1985 it purchased Brampton Island Pty Ltd,
which became a subsidiary
of Australian Resorts Pty Ltd, and took over NCL2323, SL32323 and SL32324.
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!