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Brush Island
HISTORY
Brush Island (Kennedy Sound)
Brush Island and the adjacent Yellow Rock
in Kennedy
Sound were first charted accurately in 1868 by Commander H. M. Bingham, RN,
in HMS Virago. On his chart he noted beside them 'Rocky Islet' and 'Deserted Rock'
respectively and in his sailing
directions described Rocky Islet (Brush Islet) as having thick bushes on its summit and Deserted Rock (Yellow
Rock) as bare.
In 1879 during Staff Commander E. P. Bedwell's
extensive surveys of the Whitsundays in SS Llewellyn his
charts show he gave the names 'Brush Islet' and
'Yellow Rock' to the two features and charted also the half-tide rock to the
north-west of Yellow Rock which
he named 'Chrome Rock'. The names evidently were given because of the vegetation
on Brush Islet and
presumably the colour of Yellow Rock as seen at the time. As to Chrome Rock it
is too much of a
coincidence that chrome yellow was a common paint used by artists in the 19th
and 20th centuries and this,
with Brush, suggests more than a random connection between the three names. This
type of wry association
between names was common among naval surveyors of those days.
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!