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Henning Island
HISTORY
Henning Island
Henning Island was named in 1866 by Commander G. S. Nares, RN, in HMS
Salamander after William Henry Henning, assistant paymaster on Salamander.
Henning had the dubious honour of creating medical history while in the
Whitsundays. On 4 April 1866 while Salamander was anchored off Olden
Island, Henning and a shipmate went ashore on a shooting expedition
while Nares and others were carrying out survey work. 'In fun' the shipmate
fired a shot-gun at Henning from about 60Ð 70 yards away, not thinking
the shot would reach Henning but Henning was in fact peppered with the shot, one
pellet entering his left eye through the eyelid and lodging in the eyeball.
While this caused him discomfort for a while and he lost the sight of the eye,
the presence of the pellet in the eyeball did not inconvenience him and
presumably he carried it there for the remainder of his life.
Settlement
Daniel Sydney Boughton
Old-timers say Daniel Boughton lived on Henning Island at one stage and it
appears he may have lived also on Hamilton Island in the early 1900s. He
bought an occupation licence over Cid Island in August 1910 at which time
his address was 'Hamilton Island'. However there is no record of a formal tenure
by Boughton to either Henning or Hamilton Islands and
it therefore seems he may have either squatted there or acted as caretaker for
some other owner. He died in 1911.
I. E. Capstickdale 1922
On 10 August 1922 Commander (Retired) I. E.
Capstickdale, RANVR, wrote to the Minister of Lands (Queensland State Archives
LAN/ S152) saying he
wished to buy a lease on Henning Island, he having first mentioned the idea to
the Crown ranger in Bowen in 1917 during a visit while he commanded HMAS Sleuth in World War 1. His
address was Menzies Hotel,
Melbourne but in his reply the Under Secretary for Lands replied to 10 Orlando
Avenue, Cremorne,
Sydney. This reply indicated there was no objection but it would be thrown open
to competitive tenders
in the usual way and occupation licence 40 was allocated (QSA LAN/ S152). In a
further letter of
4 October 1922 to the department Capstickdale said another Australian, C. E.
Davies from Tientsin, North
China was also interested and the two of them intended to retire there and build
a house.
The island was gazetted open for occupation on 18 October 1922 but it is evident that because of their distance from the scene, Capstickdale and Davies missed out and instead the island went to F. W. Ball. The Crown Land ranger at Bowen at the time reported on the island saying it was sparsely timbered and thickly grassed for the most part and a considerable number of goats had been placed on it by a man named C. Anderson which undoubtedly was Charlie Anderson, a well-known identity from Bowen at the time who owned the boat Faith.
Frank Wylde Ball 1923- 1925
Ball was given an occupation licence 462
to the island
on 19 February 1923 at which time he also owned an occupation licence over Hamilton Island. It is said that
while W. R.
M. Nicklin was the lease-holder of
Lindeman Island in 1922/ 3 he and Ball were associated in an endeavour to
extract a cancer cure from the sap
of papaw trees. This may be why Nicklin took over the licence to Henning Island
from Ball after the island
was re-opened to occupation on 13 March 1925 under OL483.
William Reuben McCready Nicklin 1925- 1927
Nicklin, who had owned the
occupation licence over
Lindeman Island during 1922- 23, was given occupation licence 483 over Henning
Island on 6 May
1925. The licence however was forfeited for non-payment of rent and the island
re-opened to
occupation on 18 March 1927 to be taken up by Thomas Bentley in 1929.
Thomas Bentley 1929- 1932
On 2 September 1929 Thomas Bentley, a
carpenter,
took up OL521. He was a friend of Boyd Lee of Grassy Island and though
his address was shown as c/-Matt
Taylor, boatbuilder, Townsville he did not work for that company but was present
while they did
alterations to Lee's boat Reliance on which he was living. It is not
known whether he ever occupied Henning
Island. (QSA LAN/ S14 Folio 88)
In an article in the Bowen Independent of 24 September 1932 mention is made of a car sitting on Henning Island, the mystery being explained when it was revealed that at one stage in about 1929 there was a plan to put a saw-mill on the island, powered by the car's engine but this did not proceed. What eventually happened to the car is not known but a search of the island in 1991 failed to find any remnants of it. Whether this was connected with Bentley is not known.
Dr John Macdonald 1932- 1937
The island was re-opened to occupation
on 4 March
1932 and Dr Macdonald took up occupation licence 544 on 23 March 1932 and grew
bananas there, the
plantation being to the south of the beach on the western side of the island
and, in one report, stretching
over the hill to the southern side facing Dent Island. At the same time
he also owned occupation licences
over Hamilton and Haslewood Islands. However, in 1937, under the State
Government's new policy of
converting islands to national parks, Macdonald removed buildings he had
on the island and
discontinued the plantation. At the time his manager on the island was Geoff
Hamilton who returned with
his wife to the mainland (Proserpine Guardian 20 February 1937). The
island was finally declared a
national park in 1939.
In March 1991 remains of the occupation of the island were still visible behind the beach on the western side by way of four foundation stumps, some concrete work and a circle of stones concreted together, the latter obviously the base to a water-tank.
In 1947 when Ansett Transport Industries first became interested in establishing resorts on the islands, their letter of 11 September 1947 to the Secretary for Health and Home Affairs expressed interest in a lease of the island but this was refused by the State Government. Thereafter there were a series of applications for a lease of the island for resort purposes, including one in 1961 from Bernard Elsey who was to buy the lease to Daydream Island in 1967. All applications were refused.
There is a local story that in years gone past a hermit lived on Henning Island and showed hostility towards anyone landing there. As shown above there were indeed a number of residents there over the years but which one was the cranky one is only a matter of speculation.
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!