pearlshelling

Queensland Places - Torres Strait - History of Pearling By JOL Admin | 25 June 2015 The first commercial pearling station in the Torres Strait area was established at Warrior Island in 1868, by Captain Banner, who was said to have identified large quantities of pearl shell whilst looking for beach-de-mer. As pearl shell was a more valuable commodity than beche-de-mer, news of the lucrative alternative soon spread. By 1876, more than a hundred boats were working in the industry, and more than a thousand men were employed. The pearl industry has often faced difficulties outside of its control, such as unpredictable price or demand fluctuations or shortages of suitable, skilled labor. For instance, in the ten-year period between 1881 and 1891 prices fell significantly, forcing many skilled operators to leave the industry. Japanese divers and other workers took their place and were to become a mainstay of the industry right through until the beginning of the Second World War. A further dislocation to the industry occurred in 1885 when a large part of the Torres Strait fleet moved to Western Australia to work the rich sources of pearl shell in the vicinity of Broome. A major calamity also struck the industry in 1899 when many luggers and workers were lost when two devastating cyclones hit Princess Charlotte Bay. The industry did recover to some extent in the late 1920s when there was a general boom in demand for a wide range of marine products, including pearls and pearl shells, but this was to be short-lived, with the industry declining again in the post Depression period of the 1930s. The beginning of the Second World War and the war with Japan had a devastating effect on the viability of the industry with this being exacerbated by the post-Second World War development and use of plastics, further dampening the demand for pearl shells. In the 1960s the industry revived due to the successful development of cultured pearls by the Japanese and the establishment of a number of cultured pearl farms at various locations throughout the Torres Strait. Source: www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/queensland-places-torres-strait-h...

The Thursday Island group comprising Thursday Island (TI), Horn Island, Prince of Wales, and Hammond Islands is uniquely diverse and multicultural compared to the other Island Clusters because of the colonial and historic influences of the pearling industry and the different cultures and people who have settled on these islands. The Thursday Islands Cluster has distinct cultural characteristics which define them as a region and people. The islands were an important strategic airbase in World War 2 with Horn Island being home to over 5000 troops. Today, with a population of 539, it is the air hub for the outer islands and the Cape. Prince of Wales Island is the largest of the group while TI (only 3km²) is the administrative capital, 30 km off the tip of mainland Australia. Although it lacks its own fresh water supply, the island was selected for its deep harbor, sheltered port, and proximity to major shipping channels. One of 17 inhabited islands in the straits, TI was once a major pearling center, resulting in today's cultural mix of Southeast Asians, Europeans, and Islanders. Hammond Island became the pearling station headquarters for a short time until its relocation to Thursday Island and early in the 20th-century gold was also mined. A cattle industry was set up later to supply the population of Thursday Island. In 1929 the need was seen to establish a Catholic Mission on Hammond Island for the children of the Filipinos and Malays whose forefathers were brought to the Torres Straits as indentured labor. Source: www.nla.gov.au/research-guides/torres-strait-islands-coll...

Between the mid-1880s and World War One, Australian pearling was shaped by the floating station system, a way of working in which schooners of 100 tons or more served as mother ships for fleets of luggers from which full-dress helmet divers worked in deep water. This highly capitalised system offered producers significant advantages, not the least of which was mobility. It connected Australia’s two widely separated original arcs of pearling activity, the Torres Strait and the North West, and exerted a transforming influence on the other mother-of-pearl producing regions of the Indian Ocean. The system proved so efficient it was blamed for exhausting shelling grounds wherever it went and governments moved to outlaw it, although this response was motivated as much by political ideology as by concerns about resource depletion. Source: museum.wa.gov.au/museums/maritime/pearling-schooner-age-t...

How the legacy of Japanese pearl divers is being preserved in the Torres Strait The descendants of Japanese pearl divers in the Torres Strait are coming together for Obon, Japan's day of the dead, to remember the contribution of their forebears to an industry that claimed hundreds of lives. Seventy-five years ago, hundreds of Japanese pearl divers were deported from Australia at the end of World War II after being interned as enemy aliens. It largely ended a then-lucrative industry in Queensland’s Torres Strait and one that claimed the lives of hundreds of seasonal workers. Advertisement Tomitaro “Tommy” Fujii is one of the most famous pearl divers of the Torres Strait. He came to Australia in 1925, survived the industry, and was one of those allowed to stay on after the war. His children are now preserving the legacy of their father and the many other divers like him. This week, the family - and other descendants - will mark Obon, a Buddhist ceremony honoring the dead, as well as the economic and social contribution of what was once Australia’s largest Japanese community. Tommy's grave, which has a headstone in the Torres Strait's regional capital Thursday Island, stands in stark contrast to the hundreds of other Japanese divers who died on the job. Source: www.sbs.com.au/news/how-the-legacy-of-japanese-pearl-dive...