thursdayisland

Awesome old photo!

As a national group, people of Japanese background or descent have played a major role in the history and development of the pearling industry, especially in the Torres Strait. By way of illustration, in the period up to the beginning of the Second World War, the Japanese made up a high proportion of pearl divers, were prominent in the Thursday Island business community as well as pioneering a range of boat-related industries. As well, many Japanese were prominent in other areas of the Torres Strait. In the early 1880s, Captain A. Miller was amongst the first to use Japanese divers in his pearling and other marine operations, and within a decade, those of Japanese descent were to become the largest national group working in the pearling industry. To a significant extent, this was because the Japanese were highly regarded by the general and business communities as reliable and very experienced workers. By the mid 1920s, almost one hundred percent of all divers working in pearling were Japanese with the Japanese section of Thursday Island known locally as Yokohama. Also, in the period up until to the beginning of the Second World War, the Japanese largely controlled the Thursday Island boat building industry. This influence was to end with the outbreak of war, with many Japanese people being interned and later sent home. The contribution of the Japanese in the pearling industry cannot be overstated, however as a group, they paid a high personal price for their involvement. Pearl diving was inherently dangerous and more than 700 Japanese people died in the Torres Strait between 1878 and 1941 with more than half of these being younger than 21 years old. In acknowledgment of the important contribution made by those of Japanese descent to the pearling industry as a whole, a commemorative memorial was erected on Thursday Island in 1979. Source: www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/queensland-places-torres-strait-j...

Pearling has been carried out in Indonesian waters from very early times, with local divers collecting the shell. Some of the Indonesian divers went a con-siderable distance in search of shell. As Europeans extended their presence in the north of Australia, they saw Indonesians collecting pearls in Australian waters. The Aru Islands have been, and still are, one of the principal pearl-shell grounds in Indonesia. Al-though quite off the track of all European trade, these islands had by the early 19th century become the eastern terminus for the annual fleet of Bugis prahus from Ma-kassar (The Buginese are traders and seaborne colonists from south Sulawesi; see map, Fig. 2.) They were a source not only of pearls and mother-of-pearl, hut of such exotics as birds of paradise, tortoiseshell, trepang or sea slug, and edible birds’ nests. The British naturalist Alfred Wallace did the 1000-mile journey to the remote islands in a Bugis prahu in the 1850s (Fig. 4) and considered it quite an achieve-ment. “Even by the Makassar people themselves the voyage to the Aru Islands is looked upon as a rather wild and romantic expedi-tion, full of novel sights and strange adventures. He who has made it is looked up to as an authority, and it remains with many the unachieved ambition of their lives. I myself had hoped rather than expected ever to reach this “Ultima Thule” of the East…” (Wallace 1869:309). Source: www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/sampans-belangs-and-junkos/

Such a sweet child in appearance, probably a sweet personality also.

Reports from Trove papers report that Emily was one of two women who survived. Read the story at. trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122085519

May was lost during the disaster, her sister, Emily born 1874 survived the RMS Quetta disaster eventually married Lt.Col. Leslie F S Hore.M.C. in 1896 at Hobart, passing away in 1951 at the ripe old age of 77 years at Moss Vale NSW .

Wayne Hill Thanks so much for adding these details to this photograph.