Thursday Island, Torres Strait
Encyclopedia
Thursday Island, also known as TI or Waiben, is the administrative and commercial centre of the Torres Strait Islands
. Lying 39 kilometres (24.2 mi) north of Cape York Peninsula
, Queensland
, Australia
in the Torres Strait
, Thursday Island has an area of about 3.5 square kilometres (1.4 sq mi). The highest point on Thursday Island, standing at 104 metres (341 ft) above sea level, is Milman Hill, a World War II
defence facility. At the 2006 census
, Thursday Island had a population of 2,546.
, who named the island Waiben, thought to mean 'no water' or 'place of no water', owing to the scarcity of fresh water on the island. In 1877, an administrative centre for the Torres Strait Islands was set up on the island by the Queensland Government and by 1883 over 200 pearling vessels were based on the island.
A lucrative pearling industry was founded on the island in 1885, attracting workers from around Asia
, including Japan
, Malaya
and India
, seeking their fortune. The Japanese community was in part indentured divers and boat hands who returned to Japan after a period of service and some longer term residents who were active in boat building and in the ownership of luggers for hire - which was illegal but bypassed by leases through third parties back to other Japanese, a practice called "dummying" Additionally, many south Pacific Islanders were worked in the industry, many of who's ancestors were originally imported against their will (see Blackbirding
). While the pearling industry has declined in importance, the mix of cultures is evident to this day. The pearling industry centred on the harvesting of pearl shell, which was used mainly to make shirt buttons.
The local pearl oyster is Golden Lip Oyster, Pinctada maxima. Trochus
shell was also gathered by boats that specialised in this. Most shell was exported as the raw material - to a London based market. Pearls themselves were rare and a bonus for the owner or crew. The boats used were very graceful two-masted lugger
s. In shallow water free diving was used while in deeper water diver's dress
, or an abbreviated form of it, with a surface air supply was used. In good times there were three divers to a lugger, a stern diver, one midships, and one diver off the bow. A manual air compressor was used. It looked like a yard-wide cube with two large wheels mounted one on each side. For part of the fleet that operated further from TI, larger vessels, typically schooner
s were used as mother ships to the luggers. Shell was usually opened on the mother vessels rather than on the luggers, in order to secure any pearls found. The waters of the Straits are murky and visibility was generally very poor. Even though dive depths were not great, except at the Darnley Deep (near Darnley or Erub Island), which was 40 fathoms (240 feet), attacks of the bends were common and deaths frequent.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries TI was a regular stop for vessels trading between the east coast of Australia and South East Asia. A shipping disaster to a vessel in this service occurred in 1890 when RMS Quetta
struck an uncharted reef in the Strait and sank in 5 minutes with the loss of over 130 lives. The Anglican Church on TI built shortly afterwards was named the Quetta All Souls Memorial Cathedral in memory of the event. Today the church is called All Souls and St Bartholomew Church.
Cyclone Mahina, which hit Bathurst Bay south east of TI in 1899, wrecked the TI pearling fleet sheltering there, with huge losses of vessels and lives.
The fear of Russian
invasion as a result of the deterioration of relations between the Russian Empire and the British Empire
led to a fort on Battery Point being built in 1892 to protect the island. The fort has not operated as such since 1927 but is today a heritage feature of the island.
Local pearling declined steadily up to the Second World War, partly through competition from a Japanese based fleet which did not use local resources or personnel. In the 1950s plastic buttons imitating pearl supplanted much of the demand for shell. Before the decline, pearl fishing was taken by the TI-based fleet to the Aru Islands
in what was then the Dutch East Indies
.
During World War II
, Thursday Island became the military headquarters for the Torres Strait and was a base for Australian and United States forces. January 1942 saw the evacuation of civilians from the island. Residents of Japanese origin or descent were interned. The residents did not return until after the end of the war and many ethnic Japanese were forceably repatriated. The island was spared from bombing in WWII, due, it was thought, to it being the burial place of many Japanese pearlshell divers, or possibly the Japanese thinking there were still Japanese resident. However, neighbouring Horn Island was extensively bombed. There was an airbase there, used by the Allies
to attack parts of New Guinea
. At the end of the war, the island tradition of a no-footwear policy was reinstated in respect for the ancient spirits believed to reside on the island. After the war, an airline service was set up by Ansett Airlines from Cairns to TI twice a week, using de Havilland Dragon Rapide
s and later DC3s. Passengers disembarked on Horn Island and caught a ferry-boat over to TI, as they still do. The island was also served by a ship, the Elsana, which made the journey once a month. For a short period after the war Okinawan divers were used on the luggers but this was not a great success.
In the 1950s, the CSIRO attempted to establish cultured pearl
farms, but many were devastated by disease in the 1970s. The trigger is considered by some to be the use of dispersant
s on the 1970 oil spill from the tanker Oceanic Grandeur. This industry still exists around the island today. In the 1970s, there was also an attempt to farm green turtles.
The Melanesian background of the Thursday Islanders became an issue in the 1970s, when Papua New Guinea
sought to include some of the Torres Strait Islands within its borders. The Torres Strait Islanders insisted that they were Australians, however, and after considerable diplomatic discussion and political disputation between the Queensland and the Federal Governments, all of the Torres Strait islands, including Thursday Island, remained part of Australia http://www.mabonativetitle.com/info/border.htm.
The island has the area hospital and courts, is the regional centre for higher education, a centre for some research organisations and is the administrative base for the local, state and federal governments.
Thursday Island is only in part self-sufficient for water, some being piped from the adjacent island. It has two wind turbines which generate some of its electricity requirement.
The economy of the island is dependent on its role as an administrative centre and is supported by pearling and fishing, as well as a fast-developing tourism industry, with perhaps the most famous tourists being novelist Somerset Maugham and Banjo Paterson
.
is the dominant language spoken on Thursday Island by the Islanders, followed by Kala Lagaw Ya, although English
is also spoken. The indigenous language is Kaiwalgau Ya (otherwise known as Kowrareg), a dialect of Kala Lagaw Ya.
. The Torres Strait Campus of the Tropical North Queensland TAFE
Institute located on the island next to the high school is the leader in education for the Torres Strait.
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands which lie in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea but Torres Strait Island known and Recognize as Nyumaria.The islands are mostly part of...
. Lying 39 kilometres (24.2 mi) north of Cape York Peninsula
Cape York Peninsula
Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...
, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in the Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
, Thursday Island has an area of about 3.5 square kilometres (1.4 sq mi). The highest point on Thursday Island, standing at 104 metres (341 ft) above sea level, is Milman Hill, a World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
defence facility. At the 2006 census
Census in Australia
The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...
, Thursday Island had a population of 2,546.
History
The island has been populated for thousands of years by the Melanesian Torres Strait IslandersTorres Strait Islanders
Torres Strait Islanders are the indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands, part of Queensland, Australia. They are culturally and genetically linked to Melanesian peoples and those of Papua New Guinea....
, who named the island Waiben, thought to mean 'no water' or 'place of no water', owing to the scarcity of fresh water on the island. In 1877, an administrative centre for the Torres Strait Islands was set up on the island by the Queensland Government and by 1883 over 200 pearling vessels were based on the island.
A lucrative pearling industry was founded on the island in 1885, attracting workers from around Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, including Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, seeking their fortune. The Japanese community was in part indentured divers and boat hands who returned to Japan after a period of service and some longer term residents who were active in boat building and in the ownership of luggers for hire - which was illegal but bypassed by leases through third parties back to other Japanese, a practice called "dummying" Additionally, many south Pacific Islanders were worked in the industry, many of who's ancestors were originally imported against their will (see Blackbirding
Blackbirding
Blackbirding is a term that refers to recruitment of people through trickery and kidnappings to work as labourers. From the 1860s blackbirding ships were engaged in seeking workers to mine the guano deposits on the Chincha Islands in Peru...
). While the pearling industry has declined in importance, the mix of cultures is evident to this day. The pearling industry centred on the harvesting of pearl shell, which was used mainly to make shirt buttons.
The local pearl oyster is Golden Lip Oyster, Pinctada maxima. Trochus
Trochus
Trochus is a genus of medium-sized to very large sea snails. They are marine gastropod molluscs in the family Trochidae, the top snails....
shell was also gathered by boats that specialised in this. Most shell was exported as the raw material - to a London based market. Pearls themselves were rare and a bonus for the owner or crew. The boats used were very graceful two-masted lugger
Lugger
A lugger is a class of boats, widely used as traditional fishing boats, particularly off the coasts of France, Scotland and England. It is a small sailing vessel with lugsails set on two or more masts and perhaps lug topsails.-Defining the rig:...
s. In shallow water free diving was used while in deeper water diver's dress
Standard diving dress
A standard diving dress consists of a metallic diving helmet, an airline or hose from a surface supplied diving air pump, a canvas diving suit, diving knife and boots...
, or an abbreviated form of it, with a surface air supply was used. In good times there were three divers to a lugger, a stern diver, one midships, and one diver off the bow. A manual air compressor was used. It looked like a yard-wide cube with two large wheels mounted one on each side. For part of the fleet that operated further from TI, larger vessels, typically schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
s were used as mother ships to the luggers. Shell was usually opened on the mother vessels rather than on the luggers, in order to secure any pearls found. The waters of the Straits are murky and visibility was generally very poor. Even though dive depths were not great, except at the Darnley Deep (near Darnley or Erub Island), which was 40 fathoms (240 feet), attacks of the bends were common and deaths frequent.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries TI was a regular stop for vessels trading between the east coast of Australia and South East Asia. A shipping disaster to a vessel in this service occurred in 1890 when RMS Quetta
RMS Quetta
The RMS Quetta was a merchant ship that wrecked on the Far North Queensland coast on 28 February 1890. Of the 292 people aboard, 134 perished.-Background:...
struck an uncharted reef in the Strait and sank in 5 minutes with the loss of over 130 lives. The Anglican Church on TI built shortly afterwards was named the Quetta All Souls Memorial Cathedral in memory of the event. Today the church is called All Souls and St Bartholomew Church.
Cyclone Mahina, which hit Bathurst Bay south east of TI in 1899, wrecked the TI pearling fleet sheltering there, with huge losses of vessels and lives.
The fear of Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
invasion as a result of the deterioration of relations between the Russian Empire and the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
led to a fort on Battery Point being built in 1892 to protect the island. The fort has not operated as such since 1927 but is today a heritage feature of the island.
Twentieth century
Aru Islands
The Aru Islands are a group of about ninety-five low-lying islands in the Maluku province of eastern Indonesia. They also form a regency of Indonesia.-Geography:...
in what was then the Dutch East Indies
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Thursday Island became the military headquarters for the Torres Strait and was a base for Australian and United States forces. January 1942 saw the evacuation of civilians from the island. Residents of Japanese origin or descent were interned. The residents did not return until after the end of the war and many ethnic Japanese were forceably repatriated. The island was spared from bombing in WWII, due, it was thought, to it being the burial place of many Japanese pearlshell divers, or possibly the Japanese thinking there were still Japanese resident. However, neighbouring Horn Island was extensively bombed. There was an airbase there, used by the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
to attack parts of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
. At the end of the war, the island tradition of a no-footwear policy was reinstated in respect for the ancient spirits believed to reside on the island. After the war, an airline service was set up by Ansett Airlines from Cairns to TI twice a week, using de Havilland Dragon Rapide
De Havilland Dragon Rapide
The de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide was a British short-haul passenger airliner of the 1930s.-Design and development:Designed by the de Havilland company in late 1933 as a faster and more comfortable successor to the DH.84 Dragon, it was in effect a twin-engined, scaled-down version of the...
s and later DC3s. Passengers disembarked on Horn Island and caught a ferry-boat over to TI, as they still do. The island was also served by a ship, the Elsana, which made the journey once a month. For a short period after the war Okinawan divers were used on the luggers but this was not a great success.
In the 1950s, the CSIRO attempted to establish cultured pearl
Cultured pearl
A cultured pearl is a pearl created by a pearl farmer under controlled conditions.-Development of a pearl:A pearl is formed when the mantle tissue is injured by a parasite, an attack of a fish or another event that damages the external fragile rim of the shell of a molluc shell bivalve or gastropod...
farms, but many were devastated by disease in the 1970s. The trigger is considered by some to be the use of dispersant
Dispersant
A dispersant or a dispersing agent or a plasticizer or a superplasticizer is either a non-surface active polymer or a surface-active substance added to a suspension, usually a colloid, to improve the separation of particles and to prevent settling or clumping...
s on the 1970 oil spill from the tanker Oceanic Grandeur. This industry still exists around the island today. In the 1970s, there was also an attempt to farm green turtles.
The Melanesian background of the Thursday Islanders became an issue in the 1970s, when Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
sought to include some of the Torres Strait Islands within its borders. The Torres Strait Islanders insisted that they were Australians, however, and after considerable diplomatic discussion and political disputation between the Queensland and the Federal Governments, all of the Torres Strait islands, including Thursday Island, remained part of Australia http://www.mabonativetitle.com/info/border.htm.
Economy
The Island is one of the two bases for the Torres Straits Pilots, a cooperative owned and run by qualified Master Mariners who pilot ships through the Straits and down to Cairns. This is a necessary service because navigation through the area is tricky due to the extensive reef systems.The island has the area hospital and courts, is the regional centre for higher education, a centre for some research organisations and is the administrative base for the local, state and federal governments.
Thursday Island is only in part self-sufficient for water, some being piped from the adjacent island. It has two wind turbines which generate some of its electricity requirement.
The economy of the island is dependent on its role as an administrative centre and is supported by pearling and fishing, as well as a fast-developing tourism industry, with perhaps the most famous tourists being novelist Somerset Maugham and Banjo Paterson
Banjo Paterson
Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, OBE was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood...
.
Climate
Language
Torres Strait CreoleTorres Strait Creole
Torres Strait Creole is an English-based creole language spoken on several Torres Strait Islands , Northern Cape York and South-Western Coastal Papua...
is the dominant language spoken on Thursday Island by the Islanders, followed by Kala Lagaw Ya, although English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is also spoken. The indigenous language is Kaiwalgau Ya (otherwise known as Kowrareg), a dialect of Kala Lagaw Ya.
Township
The Thursday Island township is noteworthy for being the most northerly town in Australia. It is the administrative centre of the Shire of TorresShire of Torres
The Shire of Torres is a Local Government Area located in Far North Queensland, Australia, covering large sections of the Torres Strait Islands and the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula north of 11°S latitude...
. The Torres Strait Campus of the Tropical North Queensland TAFE
Technical and Further Education
In Australia, training and further education or TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational tertiary education courses, mostly qualifying courses under the National Training System/Australian Qualifications Framework/Australian Quality Training Framework...
Institute located on the island next to the high school is the leader in education for the Torres Strait.