Pearl shell yield graph, 1890-1941

Pearl shell yield graph, 1890-1941. The yield per boat stands in an inverse relationship to the number of diving boats engaged in the pearling industry at Thursday Island, strongly suggesting that the resource was under stress from overharvesting, and that the best means of maximising profit would have been to limit the harvest. Collection of Regina Ganter

Collection of Regina Ganter

Pearl swimming diving with goggles, 1917

Pearl swimming diving with goggles, 1917. The divers usually made such goggles from tortoiseshell. Collection of Regina Ganter

In 1917 some 550 Torres Strait Islanders worked on pearling boats, about half of them on community-owned ‘company boats’, typically employed as swimming divers. The community lugger scheme had been started by philanthropic effort in 1897 to free indigenous people from dependence on large and exploitative companies. For many years it was jointly conducted by the Papuan Industries Limited and the Queensland Government’s Department of Native Affairs, and became very popular among Torres Strait Islanders, who used the luggers which they were able to purchase through this scheme for transport, visiting, and various kinds of subsistence fishing. It was for this very reason that the Department considered it an economic failure and continued to tighten its grip over the scheme, until it could no longer be said that the communities were owning the luggers. This led to a ‘lugger strike’ against the paternalism of the Department in 1936, and to separate legislation for Torres Strait in 1939 (separate from mainland Aborigines) with some limited self-government.  

Collection of Regina Ganter

Pearl diving deckhands, c1950

Pearl diving deckhands, c1950. While the diver is submerged the deckhands oversee the air supply and the tender communicates with the diver through pulls on the lifeline. Don Boota, Joe Guivarra and Sammy Bowder on the Phyllis, c1950. Photograph by courtesy of Pedro Guivarra, Collection of Regina Ganter

Photograph by courtesy of Pedro Guivarra, Collection of Regina Ganter

Seaman Dan from Thursday Island, 1956

Henry Dan, also known as Seaman Dan from Thursday Island, ready for helmet-and-corselet diving on the Paxie, 1956. The corselet has an 11 lb weight at the front and 14 lb weight at the back to facilitate descent. Photograph by courtesy of Henry Dan, Collection of Regina Ganter

Photograph by courtesy of Henry Dan, Collection of Regina Ganter

Cleaning pearl shell, c1950

Georgie Wallis and Sammy Bowder cleaning pearl-shell on the deck of Keith Bradford’s Phyllis, c1950. Photograph by courtesy of Pedro Guivarra, Collection of Regina Ganter

Photograph by courtesy of Pedro Guivarra, Collection of Regina Ganter

Diver with encrusted pearl-shell, 1949

Bully Drummond showing an unusually large coral-encrusted pearl-shell, 1949. After the war the re-entry of Japanese divers was controversial and Torres Strait Islanders were able to demonstrate their skill and daring as deep-sea divers. Drummond is wearing a hair net and cut-up blanket under the diving dress. Photograph by courtesy of Ken Corn, Collection of Regina Ganter

Photograph by courtesy of Ken Corn, Collection of Regina Ganter

The pearling fleet leaves Kushimoto, 1953

The pearling fleet leaves Kushimoto, 1953. The first post-war pearling fleet was farewelled from Kushimoto in 1953. For the people of Kushimoto, sending this fleet to Australia seemed like the resumption of an old tradition. However, the entry of the Japanese fleet into what Australia now claimed as sovereign territory followed protracted negotiations, because Australia sought to assert the new international doctrine of sovereignty over its ‘continental shelf’. The Japanese government eventually acknowledged Australia’s territorial claim and agreed to catch quotas and size limitations.

Photograph by courtesy of Shishio Takai, Collection of Regina Ganter

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