By
Graham Davis
Australia’s
first public service facility was set up soon after Captain Arthur
Phillip arrived in Australia in 1788.
Finding that Port Jackson and not Botany Bay was the best place
to set up a colony, but realising the Second Fleet was going to
Botany Bay and needed to be told of the change of venue, Phillip
sent a team to South Head to build a bonfire and light it when
the newcomers appeared off the coast. And so the South Head Signal
Station was set up.
The rostering of people to the tower ended about ten years ago
with closed circuit television now scanning the ocean and reporting
to controllers in the harbour control tower at The Rocks.
The old signal station and its surrounds will come to life again
on Sunday September 21 from 2.30pm.
A very special commemoration service will be conducted by the
Woollahra History and Heritage Society. It will mark the 200th
anniversary of the departure of the 26 ton colonial schooner Cumberland
under the command of Matthew Flinders.
She was the first government sea-going ship to be fully built
in Sydney and was launched in 1801.
Accompanying her was the other colonial schooner Francis and the
merchantman Rolla.
The ships were going to Wreck Reef off the Barrier Reef to rescue
the ship’s companies of HMS Porpoise and the merchantman
Cato.
Afterwards Flinders intended taking Cumberland to England. He
sailed to Mauritius and was imprisoned for six years.
Joining the society members and the public on September 21, will
be well-known vexillologist (a specialist in flags) John Vaughan
who will hoist a flag display on the station’s staff.
