Whale Heritage

Raine put a shipwright in charge of the Twofold Bay concern and continued to follow other interests. Although this particular venture was relatively short-lived, others soon followed this entrepreneur's lead, also establishing short-term shore-based stations around the bay. The first individuals to establish what could be regarded as a permanent shore-based whaling station at Twofold Bay were the Imlay Brothers.

Peter Imlay first visited Twofold Bay on the vessel Elizabeth in September 1832. There he saw whales frolicking in the bay and decided to return permanently.

This he did together with his two brothers, George and Alexander, and the three quickly became involved in pastoral and agricultural pursuits as well as whaling. They had quite a bit of success through their whaling ventures and at one time operated five fully manned open whaling boats, one of which was manned entirely by local Aboriginals.

The brothers also had stations on Gabo Island under the supervision of Captain Stevenson and also at Bittangabee, 12 miles south of Twofold Bay. Both these stations had some success whilst in operation, but were discontinued owing to the difficulty in controlling the crews from Twofold Bay.

The Aboriginals were regarded as valuable within the shore based whaling industry, owing to both keen eyesight and an ability to row at greater speed than non-Aboriginal crews. Thus this enabled them to reach and fasten to a whale quicker, and as the laws of whaling said that whoever became and remained fastened to the whale first owned the creature, these skills were of enormous benefit.

A peculiarity of the Imlay base was the path from the seashore to their sheds, paved with plates from the vertebra (back bone plates) of whales and this was remarked upon by a number of writers of the time as most unusual and attractive.

The Imlay Brothers continued their local ventures until about 1846 or 1847 when the Walker family apparently took over the main part of the Imlay's whaling operations. However, they do not appear to have continued long after the general disruption to the business following the financial crisis of the late 1840's.

Other whaling operators in the Twofold Bay area included Solomon Solomons, George Barclay and Otaheiti Bill. Solomon operated from the wharf area in the 1860's, possibly from the old Imlay / Walker station, whilst Barclay worked from the opposite side of the bay. Otaheiti Bill is connected with the Mowarry station.

Benjamin Boyd was at Twofold Bay from 1842 until 1849. Oswald Brierly was Boyd's superintendent of operations at Twofold Bay during this time.

Perhaps the best known and certainly the longest running of the Twofold Bay shore-based operators were the Davidson family.

Alexander Davidson, together with his wife Jane and seven young children, arrived in Australia from Scotland in 1842, and the following year moved from Miller's Point, Sydney, to Boyd Town, in answer to an advertisement calling for carpenters and joiners to work on the Seahorse Hotel.

After Boyd's departure, Alexander worked at inn keeping and gold mining before the family commenced what was to become one of the most fascinating chapters in Australian maritime history.

With boats purchased from George Barclay and Solomon Solomons along with other equipment from Boyd, Alexander and his sons commenced shore based whaling by rebuilding an old station and try works. Located at the mouth of the Kiah River Inlet, they operated over four generations, eventually becoming the oldest continually run shore-based whaling station in Australia.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Twofold Bay whaling story, however, was the role played by pods of killer whales. From at least 1843 until 1930, these amazing creatures returned annually to Leatherjacket Bay and played their unique part in the whale chases of the area. Indeed, Brierly noted the presence of the killers, as they became known, in his 1843 journals.

The "killers" were recognized by the whalers by the shape of their dorsal fin, and were often so named because of the shape of this body part.

The killers played an instrumental role in the long survival of the Davidson station. After herding migrating whales into the bay, these creatures then combined with the whalers to attack the prey, snapping at their body and throwing themselves over the whale's blowhole until they finally succumbed to what was almost always an inevitable result. They were even known to alert the whalers to their quarry's presence by flop tailing and splashing in the bay in front of the station. They were rewarded for their assistance with the lips and tongue after the whalers had killed the prey.

The Sydney Mail reported on this strange relationship in 1903, commenting:
"When a whale is passing north it is driven into Twofold Bay by whales known as the killers…when the killers succeed in driving the whale into the bay they leave off the attack and wait for the whale boats to come. Any attempt the whale makes to go out to sea the killers resent with all energy by snapping pieces out of it…all the time the killers are at work."

The intelligence of the killer whales was aptly demonstrated by "Tom" in 1926 following the drowning death of Jack Davidson and two of his children. Despite a search that continued for more than a week, Jack's body remained missing, but all the time "Tom" continued to swim around the area where their boat had capsized. It was there that the body was eventually found.

Shore based whaling at Twofold Bay had finally ended by 1930, just over a hundred years after it commenced. The final farewell to the unique relationship between whalers and killer came in September 1930 when the last of the pod "Old Tom" was found dead in the Bay. He was eventually towed ashore, his skeleton cleaned and mounted and placed on public display. This saw the birth of the Eden Killer Whale Museum and "Tom" remains one of the most popular exhibits on show even today.