Coffin Bay (), originally Coffin's Bay, is a town at the southern extremity of the

Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north. Earlier called Eyre's Peninsula, it was named after e ...

, a wheat growing area of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. The town is situated on the western side of the southern tip of Eyre Peninsula about 46 km from

Port Lincoln Port Lincoln is a city on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of South Australia. Known as Galinyala by the traditional owners, the Barngarla people, it is situated on the shore of Boston Bay, ...

. The population swells during holiday seasons to more than 4,000 people due to its proximity to the Coffin Bay National Park. It is a popular location for boating, sailing, swimming, water-skiing, skindiving and wind-surfing, as well as fishing (rock, surf, angling and boat). The town is named after the bay formed by the Coffin Bay Peninsula and the mainland, and lies on the southeastern shore of the bay. Oyster farming is conducted in the quiet waters of Coffin Bay. Coffin Bay is in the District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

, the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

electoral district of Flinders Flinders is a single-member electoral district for the South Australian House of Assembly. It is named after explorer Matthew Flinders, who was responsible for charting most of the state's coastline. It is a 58,901 km² coastal rural elector ...

and the federal

Division of Grey The Division of Grey is an Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives, Australian electoral division in South Australia. The division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was redistributed on 2 ...

History

The indigenous inhabitants of the Coffin Bay area are the Nauo Aboriginal people, who have lived there for tens of thousands of years. Well before the official colonisation of South Australia in 1836, the way of life of the Nauo people had been disrupted by raids carried out by seal hunters, often to kidnap Nauo women. British naval explorer

Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then ...

named the bay on 16 February 1802 in honour of his friend Sir Isaac Coffin, who was Resident Naval Commissioner at

Sheerness Sheerness () is a port town and civil parish beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 13,249, it is the second largest town on the island after the nearby ...

, where HMS ''Investigator'' was fitted out. The same year, French explorer

Nicolas Baudin Nicolas Thomas Baudin (; 17 February 175416 September 1803) was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer, most notable for his explorations in Australia and the southern Pacific. He carried a few corms of Gros Michel banana ...

provided the alternative French name of ''Baie Delambre''. The bay remained uncharted until it was explored in March 1839 by Captain Frederick R. Lees (), in command of the brig ''Nereus''. Lees' thorough charts became a standard reference for mariners until the electronic era. In November 1952, and again in October 1955, the state government surveyed a "shack area" on

crown land Crown land, also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. Today, in Commonwealth realm ...

from which allotments were available for leasing. In 1957, the private town of Coffin Bay was laid out by Stanley Germain Morgan on section 132 of the cadastral unit of the Hundred of Lake Wangary. In 1966,

BHP BHP Group Limited, founded as the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, is an Australian multinational mining and metals corporation. BHP was established in August 1885 and is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. As of 2024, BHP was the world� ...

opened the Coffin Bay Tramway, between

and a site south-east of the town, to convey lime sands. The tramway was closed in 1989, and the track was removed in 2001. On 16 October 2003, boundaries created for the locality included the full extent of the Coffin Bay Peninsula and the land to the east, bounded in the north in part by the channel connecting to Kellidie Bay and by the Coffin Bay Road, and in the east by the eastern boundary of the Hundred of Lake Wangary. The locality, which was given the "long established name", includes the private town, the Coffin Bay Shack Site and the Coffin Bay National Park. The historic former Coffin Bay Whaling Site at Point Sir Isaac lies within the locality and is listed on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...

References

External links

Coffin Bay – SMH TravelCoffinBay.net
{{authority control Coastal towns in South Australia Eyre Peninsula Bays of South Australia

History

See also

References

External links