Eddystone Point lies on the north-east coast of

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

, Australia at 40.994 S/148.349 E.

History

The first European to sight Eddystone Point was the Dutch navigator,

Abel Tasman Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch sea explorer, seafarer and exploration, explorer, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first European to reach New ...

. In December 1642, Tasman sailed along the entire east coast of

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania during the European exploration of Australia, European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Aboriginal-inhabited island wa ...

(Tasmania). He recorded that he tried to follow the coast around this headland, but he could not penetrate the wind wall. The howling westerly gale indicated that here was a strait, not a bay, so Tasman resumed his easterly course to continue his continent-hunting. The next European visitor was

Tobias Furneaux Captain Tobias Furneaux (21 August 173518 September 1781) was a British navigator and Royal Navy officer, who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of exploration. He was one of the first men to circumnavigate the world in both direction ...

in HMS Adventure during

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

's second Pacific voyage, which took place during the period of intense Anglo-French rivalry that filled the twelve years between the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

and the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. In March 1773, Furneaux retraced Tasman's course up the east coast of the island to discover whether or not it was joined to New Holland. At 2 a.m. on 19 March, his ship was suddenly tossed 40 miles out to sea and lost its sails. Furneaux named the headland Eddystone Point, after the notorious

Eddystone Rocks The Eddystone or Eddystone Rocks are a seaswept and eroded group of rocks ranging southwest of Rame Head in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Although the nearest point on the mainland to the Eddystone is in Cornwall, the rocks fall within the ...

in the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

. Seal hunting took place here from at least 1827. Six applications were made to the colonial government to lease land for whaling stations at Eddystone Point in 1841. It is uncertain how many of these leases were taken up.

Eddystone Point Lighthouse

In 1884, the adjacent colonies of Tasmania and Victoria were discussing the erection of a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

at Eddystone Point, which was eventually built in 1889. The lighthouse and keepers' cottages are made of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

, quarried from nearby. Head of works and head mason was James Galloway from

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

, Scotland, who migrated to Tasmania to oversee the building program. His brother, Alexander Galloway, also migrated from Glasgow to work on the building of the lighthouse and cottages. In the early 1920s, heavy storms damaged the buildings, jetties and equipment, and flooded the tower. In 1935,

wireless communication Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided med ...

was installed. In 1960, the First Order

Chance Brothers Chance Brothers and Company was an English glassworks originally based in Spon Lane, Smethwick, West Midlands (county), West Midlands (formerly in Staffordshire), in England. It was a leading glass manufacturer and a pioneer of British glassma ...

lens that had been removed from the Cape du Couedic Lighthouse on

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island (, ) is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island, Northern Territory, Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest of Adelaide. Its closest point to the mainland is Snapper Poi ...

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 ...

was shipped to

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

for installation at Eddystone Point Lighthouse. Text may have been copied from this source, which is available under
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
licence. (Se
copyright notice

References

External links

* *John Smeato
''A narrative of the building and a description of the construction of the Edystone Lighthouse''
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201043849/http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/search/searchterm/smeaton!edystone/field/creato!title/mode/all!all/conn/and!and/order/nosort , date=1 December 2017 (1791 and 1793 editions) –

Linda Hall Library The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, on the grounds of a urban arboretum. It claims to be the "largest independently funded public library of sc ...

North East Tasmania Lighthouses in Tasmania Seal hunting Whaling stations in Australia