Tue. Feb 11th, 2025

Local History – Penguin’s Port

By Craig Dunham

Last year’s Penguin History Group photographic exhibition featuring Penguin’s maritime past created considerable attention, with one particular photo soliciting much comment. It featured the Penguin port, probably at its peak around 1898, a few years prior to the arrival of the railway. The sheer size and dimensions of the elongated timber structure (as seen in Image 1) surprised virtually everyone who attended the display.

The wharf consisted of two parallel rows of close timber piling 380 ft (approx. 115 m) long and 25 ft (approx. 7 m) apart, with the intervening space filled with rubble. A parapet wall on the western side gave protection from the breaking seas, and a sand screen was provided on the eastern side of Penguin Creek to reduce siltation.

It was constructed in the early 1870s, only a decade after the district’s settlement, to cater to resident boatbuilders and emerging trading opportunities. Messrs Cummings and Co of Don built the wharf with a government loan for a cost of 1,761 pounds plus 52 pounds interest. Work began on the western bank of the creek in April 1872 and was completed in May 1873. The chief proponents behind the development of the port included Thomas Clerke, John Ellis and Thomas Sullock, all of whom were involved in local mining ventures.  

“Although the commercial life of the port was only about 50 years, it played a vital role in the early development of the Penguin district. Roads were non-existent or little more than tracks so transport of produce or people by sea was the only practical alternative.” (“Penguin Harbour 1862 – 1936” by Howard Simco).

Despite being restricted by the tides, Records show that at least 75 vessels, including a regular number of sailing sloops, used the wharf over a period of approximately 25 years to export blackwood logs, palings, staves, potatoes and in later years, iron ore along the coast and across Bass Strait to Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and especially Melbourne. 

In the 1890s a tramway was constructed along the banks of Penguin Creek from the iron mine on Ironcliffe Road, near Ferndene, to the wharf area to transport the ore to the ships. This was the catalyst for a major redevelopment and extention of the port facilities (see Image 2). A typical news report of those times paints the picture – “We have had a little more life on the wharf. Two of our old largest trading crafts, viz., the Swordfish, Captain Reid, and Captain Taylor, with the Pearl, took away full cargoes; one of which is bound to Sydney, and the other to Brisbane.” (Mercury 21 April 1893, page 3).

The coming of the railway in 1901 heralded the beginning of the end. A steady decline in the number of vessels using the facilities, and a lack of maintenance, saw the gradual deterioration of the port over the following decades. 

Today A potential expansion of the current facilities proposed by the Penguin Boat Owners Association is an exciting initiative for the district. Moves are afloat to construct a major development which will serve as a safe, central launching site in all conditions for not just the local ramp users but also those from along the North West coast, which invokes the glory days of the port as featured in the historic photos.

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