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Pearling in Western Australia
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Pearling in Western Australia
Pearling in Western Australia includes the harvesting and farming of both pearls and pearl shells (for mother of pearl) along the north-western coast of Western Australia.
The practice of collecting pearl shells existed well before British settlement. After settlement, Aboriginal people were used as slave labour in the emerging commercial industry, a practice known as blackbirding. After 1886, with the rise of 'hard hat' diving, Asian divers from coastal and island regions became most common, leading to the pearling industry being the sole exception to the White Australia Policy of 1901.
Pearling centred first around Nickol Bay and Exmouth Gulf and then around Broome, to become the largest in the world by 1910.[clarification needed] The farming of cultured pearls remains an important part of the Kimberley economy, worth A$67 million in 2014 and is the second largest fisheries industry in Western Australia after rock lobster.
Northern coastal dwelling Aboriginal people are known to have collected and traded pearl shell with fisherman from Sulawesi for at least 500 years. Pearl shells were also traded within Australia, with shell from the Kimberley region being found over 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) from their place of manufacture.
The explorer Francis Thomas Gregory reported Pinctada maxima on the north-west coast in his widely read journals. In 1862, in the wake of Gregory's account, John Wesley Bateman sent the vessel, Flying Foam, to harvest shells. The venture proved uneconomic and it was soon abandoned.
Local pastoralists and those stranded after their planned settlements had broken down were the first to make pearling a successful enterprise. Having learnt from the local Aboriginal peoples, they harvested shells by "beach-combing or wading in the shallows at low tide," some doing so after seeing the decorative pearl shells (Riji) made by local Aboriginal people. By November 1866, two men, Tays and Hicks, assisted by some number of Aboriginal people, had collected nine tons of shell.
The success of the early pearlers spread, resulting in several vessels from Fremantle sailing to the pearling fields, with ten boats joining in the first few months of 1868. That year, it was described that the pearlers would "prowl along the coast and gather as many as can be seen at low water", while the vessels were used to transport the collected shell in sacks and bags. At the time, two or three men in a single boat could gather £80–100 over the course of one tide, representing a government servants' annual salary.
In 1868, a transition from wading to diving took place, this was caused by the over-harvesting of the shallows. Pearlers adapted by having dinghies carry up to eight divers out and, when the divers went overboard, the leader then drifted with the divers until they found pearl beds. The leader would try to hold the dinghy in position, against the tide, or would make repeated runs over the bed.
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Pearling in Western Australia
Pearling in Western Australia includes the harvesting and farming of both pearls and pearl shells (for mother of pearl) along the north-western coast of Western Australia.
The practice of collecting pearl shells existed well before British settlement. After settlement, Aboriginal people were used as slave labour in the emerging commercial industry, a practice known as blackbirding. After 1886, with the rise of 'hard hat' diving, Asian divers from coastal and island regions became most common, leading to the pearling industry being the sole exception to the White Australia Policy of 1901.
Pearling centred first around Nickol Bay and Exmouth Gulf and then around Broome, to become the largest in the world by 1910.[clarification needed] The farming of cultured pearls remains an important part of the Kimberley economy, worth A$67 million in 2014 and is the second largest fisheries industry in Western Australia after rock lobster.
Northern coastal dwelling Aboriginal people are known to have collected and traded pearl shell with fisherman from Sulawesi for at least 500 years. Pearl shells were also traded within Australia, with shell from the Kimberley region being found over 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) from their place of manufacture.
The explorer Francis Thomas Gregory reported Pinctada maxima on the north-west coast in his widely read journals. In 1862, in the wake of Gregory's account, John Wesley Bateman sent the vessel, Flying Foam, to harvest shells. The venture proved uneconomic and it was soon abandoned.
Local pastoralists and those stranded after their planned settlements had broken down were the first to make pearling a successful enterprise. Having learnt from the local Aboriginal peoples, they harvested shells by "beach-combing or wading in the shallows at low tide," some doing so after seeing the decorative pearl shells (Riji) made by local Aboriginal people. By November 1866, two men, Tays and Hicks, assisted by some number of Aboriginal people, had collected nine tons of shell.
The success of the early pearlers spread, resulting in several vessels from Fremantle sailing to the pearling fields, with ten boats joining in the first few months of 1868. That year, it was described that the pearlers would "prowl along the coast and gather as many as can be seen at low water", while the vessels were used to transport the collected shell in sacks and bags. At the time, two or three men in a single boat could gather £80–100 over the course of one tide, representing a government servants' annual salary.
In 1868, a transition from wading to diving took place, this was caused by the over-harvesting of the shallows. Pearlers adapted by having dinghies carry up to eight divers out and, when the divers went overboard, the leader then drifted with the divers until they found pearl beds. The leader would try to hold the dinghy in position, against the tide, or would make repeated runs over the bed.
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