Lighthouses are built to save lives. Unfortunately, during the construction of the Barrenjoey Lighthouse two of the workers died and, just a few years after its opening, so too did one of the keepers.
On 16 February 1881, 24-year-old (Frederick) William Stark, a blacksmith working for Mr. Banks the lighthouse construction contractor, died in an accident.
Then just two months later, on 11 April, a Mrs Mary Ann Phillips, her son John, a fisherman named Joseph Modina, and George Cobb, a foreman also working for Mr. Banks, were returning home to Barrenjoey in a small boat when it capsized. Mrs Phillips and George Cobb drowned. The consumption of liquor may have been involved in this second accident.
Handily, Mr. Banks, the contracting stonemason for the construction of the lighthouse, also happened to be an undertaker. Presumably headstones and grave surrounds were potentially a significant source of work for a stonemason. He arranged to have both of his workmen buried at St. John the Baptist Church in Pittwater (Mona Vale).
The burials did not end the tragedies, at least according to some accounts. They claim that on 25 June 1885, just a few years after the lighthouse began operation, 71-year-old George Mulhall, one of its keepers, was struck and killed by lightning. He was buried in a grave nearby.
However, it appears that in these accounts two deaths are being confused. George almost certainly died of natural causes. But a few years later lightning struck a cottage near the lighthouse and in the ensuing fire one of George’s sons, William, died.
George Mulhall’s widow Mary survived him by only a year, and she is buried beside her husband on Barrenjoey Headland.
