Whales that enter Sydney Harbour are a rarity and cherished. In years past, their fate was more uncertain.
Recently National Parks and Wildlife Service put out an advisory that a whale and its calf were travelling slowly down the coast, taking shelter in harbours, and that they might enter Sydney Harbour. In the event they did not.
If they had, one could only hope that their fate and impact would have been different than that of the first recorded whale to enter the Harbour following European arrival. This was a spermaceti (sperm) whale in late July 1790.
David Collins, the judge advocate, reported that ‘some boats from the transports went after it with harpoons but, from the ignorance of the people in the use of them, the fish escaped unhurt’. However, he went on to say that ‘a few days afterwards, word was received that a punt belonging to Lieutenant Poulden had been pursued by a whale and overset, by which accident young Mr Ferguson (a midshipman of the Sirius) and two soldiers were unfortunately drowned’.
The men had been manning the South Head lookout and had decided to do a little fishing on their way back to Sydney Cove at their change of shift.
However, the whale was apparently unwell and in early September it beached in Manly Cove where it was killed by the local Aborigines. They then organised a large feast event, inviting tribes from along the entire Peninsula to Broken Bay. Or in the words of Collins, the whale ‘was the cause of numbers of them being at this time assembled to partake of the repasts which it afforded them’.
It was this gathering that Captain Philip walked into on 7 September, 1790 and was speared. Fortunately he was not killed.
If the whale pair had entered Sydney Harbour last month, hopefully their impact would have been less dramatic than in 1790.
Richard Michell is the vice-president of the Manly, Warringah and Pittwater Historical Society and the secretary of Friends of Dee Why Lagoon. Visit mwphs.org.au and fodyl.au respectively.