Whaling

Whaling The first recorded use of Jervis Bay as a whaling station was in the early 1800's. Captain William Kinghorn operated a factory ship adjacent to Alexander Kinghorn's grant of Mt Jervis on the North Eastern side of the Bay, in 1841 there were 14 men living in a timber house at nearby Cabbage Tree Pt.

The 1860's were the next recorded mention of whaling in the Bay on the Southern side, in the area of Bristol Rocks and Green Patch. Some of the whaling families living in a private settlement in the New Bristol area (Bristol Point) .

Passing whaling ships regularly called into the bay for wood , water and to clean their ships. In 1912 four Norwegian whaling ships made the Bay their home and caught 158 whales. The following year they caught 379 whales, the Norwegians received permission to set up a factory ship on the North side in the same spot as William Kinghorn. The factory ship was "Lock Tay" and the chasers were the "Campbell", "Lionel" and "Sorrell. After stormy seas whale bones may be uncovered at both Hole in the Wall and Long Beach beaches, despite this history whales still visit the bay during their north and south migration. The whaling industry never really established itself in the Bay and finally finished when the Federal Government began its navy operations at H.M.A.S. Creswell. With the usual summer north easterly winds blowing the smell of rotting and cooked whale carcasses in Creswell's direction, the new fledgling industry lost government approval.

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