The Green Cape Lighthouse is a heritage-listed lighthouse located at the tip of Green Cape, a headland forming the northern boundary of Disaster Bay, in southern New South Wales, Australia. It is the southernmost lighthouse in New South Wales and Australia's first lighthouse built in concrete. At it is also the tallest lighthouse in New South Wales. It marks Green Cape on the northerly shore-hugging sailing course.
The lighthouse was designed by James Barnet and built from 1881 to 1883 by Albert Wood Aspinall. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 1 February 2013.
History
Green Cape is traditionally part of the Yuin nation and is the land of the Thaua people. The land occupied by the Thaua group stretches from Merimbula in the north, to Green Cape in the south, and west to the Dividing Range and has traditionally been divided between two groups – the Katungal (coastal) and the Baianbal/Paienbara (forest) people.
The first contact between the European explorers and the Aboriginal people of the far southern region of NSW occurred in 1798 when Matthew Flinders visited Twofold Bay, south of Eden. On this exploratory journey, Flinders made reference to Green Point or, as he called it then, "the Cape". Permanent European settlement of the region did not, however, begin until the 1830s and 1840s when the pastoralist and whaling industries developed at Twofold Bay.
"Twofold Bay afforded the potential for raising stock on unoccupied Crown Land in the vicinity of a commodious harbour" and it quickly became a commercial and trading centre during the mid-nineteenth century. The Imlay brothers were the first settlers to permanently occupy the area from the late 1830s and established a pastoral and whaling company in the region.
The developing industries around Twofold Bay soon revealed the potential of the region and began attracting competition for the Imlay brothers. The British entrepreneur Ben Boyd arrived and went about establishing his own commercial empire during the 1840s – the ambitious but short-lived "Boyd Town". By the time Boyd had entered the whaling industry, the once thriving business was reaching the end of its boom period – the Imlay brothers had fallen victim to the economic depression in the late 1840s and, by 1849, Boyd too had abandoned his pastoral lands following the collapse of his empire.
Although whaling had not been a sustainable industry in the region, the Green Cape area was a notable point in the shipping trade along the NSW coastline. A prominent natural headland projecting out into Disaster Bay, Green Cape was a known obstacle for passing ships. Since shipping had accelerated following the gold rush of the 1850s, the entire NSW coastline, in fact, had been regarded as dangerous and increasingly treacherous. Despite the first lighthouse being constructed at South Head in 1818, it was some 40 years before the government systematically began installing lightstations along the coast.
Initially, consideration was only given to the north coast of NSW but, by 1872, the entire coastline was under review. Captain Francis Hixson, President of the Marine Board of NSW, famously proclaimed "that he wanted the NSW coast "illuminated like a street with lamps" " (NPWS "Lighthouse Keeping (Part A)", p15). Hixson was ultimately successful in achieving his vision – by the early twentieth century, the "highway of lights" was complete with 25 coastal lighthouses and 12 in Sydney Harbour. The late nineteenth century had proven to be the most productive period for lighthouse construction in NSW.
The need for a lighthouse was approved in 1873 at the conference of the Principal Officers of Marine Departments of the Australian Colonies on a motion from Hixson, following a series of wrecks on the southern shore. After rounding Cape Howe, northerly ships would hug the shore to avoid the East Australian Current. Green Cape was the first major projection they would encounter. Original tenders were for a stone lighthouse and rubble quarters. However, with the soft local sedimentary, no one tendered. In 1870 the specifications were changed to concrete and a budget of £17,000 AUD was set.
With an approved design by the colonial architect James Barnet in 1880, a tender of £12,936 was accepted from Albert Aspinall in December 1880 to build a mass concrete tower for the lighthouse, three associated residential structures and a number of service buildings. Aspinall also received an additional 357 pounds for essential works at Bittangabee Bay.