As the Sunshine Coast this week hosts The Aussies, which attracts 6000 surf lifesavers from throughout the nation, the timing is perfect to take a look back at the origins of the now iconic movement.
Surf Life Saving in Queensland began in 1909 at Greenmount (Coolangatta-Tweed) on the Gold Coast in 1909. Its inspiration came directly from Bondi Surf Bathers Life Saving Club, established in Sydney in 1907.
The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) – established in London in the latter part of the 1800s – became active around the swimming pools of Brisbane after 1910.
North of the Brisbane River, however, it was a different story. But by 1915 the RLSS aimed to patrol the surf beaches of the Sunshine Coast, and further north.
The RLSS first attempted to establish a Life Saving ‘Brigade’ at Laguna Bay (Noosa Heads) at Easter 1915. A surf reel and a squad from Brisbane, which included the 1908 Olympic swimmer Frank Springfield, did lifesaving demonstrations on the beach, but the community at Noosa was tiny in those days, so a permanent local crew of lifesavers didn’t eventuate.
Then fate took a hand: the newspaper report of the Easter Lifesaving displays at Noosa found its way into the July 1915 meeting of the Nambour Progress Association.
Contact was made with the RLSS in Brisbane and in late December 1915 an RLSS squad of instructors lobbed by train and motor boat at Cotton Tree … and the rest, as they say, is history!
The “birth’’ of the hamlet of Cotton Tree is historically entwined with the “birth’’ of Maroochydore Surf Life Saving Club. They each were established four days apart, at the end of December 1915. Never was the relationship between a town and a surf club so close.
On Tuesday, December 28, 1915, 80 “Town Allotments’’ were sold at auction to form the new township which became known as Cotton Tree. The lots stretched along what is now The Esplanade, some “10 chains’’ (200 metres) from the bank of the Maroochy River.
This forward thinking allowed for the wonderful public park and amenities that exist today. The remainder of the lots ran along what is now Alexandra Parade, immediately behind the sand dunes of Maroochydore Beach.
A little seaside town was made by these allotments, yet on December 28, 1915, not a single dwelling stood in this magical place known as “Maroochy Heads’’. There was only the camping ground kiosk, run by Nambour businessman Lou Collins.
Some historical context: by this time, the last of our ANZAC troops were skilfully evacuated from Suvla Bay and the ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign – April to December 1915 – drew to a close in Turkey.
On Saturday, January 1, 1916, a meeting was convened in a tent operated by the Salvation Army at Cotton Tree Camping Reserve, situated at the very apex of the 80 lots sold just four days earlier. By resolution of that meeting of citizens, Maroochydore Swimming and Life Saving Club was formed.
How did this happen?
The keys to this story are the timber getters, the Gympie gold rush of 1867, the fledgling local sugar industry and the booming Cotton Tree Camping Reserve.
In the 1860s, the first white visitors (after explorers such as Tom Petrie and escaped convicts Pamphlett and Finegan) appeared in the immediate area of “The Heads”. They were the timber getters, fetching timber for Brisbane sawmiller William Pettigrew, who later established a local sawmill.
In 1867, the Gympie gold rush saw many prospectors transit the Maroochy area via Mooloolah and Yandina to seek their fortunes. Then to nearby Buderim came the primary industries. The Buderim growers employed “Kanaka’’ labourers from the Pacific Islands, many of whom later returned to their ancestral homes.
Each Christmas from 1896 the Salvation Army from Nambour erected a tent city at “The Heads’’ to house and entertain the labourers during this festive season break. The workers were joined over the years by other local residents, drawn to the many aquatic attractions.
It is said that eventually the Christmas and Easter campers grew 2000 strong.
Fatalities at ‘The Heads’ spark call to action
This 20-year seasonal odyssey to “The Heads’’ inevitably resulted in drowning fatalities. The first reported drowning was in 1903, although a triple boating fatality in 1900 was already public knowledge. Some dramatic escapes from drowning were reported, as well as more fatalities in 1906 and 1908. A copper lifebuoy with 200 yards of rope was stationed on a post on each side of the Maroochy River mouth in 1908.
Again, some context: this Lifesaving equipment was installed just one year after the beginnings of Surf Life Saving at Bondi, Bronte, Coogee and other beaches in New South Wales and just a year before that first Queensland Surf Club at Greenmount was started.
The sale of the Cotton Tree Allotments was first proposed in 1914. The initial proposal presented a direct threat to the future of the Cotton Tree Camping Reserve: astonishingly, subdivision was proposed for the prime land occupied by the Reserve.
This brought a public outcry, with claims of conflict of interest and cronyism being flung about. Even the Minister for Lands in Brisbane was stung into making a visit to inspect the site and to assess what all the fuss was about. That part of the proposed subdivision did not go ahead. Cotton Tree Camping Reserve was saved by “people-power’’, 1914-style. Those first sales, on the revised proposal, did not occur until December 1915.
And so the journey of Cotton Tree itself was a story of preservation of its unique environment by community action.
These events in 1915 at Noosa Heads, Nambour and then Cotton Tree were to have a profound effect upon the story of Surf Life Saving on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland and Australia for the next 100 years.
Stay tuned for more Sunshine Coast surf lifesaving history and the rise of Mooloolaba, Alexandra Headland and Coolum clubs.
RALPH DEVLIN AM QC is a former President and is currently Life Governor of Maroochydore Surf Life Saving Club. He was President of Surf Life Saving Queensland (2011-2016). Ralph is the author of the Surf Club Centenary History, Home of the Black Swan.
