The Water Rats – the Southern Hemisphere's oldest surf lifesaving club?

Out on A Swim

‘Out on a swim’ is a coral reef blog that tells the stories of the characters who live under the waves and what has caught my eye when ‘out on a swim’ in the lagoons of Norfolk Island. It is also a record of the difficulties Norfolk Island’s reef faces, like many others around the world, as a result of the poor water quality that has been allowed to flow onto it.

This blog is rated in the Top 20 Coral Reef Blogs in the world.

While not strictly about Norfolk Island’s reef life, this interesting tale from history is still worthy of a blog post on this website.

1886, Frederic Schell, *Australia Illustrated*

Can Norfolk Island claim the Southern Hemisphere’s oldest surf lifesaving club? Read on to find out more!

In 1842, a young Private Joshua Hamlet Gregory, just 20 years old and sent to serve in the penal colony of Norfolk Island, wrote a diary. (It can be seen at the Norfolk Island Museums.[i]) From it we can learn a great deal about life in the settlement, but one particular snippet fascinates me. Transcribed from page 45 of his handwritten account is the following:

‘One day we were all surprised at seeing a large vessel come booming down on the settlement. She was flying Yankee colours and appeared too large for a whaler, and too slovenly for a man of war, but be what she would, on she came with her wide spreading sails, until within a quarter of a mile of the beach when she hove to and lowered a boat which pulled for the shore.

‘The bar at the time was rolling mountains high and impossible for any boat to cross it in safety, We signaled to them to keep off, but they paid no attention to us. As she came nearer we saw, sitting in her stern a lady and a gentleman. In vain we tried to make them sensible of their danger, but it was no use.

‘In a moment the Water Rats were at their post: These water Rats as we called them, were convicts that stood on the rock ready to plunge into the waves in case a boat upset. If they had the good luck to rescue anyone, they were sure to get a part of their sentence struck off. They were certainly the best swimmers I ever saw in my life. As I said before, there they stood, six in number like statues with their arms folded across their chests, with nothing on but a pair of thin drawers, a smile of satisfaction sat upon the visage of each reckless and daring exile.’

From Gregory’s description, you can imagine these convicts, with nothing to lose and everything to gain – simultaneously brave and foolhardy – waiting for their moment to shine. Gregory continues:

‘On came the gallant little boat, jumping from wave to wavelike a thing of life. When they had got within fifty yards of the bar they could see their danger, but it was too late to retreat, for she was then in the midst of heavy swells and it was as safe to go one way as the other. The crew showed both strength and skill, but it was all to no purpose for the swells were too much for them. Sometimes she was completely covered with the spray and drenched to the skin the people that were in her.

‘She neared the point and I could see the lady was in great alarm. She looked towards the shore in a most pitiful manner, but when her eyes fell apon the Water Rats, she seemed to eye them with something like satisfaction for she doubtlessly understood their business.’

We know that three convicts, at least, managed to have their sentences reduced because of their service as ‘Water Rats’. These were:

George Davenport: he was Charles Sturt’s convict cook. He saved the life of Captain Rennoldson of the Queen Charlotte, who unfortunately died soon after from gunshot wounds.
William Archer: Archer was a recidivist who was transported to Norfolk Island for stealing cattle. When a boat from the Arthur Phillip was overturned at the bar in 1840, three Water Rats went to the rescue. Convicts Best and McLean drowned, but Archer saved a man and was returned to the mainland and freed. Archer became a cattle baron and the third Mayor of Grafton.
James Porter: Porter saved some officers who had been fishing at Cascade.[ii] [iii]

I do wonder if these Water Rats, who were organised especially for the purpose of saving lives from the surf, could lay claim to being members of the oldest surf lifesaving club in the Southern Hemisphere (which according to the National Museum of Australia began in around 1905 in Australia). Hmmm.

Kingston Pier, Norfolk Island, completed in 1847

[i] Norfolk Island Museums, NIM20360

[ii] William Water Rats, (downloadable document from a now defunct blog) http://www.findtex.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/William-Water-Rats.docx

[iii] Brian, Don and Sue 2018, ‘The Water Rats of Norfolk Island, Australia’s First Surf Lifesavers?’ Signals, viewed 20 November 2023, https://issuu.com/anmmuseum/docs/signals120_ipad

Jun 13, 2025

Glimpses of recovery: what the reef could be if we let it

Day 6 of this photo series from Norfolk Island coincides with the final day of the UN Ocean Conference in Nice. After a week of documenting decline, today’s post offers a different view – what reef recovery can look like when conditions improve. Drought in 2024 gave the reef a break, and the results were unmistakable: healthier corals, lower disease, and more fish. This is what’s possible if we act.

Jun 12, 2025

Warning signs: quiet and unnoticed collapse of two coral colonies

Day 5 of my blog series for the UN Ocean Conference: two long-lived coral colonies in Norfolk’s lagoon died quietly from disease. No drama – just slow collapse and overgrowth by algae. A reminder that not all reef losses are loud, but they are happening.

Jun 11, 2025

Warning signs: what Norfolk Island’s reef is telling us

Day 4 of a week-long photo series from Norfolk Island, shared during the UN Ocean Conference in Nice. Today’s post spotlights a Hydnophora pilosa colony where white syndrome appeared suddenly and spread quickly, taking out around a quarter of the coral. In the months that followed, algae quietly filled the gap – a subtle but telling shift from coral to algae that’s happening across the reef.

Jun 10, 2025

Warning signs: coral disease takes hold

In Day 3 of this blog post series, published while leaders gather at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, we see Norfolk Island’s coral reef lagoon quietly delivering a stark warning: recurrent land-based pollution, coral disease, and delayed decisions are dismantling this ecosystem in real time.

Jun 9, 2025

Warning signs: coral growth anomalies – the slow cancers of the reef

Day 2’s post coinciding with the UN Ocean Conference looks at coral growth anomalies – sometimes called coral ‘cancers’. These slow-moving diseases quietly weaken coral colonies, making them far more vulnerable to storm damage and algal takeover. On Norfolk Island’s reef, I’ve watched this exact process play out over several years. This is how chronic stress silently dismantles coral ecosystems.

Jun 8, 2025

Warning signs: shifting baselines on Norfolk Island’s reef

Today is World Ocean Day — a timely moment to launch my week-long blog series on Norfolk Island’s reef. Each day this week, I’ll be sharing photo essays that document the slow but steady pressures reshaping this fragile reef. Today: how shifting baselines make us blind to what we’ve already lost.

Apr 29, 2025

The Governance–Government Vacuum: Norfolk Island’s Forgotten Ecology

A personal reflection on Norfolk Island’s coral reef environment, political denial, and what John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes can still teach us about slow-moving disasters — and why this election matters more than ever.

Feb 20, 2025

Cute as buttons – Astrea curta

Astrea curta corals are ‘small, moderately plocoid [flattened], distinct, and almost circular’ . Normally grey-green in colour, you can see from the images here, ours are often beautiful rich gold, although they do vary. They have a neat growth habit and button-like corallites, which can grow in columns, spherically or flattened. Large colonies of these can form gorgeous undulating bumps.

Jan 26, 2025

From 'Watch' to 'Warning'

Last week, the chance of coral bleaching in Norfolk Island’s inshore lagoons was raised from ‘Watch’ to ‘Warning’ and will more than likely rise to Alert levels one and two in coming weeks. So why do I worry about water quality all the time when bleaching seems inevitable these days and so the reef is probably doomed anyway? Read on to find out.

Jan 4, 2025

From little things – watching them grow

Small numbers of different fish species is not an unusual phenomenon on Norfolk Island’s reef, but it does demonstrate what a tiny, precious, coral reef ecosystem we have, when we can count individuals on one hand and watch each of them grow, like these little blackeye thicklips, a member of the wrasse family.