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.

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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

June 14, 2026

How surgeonfishes got their name

Surgeonfish are named for the sharp little scalpels near their tails, but on Norfolk’s reef their more useful work happens at the other end. Pencil surgeonfish, bluespine unicornfish and their relatives help browse algae across the reef – a small daily job that becomes very valuable on an algae-rich lagoon reef like ours.

May 28, 2026

A shrimp storm

While setting my research cams last week, I swam into what looked like an underwater snowstorm. It appeared to be the aftermath of a mass moulting event, with large numbers of tiny, translucent shrimp-like exoskeletons drifting together near the surface.

Kingston dredging: what happens when a reef does not fit the framework

This correspondence with DCCEEW is about more than one dredging proposal. It is about what happens when an ecologically distinctive place is assessed through standard tools that do not always make its most important values easy to see. I am publishing it here because that is something we need to be aware of, both on Norfolk Island and more broadly in Australia.

May 24, 2026

Kingston dredging: the project advances, the questions remain

Kingston dredging is edging closer, and the paper trail is growing. This post brings together earlier correspondence with the Department and the latest media release so readers can see what has been asked, what has been answered, and what still remains unclear about the project, its rationale, and the protections proposed for the reef.

May 17, 2026

The lime-green coral in Slaughter Bay – a 40-year paper trail

Green Mountain – the name I give this coral in my database – is a coral I’ve photographed for years as I swim past. Then I found its backstory in the Norfolk Island National Parks archives: a rough map, reused paper, a note in the margin – ‘still thriving’. That’s how baselines begin.

April 5, 2026

What Norfolk Island’s reef tells us about environmental blind spots

The Kingston dredging proposal on Norfolk Island raises a bigger question than dredging alone: how well do standard environmental assessment tools capture the real significance of a remote and unusual reef system like Norfolk Island’s?

March 30, 2026

Hammer coral time!

Hammer corals have unique tentacles that are large, fleshy, and tubular; these terminate in a ‘T’-shaped, hammer-head or anchor. Beneath all these softly waving tentacles is an extraordinary skeleton structure, which helps define them as a large polyp stony coral.

March 24, 2026

Norfolk Island’s fishes: drifters, residents and the ones still missing

Norfolk Island’s fish fauna reflects both connection and isolation. Some species may arrive from elsewhere as drifting larvae, some populations appear to persist locally, and some fishes known from islands on either side of Norfolk have still not been recorded here. This post looks at what old survey work, regional checklists and genetic studies suggest about that more complicated picture.

March 7, 2026

Alveopora or flowerpot coral – how to tell the difference

They look alike at first glance, but Alveopora and flowerpot corals are not the same. The easiest way to tell them apart is to count the tentacles.

February 27, 2026

Norfolk’s lagoonal reef – the 2025 report, in plain English

We now have the 2025 Norfolk Island reef health report, so I’m taking the opportunity to translate it into plain English here. Sadly, it’s more of the same story in Emily and Slaughter Bays – a reef that can cope with some stress, but is being asked to cope with too much, too often.