Thursday Island Australia Philatelic Covers

Where is Thursday Island? - here is a Google Earth link Thursday Island.kmz. It is at the northern extremity of Queensland, Australia. Wikipedia article

William Bligh of mutiny fame sailed past here in the Bounty launch in 1789 on his way to Batavia. He named an island in the Torres Strait as Wednesday Island. It appears that an 1848 survey added names to other islands in sequence after Wednesday and Thursday Island thereby came to get its name, linked to Bligh but not directly named by him.

The island was known as Waiben to the local people. It was selected base an administrative base by the Queensland Government in 1875 and an outpost was established in 1877, after the abandonment of Somerset on Cape York - founded in 1864 as a new Singapore. Thursday Island was conceived as a Whites only administrative centre. The first census in 1885 had a population of 307 including only 16 indigenous people.

It was fortified by Queensland against the Russians from 1891 and after federation as a federal government responsibility. Green Hill Fort The Island became the centre of maritime industry exploiting pearl and beche de mer in the surrounding seas. It was very diverse culturally with Torres Strait Islanders, Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Indonesian and Sri Lankan components. There came too to be a component drawn from Queensland's South Pacific indentured labour population. The town had a racial pecking order and segregated living districts. The Federal Naturalisation Act of 1903 stopped non-white immigration to Australia but the pearling industry was excepted so the diversity continued. The pearl industry focus moved to Dutch waters in 1905 and low prices for shell from 1920 onwards caused some decline.

The Federal Torres Strait Islanders Act of 1939. recognised the indigenous people as different from aboriginals and eased but did not end paternalistic control. It was only in 1947 that TS Islanders were permitted to work on the mainland which started a diaspora, where the majority now live away from the islands.

Today much of the Thursday Island population is of mixed Asian and Asian-indigenous origins. There are people with some Japanese descent but no distinctive Japanese community. The languages of Thursday Island are English and an English based Creole.

The Post Office was established by the Queensland Government in1878 and has been on the present site since 1887.

- Thursday Island PO (Thumbnail), at the eastern end of Douglas Street. It was built in 1934. About John Douglas

The cover pics are all thumbnails

1894 cover, Japan to TI.

1901 cover, The gold mining town of Charters Towers is in Queensland but 1100km from Thursday Island. It is a great heritage town to visit.

1905 ship letter with Japanese stamps.

1910 view

LeperChurchreverse 1907.jpg (39102 bytes)

1907 Postcard Carpentaria Mission Series.

1914 cover with Singapore transit cancel.

1911 registered cover. NSW stamp. The Australian Commonwealth though formed in 1901 did not issue its own stamps until 1913.

1910 view

The cover pics are all thumbnails

1919 card.

1922 cover, wax seal or reverse.

1920's view

1926 cover, No 2 cancel. Farquhar and Porter Ltd envelope.

1926 cover, No 2 cancel. Envelope has Farquhar and Porter Ltd, Pearlers, Thursday Island, on reverse.

Undated postcard

1926 postcard (not a local scene)

The cover pics are all thumbnails

1927 cover. "Pearl merchant and jeweler".

1930 Postcard

1928 registered cover.

Another

Reverse of last with Manila and Japan postmarks, signed by Chichester

1931 cover. No 2 cancel. This cover associated with Francis Chichester. This was part of a round the world flight attempt starting in Sydney following his pioneering Tasman Crossing from New Zealand. The flight ended with a crash in Japan.

Chichester with his floatplane DH-60 Gypsy Moth Madame Elijah ZK-AKK

1935 postcard. No 1 cancel. (Not a local scene)

Thursday Island in the 1930's.

The cover pics are all thumbnails

1936 Cover. No 1 cancel.

Thursday Island in the 1930's.

1937 cover, No 1 cancel.

All Souls and St Bartholomew's Cathedral Church and Quetta Memorial, 1893. My wife's grandparents, William Porter and Maggie Wolff were married there on 21 July 1896. About the church

1937 Cover to Scotland

1937 Cover to USA

Two 1937 covers with sender address: Aboard the Yankee.

Irving Johnson and his wife Electa, spent much of their life cruising the world on yachts called Yankee. The first, a schooner, owned from 1933-41, would have been the one referred to here. Several of their voyages were written up in the National Geographic making it a famous craft of its time.

Later the Yankee ran aground on a coral reef at Rarotonga in the Cook Islands in 1963 and was wrecked. The hulk was visible near Avarua.

Yankee

The wreck as it was in 1992 (with two of my sons exploring).

The cover pics are all thumbnails

1937 PC to the USA

The card.

1940 Schooner Yankee cover - third world cruise - signed by Irving Johnson - skipper.

On January 27, 1942 the order was given to evacuate all civilians from the island. They did not return until 1946. Hence there are no civilian covers from that period.

The date can be seen in context:

Date Event

Dec 7 1941 Pearl Harbour attack

Dec 10 1941 Prince of Wales and Repulse sunk near Malaya

Jan 11 1942 British forces withdraw to Singapore

Feb 15 1942 Fall of Singapore

Feb 19 1942 Bombing of Darwin

March 11 1941 Bombing raid on the aerodrome on adjacent Horn Island

May 4-8 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea

May 31 1942 Attack on Sydney by submarines

June 4-7 1942 Midway

July 7 1942 Bombing raid on Horn Island aerodrome

July 21 1942 Japanese land in Papua and then advance to the Kokoda Track

July 29 1942 Bombing raid on Horn Island aerodrome

January 1943 Japanese dislodged from their Papua beachheads

Clearly the threat was greatly reduced by 1943 but military authority was happier with no civilians on the island well beyond that. Having once had a thriving Japanese community, that was one aspect of the town that was forever changed. The Japanese, even third generation born, were interned for the duration of the war. Repatriation to Japan was the rule after the war but there were exceptions for Australian born, those married to Australian born, and parents of Australian born children. Only a few returned to Thursday Island.

Of the non-Japanese many resided on nearby Horn Island for the duration of the evacuation.

The cover pics are all thumbnails

1947 peace issue cover. No 1 cancel.

1953 Registered cover, the Coronation commemorative stamps.

1955 cover, No 2 cancel. Paquebot. Sender address on rear - MV British Triumph.

1957 Cover. No 2 cancel. Tattersall ('Tatts") is an Australian lottery.

1957 cover with postage due.

The cover pics are all thumbnails

1958 Cover. Broken Hill Proprietary envelope. No 2 cancel. Flying Doctor stamp. The nearest modern RFDS base to Thursday Island is Cairns. While there is a hospital at Thursday Island air transfers to Cairns are made occasionally using the airstrip on Horn Island.

1960 Cover, No1 cancel.

1961 cover. Sitmar Line M/n Fairsea envelope, Paquebot. Must have been a very late use of the Melbourne Olympic stamps.

Fairsea

1964 cover - P & O - Orient Lines envelope.

1967 Card

Orsova, P and O.

The cover pics are all thumbnails

1973 Thursday Island Radio produced this commemorative cover. Skylab was launched in 1973.

OTC is the Overseas Telecommunications Commission formed in 1946 and became Australian Telecommunication Commission (trading as Telecom Australia)
in 1975. The history of its predecessor the Coastal Radio Service can be seen here.

Skylab fell back to Earth over Australia in 1979.

Skylab

1980 Cover - Australia Post 20c pre-stamped cover with extra 40c stamp. The cancel is the shape of a pearl shell.

1984 Lettercard - Australia Post - pre-stamped.

1984 first day cover - Australia post 30c pre-stamped cover, not addressed. Centenary of the Coastal Pilot Service. The Torres Strait passage is just north of the island. Pilotage is compulsory. Provision was deregulated in 1993 and now mariners have a choice of providers.

History of Australian Reef Pilots

Pearling fleet, undated but probably early 1920s. The mother ships are identified on the reverse from the left as Sketty Belle, Fanny, Wanitta (sic. Wanetta in another source), Alice and Aladdin. The smaller vessels are the luggers from which the diving was carried out. This fleet was based at Thursday Island, but where was this picture taken?

Thursday Island - not dated on the photo but Foley, 1982: "Timeless Isle" has the same image as "about 1905" The wharves are (left) the Government Wharf and the Burns Philp Jetty, both built in 1893.