The shipbuilders of Brisbane Water will be honoured this month with the opening of a memorial on the banks of the Kincumber Broadwater.
Central Coast sculptor John J. Woulfe is the designer behind the memorial. His sculptures are a result of a lifetime living and working on and around the ocean.
The memorial will be the main feature of the shipbuilder’s walkway which stretches from Kincumber through Yattalunga and Saratoga to Davistown.
It will also include several more memorials along the walkway to honour individual shipbuilder’s families. Shipbuilders constructed at least 500 named vessels in and around Brisbane Water between 1829 and 1953, although their story is not generally known, despite efforts of local historians.
Almost every village around Brisbane Water – Kincumber, Davistown, Blackwall, Empire Bay and Daleys Point owes its beginning to shipwrights such as Rock Davis, who built an estimated 165 ships at Davistown and Blackwall, Jonathon Piper, who taught many local shipwrights their craft, George Frost, the Beatties and many others.
The concept for the walkway originated when the late Lerryn Mutton, a member of the Rotary Club of Kincumber, was taken up with enthusiasm by club members over the idea.
Gosford Council has given the club an interestfree loan to complete all the works which the club will repay over the next seven years. The opening is planned for 1:00pm on Sunday, November 29, opposite the main memorial at the bottom of Carrak Rd.
Media Release,
Nov 16, 2015
Tim Bowland, Public
Relations, Rotary Club of
Kincumber