Guest Speaker Report
by
Rotarian Ian Johnson
Wednesday 18 March 2009
Our guest speaker was Bill Allen who spoke about “A Brief History of Sydney Ferries and the Parramatta River Then and Now”. Bill was introduced by PP Terry Rohan.
Bill is a former General Manager of Sydney Ferries and was the founder of the Great Ferry Boat Race.
When Bill was growing up his neighbour was the Works Manager for Sydney Ferries. If anything was being thrown out his neighbour would give the item to Bill to add to his collection.
Bill is now putting together a file on each ferry on his computer with the assistance of his grandson.
The first ferry to take passengers to Parramatta was the “Lump” which commenced operating in 1789. It took three days to get to Parramatta.
The early ferries were paddle steamers. These were replaced by propeller driven ferries.
Many of the early ferry builders were French. This included the operator of the Lane Cove River service. He built ferries at Figtree on the river and named them after his daughters. These included the Isabelle, the Rose and the Pearl. Later when the river was silting up the Lady Chelmsford was designed and built. It was designed to last fifteen years. However the ferry which commenced operating in 1910 continued operating
until 2008.
Bill showed us photographs of many ferries from the past including:
- The Greycliffe which was cut in half by the Tahiti.
- The Wallaby (which was supposed to be named the Willoughby) the first ferry in the world with propellers at both ends.
- The Kulgoa which operated from 1904 to 1949 and carried troops to larger boats in the harbour in both world wars.
- The Kuttabul a very large ferry which was hit by a torpedo fired from a Japanese submarine.
- The Koondooloo which made its way from Scotland to Sydney and became Sydney’s first showboat.
Following the opening of the Harbour Bridge the number of ferries declined rapidly. Since 1951 the ferries have been state run.
The Hydrofoils and Jet Cats have come and gone. In addition to the older ferries we now have the following types of vessels operating:
- First Fleet Catamarans.
- River Cats.
- River Kittens and
- Super Cats.
Bill advised us that for ferry operations to have a solid future he believes that their operation needs to be returned to private hands. Bill was thanked by PP Doug Potter.