The Lighthouse That Wrecked More Ships Than it Saved

 For more than forty years a lighthouse stood on a large anvil-shaped peninsula extending into the Tasman Sea near Jervis Bay in southern Australia. It stood where it shouldn't have, and trapped unsuspecting ships on the very rocks they were trying to avoid.

The rocks around Cape St George, just south of Jervis Bay, were notorious for shipwrecks, and so in the mid-19th century, it was decided that a lighthouse was needed for the safe navigation of coastal shipping.

In 1857, colonial architect Alexander Dawson and an assistant surveyor, E.F. Millington began looking for a suitable site for a lighthouse on Cape St. George. Unfortunately, Dawson was more interested in ease of construction than in providing efficient navigation aids. When the Pilot Board, which was the controlling authority, went to verify the location chosen by Dawson, they found that the site was not visible from the required viewpoint. He also found that the map prepared by Millington and Dawson "suffers from such serious discrepancies that it is impossible to decide whether any of the positions marked on the map actually exist." The Board also suspected that Dawson chose this location only because it was located close to the quarry from which he planned to obtain the stone.

Despite obvious deficiencies in the planning stage and disagreement with the majority of the Board, for unknown reasons, the Chairman of the Board authorized the construction of the lighthouse. For the next four decades the poorly maintained lighthouse, which was visible neither from the northern approach to Jervis Bay, nor from the south, was responsible for about two dozen shipwrecks. Eventually in 1899, the lighthouse was replaced by the Point Perpendicular Light at Point Perpendicular, a more suitable location for a lighthouse on this part of the coast.

Even after decommissioning, the lighthouse continued to cause navigational problems especially on moonlit nights, when the golden sandstone tower glowed in the dark. So near the end of the century, the tower was reduced to rubble to prevent another disaster.

The Cape St. George lighthouse was unfortunate not only for the ships but also for the lighthouse keepers. It seemed that a series of tragedies befell whoever lived there. One lighthouse keeper drowned while fishing, another was kicked in the head by a horse and died. The most famous incident involved two teenage girls who were playing with a loaded gun when the gun fired, killing one of them.

Still in ruins, the Cape St. George Lighthouse is now on the protected list due to its unusual history.