Bustard Head was home to George and Margaret Goodfellow and their children from 1886 to 1889. George Goodfellow was the second assistant light keeper. My grandmother Grace lived at Bustard Head between the ages of seven to ten years. There was a one-teacher school from 1882, so Gertrude, Grace and later Henry would have attended with the children of the other lightkeepers. Olive was younger, born in 1885.
Bustard Head was named after the turkey birds seen by James Cook in 1770. The lighthouse was the first built on the Queensland coast after Queensland became a separate colony in 1859. The lighthouse, between Gladstone to the north and the Town of 1770 to the south, was extremely isolated, with hazardous access by boat and provisions once a month. Stuart Buchanan’s The Lighthouse of Tragedy details the history of its construction and stories about the lightkeepers. Margaret Goodfellow is recorded in this lighthouse history, telling news to the other residents about the 1887 suicide of Kate Gibson, the lightkeeper’s wife. Later there were drownings and accidental deaths. Neville Murphy, Grace’s son, visited in 1934; his story is in Chapter 9.
Neville rode his motor bike from Sydney to the lighthouse. Even then, the only land access was east of Turkey pastoral station by horse to Middle Creek, then walking seven miles (eleven kilometres). Now, tourists visit by boat along the beach from the Town of 1770.
George and Margaret Goodfellow and their family left in 1889, soon after the birth of George in 1888. By the time baby Queenie was born and died in 1892, the family was in Sydney.
There is more history about the lighthouse in the following:
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