Albany's Lighthouses - a talk by Adam Wolfe

Join local Maritime Archaeologist, Adam Wolfe, for this talk on Albany's lighthouses.

Albany's first lighthouses were built as Imperial markers to serve Australia's first regular, trans-ocean steam ship service to and from Britain, Europe and Sri Lanka via the Mediterranean, Red and Arabian Seas, and finally the Indian Ocean.

Intrinsically entwined with the development of steam ship and postal services to Australian colonies, they were part of a technological achievement and process that would make Albany a strategic port in the second half of the 19th century.

This talk explores the histories of two of the lighthhouses, designed by the eminent Victorian civil engineer Alexander Gordon and located at Point King and on Breaksea Island, considering their origins, construction, operation, demise and eventual replacement. In doing so the talk illustrates the significance of the lighthouses both internationally, nationally and locally.