In the 1830s and '40s the Hog Bay district was settled by squatters who lived where they chose with no legal claim to the land. They eked out a simple living by fishing, whaling, trapping wallabies and farming small plots of land.

Very little is known about these early settlers. Most were respectable, but some might have been escaped convicts. They certainly included runaway sailors or smugglers, who came here knowing that the Islanders would be sympathetic, having been, in most cases, refugees from society themselves. However, by sheltering these types of men the Island gained the reputation of a community that regarded itself as being outside the law.

The first lighthouse in South Australia began operating at Cape Willoughby in 1852. Isolated at the eastern end of the island with only quarterly deliveries of government supplies the early keepers were forced to depend upon the local settlers for fresh food. This brought together people of very different backgrounds. Sometimes this contact was of mutual benefit, as in the case of the keeper's wife who taught children to read and write in English.

Schoolroom: Display of teacher and children at old Hog Bay School. Children from original photograph.


Schoolroom: Snow White and Seven dwarfs, puppets made by Cuttlefish Bay school children in the 1950s, and display board.

Figurehead donated to the Museum by Indiana James, resident of Penneshaw, in April 2002. Made of bronze, wood and fibre it represents Matthew Flinders. The bowsprit and partial rigging are a scale reproduction of Flinders' ship H.M. Sloop Investigator.


As above - close view of figurehead


Grinding stones from the crushing mill of the China Clay and Stone Company.


Detail of chaff-making machine.

Group of museum volunteers around the model of the Investigator newly arrived from England (2002).

The maker of the model of the Investigator beside his model.