Norah Head Lightstation Precinct is a heritage-listed former lighthouse precinct located at Bush Street, Norah Head in the Central Coast local government area of New South Wales, Australia. The Norah Head lighthouse and associated buildings were designed by Cecil W. Darley and built in 1903. The precinct was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 13 April 2007.
History In the early years of European settlement all ships were bound for Port Jackson but little effort was made to guide them safely into port. In January 1793 a light was used for the first time near the signal station on South Head to guide a ship, the Bellona into the harbour. A flare was maintained until the first lighthouse (Macquarie Lighthouse) was commissioned on South Head in 1818. Lighthouses followed settlement and lights were erected at Iron Pot at the entrance to the Derwent River in 1832, at Cape Bruny in 1836 and at Shortland's Bluff (Queenscliffe) in 1842.
The development of the lighthouse system was for the most part a 19th-century phenomenon, as a result of a series of inter-related improvements in optical systems, and the development and introduction of oil and electric illuminants. The partial lighting of the Australian coasts and the granting of self-government to New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia in 1855–56 led to moves to achieve stronger inter-colonial co-operation. Sir William Denison, the Governor of New South Wales suggested in 1856 that an intercolonial board be appointed to erect and maintain lighthouses. The board was formed, and met in Melbourne in 1856, but it was decided that the task was "hopeless". This first serious attempt by the Australian colonies to achieve a national approach to maritime safety by means of lighthouses had failed. None of the colonies was prepared to change its existing arrangements for the common good. This was to remain the situation until the Federation of colonies in 1901 when the Commonwealth government assumed responsibility for shipping and navigational devices. The Adelaide constitutional convention of 1897 confirmed the previously debated arrangements that federal legislation was to deal with the construction, maintenance and management of lighthouses, lightships, lightsirens, beacons, buoys and signs for shipping throughout the Commonwealth and over its adjacent seas. It was also to impose and collect dues to be paid by owners or masters of ships which derived benefits from the lights or other navigational devices. Lack of finance prevented the Commonwealth government from taking action for some years after Federation. At the same time, the states were not willing to commit funds to construct lighthouses which they knew the Commonwealth would take over sooner or later. New South Wales completed the lighthouse at Norah Head in 1903, Western Australia erected on Cape Naturaliste in 1903-4 and Tasmania built one on Tasman Island in 1906, but the states were otherwise inactive as they awaited developments on the part of the Federal government. The Commonwealth Lighthouse Service was set up in 1913. On 1 July 1915 the Commonwealth officially accepted responsibility for 104 staffed lightstations, 18 automatic lights, one light buoy, 16 unlit buoys, and forty unlit beacons and obelisks.
New South Wales Australia's first lighthouse, designed by Francis Greenway, was erected in 1818 at South Head under the direction of Governor Macquarie and the lighthouse was named in his honour. For forty years, it remained the only lighthouse on the coast of present-day NSW. By the 1850s, the colonial economy had been boosted by the discovery of gold, and the population of NSW doubled between 1851 and 1860. A period of lighthouse building spanning almost 50 years followed, beginning in 1858 with the construction of the Hornby Light on Sydney's Inner South Head. After 1862, with the appointment of Frances Hixson, NSW embarked upon an ambitious program of lighthouse building erecting some 17 major lights prior to the establishment of the Commonwealth Lighthouse Service in 1915. This saw a lighthouse on average every 54.4 kilometres (33.8 mi) along the NSW coast, the highest density in Australia. Because of a combination of factors including the fact that James Barnet was the Colonial Architect for most of this time (1862–1890), the 1890s economic depression, and Federation in 1901, most of the NSW lighthouses were designed by Barnet. The lightstations built after 1890 are therefore comparatively rare, only the major lights being established between that date and the take over by the Commonwealth in 1915; these lights are Point Perpendicular (1899), Smoky Cape (1891), Cape Byron (1901) and Norah Head (1903). The construction of Point Perpendicular lighthouse in 1897 brought a significant change to lighthouse construction in the colony. In an effort to reduce the cost of building in remote areas, a standard design was developed using precast concrete blocks and local aggregates. After the completion of Point Perpendicular lighthouse, similar structures were erected at Cape Byron in and at Norah Head.
Norah Head
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