Pearling Elders - the Nerelle Nichol Lugger Bort project Pearling Elders - the Nerelle Nichol Lugger Bort project  

In the late 19th and into the early 20th centuries, the Torres Strait was the epicentre of the global mother-of-pearl industry. For centuries, trade networks of gold lip Pearl shell (kina) sourced from Torres Strait was  a valuable trade item from the coast into the Papua New Guinea highlands, today the national currency of PNG is known as the Kina in recognition of this ancient trade economy with its origins in the central Islands of the Torres Strait.

The modern Pearling industry all started in 1869 when Captain William Banner harvested 50 tons of pearl shell from Warrior Reef in a matter of months. The industry quickly escalated; by 1871, the annual pearl shell harvest was valued at £25,000 oper annum, and by 1874, there were more than 700 men and nearly 60 vessels engaged in Torres Strait pearling.

Vast quantities of shell were harvested from the seabed and shipped to the fashion capitals of London, Paris, and New York, destined to become the lustrous buttons that adorned the world’s elite among many other luxury and everyday household items produced with the hardy and utilitarian pearl shell. 

Yet, for over a century, the personal stories of the backbone of this lucrative trade the Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and South Sea Islander seafarers remained, largely untold outside of the workers and their families themselves in the industry. 
Independent researcher and curator Nerelle Nicol is working to change that. Born and raised on the homelands of the sunrise Kuku Yalanji people and now living on Djabugay Country in Cairns, Nicol has dedicated over a decade to unearthing the social and political histories of Far North Queensland. 

Her project, Lugger Bort, a creole-influenced name for the "lugger boats" that defined the era, has evolved from a grassroots research initiative into a significant cultural movement. Nicol’s work, which earned her a 2024 Encounters Fellowship at the National Museum of Australia and the 2025 Monica Clare Research Fellowship at the State Library of Queensland, aims to bridge the gap between archival records and lived experience.

In June 2025, the museum First Nations and curatorial divisions represented by Daina Fletcher and Matt Poll alongside Narelle, organised a photo shot with 6 of the remaining Torres Strait community members who worked on the lugger boats in the 1960’s. the stories of these men’s live on the boats recounted good and the bad, but importantly the comradeship they shared. 

The industry demanded extraordinary resilience. As competition among company boats and private interests extracted more pearl shell each season from easily accessed locations more lucrative and dangerous sites for harvesting this resource were sought after on outer reefs. 

Erub (also known as Darnley Island) is one of the most eastern islands in the Strait and is geographically, closer to PNG than it is Queensland. One storied site known as the Darnley deeps was a terrifying abyss where many divers lost their lives or suffered excruciating cases of the bends at this extreme point of the limits of the equipment of the day. 

Long before the invention of Scuba equipment in the mid-20th century, Japanese divers introduced the "hard-hat" diving equipment, allowing harvesting in much deeper waters. They utilized heavy canvas suits, helmets, and air pumps to work safely in deeper areas. Despite these new technologies, modest estimates shown at least one-in-ten Japanese pearlers died while on the job, with high mortality rates from the bends but also environmental events such as cyclones. 

Teenage boys from many Islands across the Torres Strait, often as young as 15, were recruited into "lugger life," working as cooks, deckhands, and "tenders"—the crucial lifelines who operated the air hoses for divers below. In interviews with the pearling elders Nicols research captures the firsthand memories of Elders like George Mosby and Jeffrey Bob. For these men, the luggers were not just places of work; they were important sites of community. 

Amidst the pressures of commercial deadlines, and competitiveness among the privately owned and the government-controlled company boats a distinct maritime culture emerged. Songs were composed to the rhythm of the tides, dances were choreographed to mimic the movement of the sea, and oral histories were forged that bound generations together.

With each passing year, the number of Elders who carry the "lugger life" memories dwindles. the urgency of Nicol’s work is becoming more apparent as two potential candidates for the photographic portraits sadly passing since the project was first proposed. The Lugger Bort project seeks to resurrect this legacy through compiling multiple sources of information from Archives and museums in Australia.

Over two days in June 2025 Nerelle and in recognising Nerelle’s vision the Australian National Maritime Museum brought together the remaining pealing divers for a special opportunity to sit with acclaimed portrait photographer Wayne Quilliam in Cairns. 

Originally from Tasmania, Wayne learned the photographic trade while in the Navy in the 1970’s and has gone on to an outstanding career receiving some of the nation's highest Honors, including the NAIDOC Indigenous Artist of the Year (2009), a Walkley Award for photojournalism, and the Human Rights Media Award for his poignant documentation of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. 

Recognition of Quilliams singular vision in the art of photographic portraiture was further cemented when he won the National Photographic Portrait Prize in 2022 for his powerful work Silent Strength. Wayne’s experience working with community was invaluable.

 

All photographs by Artist Wayne Quilliam
ANMM Collection Funded by the Sid Faithfull and Christine Sadler acquisition program and by Peter Dexter AM, through the ANMM Foundation, presented with the community of Far North Queensland and Zenadth Kes.