HISTORIC SHARK HEAD IN SAFE HANDS
‘Mate, it’s safe. I’m grateful I have it.’
THE stuffed remains of the first shark caught in WA after killing a swimmer at Cottesloe in 1925 has landed in the safe hands of a maritime history enthusiast in Bunbury.
The tiger shark head belongs to Hugh Edwards’ family who have sold off most of the shipwreck author’s collection of books, documents, photographs and keepsakes including shark jaws, replica elephant tusks and diving helmets. The bulk of Hugh’s treasures was scooped up by Seven West Media’s Kerry Stokes.
Hughie, 90, passed away on May 10 after a fall at his home, his celebratory wake at the WA Maritime Museum on June 6 attended by family and friends including mortgage broker Todd Haffner, who befriended Hugh several years ago.
He told StreetWise the family was happy to have him look after the shark head Hugh saved twice from landfill. Hugh wanted to gift the historic ‘artefact’ to the US family of the shark victim who plan to visit Cottesloe Beach as part of the 100th anniversary of the attack in November next year.
Simon’s shark death, the first in Cottesloe’s history, made national headlines, the remains of the ‘ManEater’ put on public display after police, fishermen and locals armed with guns and dynamite snared the ‘beast’ with mutton baits and abattoir blood. Members of the lifesaving club tried to save the 55-year-old bookmaker.
The family contacted StreetWise last year after Hugh referred to the 1925 death of ‘Uncle’ Simon Ettelson in Fremantle’s independent print and online publication.
The October 2023 edition of Freo StreetWise recorded an exclusive interview with Hugh and Simon’s descendant Jonathan Adolph, produced by StreetWise Media and Silver Key Films available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfpKeB-fgCY.
Waikiki photographer Leith Phillips also captured these images of Hugh with the shark head at his home in Swanbourne.
“I saw the StreetWise article and became quite interested in the history of Hugh’s shark head,” Mr Huffner said. “I couldn’t buy it. I couldn’t do that. Hugh promised it to someone. Mate, it’s safe. I’m grateful I have it.”
However, he did buy a set of shark jaws and sperm whale penis.
“I met Hugh about five years ago. Every few weeks I would take a bottle of chardonnay to Hugh’s place and discuss going up to the Abrolhos to search for wrecks such as the Dutch Aagtekerke.”
Mr Adolph told StreetWise it was a sad passing: “But I’m feeling fortunate that you were able to introduce us and set up that video call. I wish I could have met him in person, but even over Zoom his charisma and puckish spirit came through. He was a special person, for sure.”
He added: “Do you know what will now happen to Simon’s shark head? Given how much effort Hugh put into saving it, we certainly wouldn’t want it to be lost now!”
A Life – 1933 to 2024
WILLIAM Hugh Edwards was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on July 29, 1933 to Gladys Shuttleworth and William Allan Edwards.
In 1941, the family moved to WA where Allan was appointed professor of English and modern languages at UWA.
“Perth was paradise for Hugh,” his family told more than 100 people gathered to celebrate the life and times of the intrepid explorer and travel writer.
“He loved the sea. He loved the beach. He loved Rottnest. He was heartbroken to be sent away to board at Geelong Grammar in Victoria.”
But it was not all bad as Hugh recounted: “When I was a small boy reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel ‘Treasure Island’ in the Geelong Grammar School library, book in one hand, a Violet Crumble chocolate bar in the other, I never dreamed that one day I would find a treasure myself.
“Even at that age I knew from adult dismissiveness that things like that didn’t happen in ordinary life. Only in books like the one in my hand.”
The prolific writer released more than 35 books published in several languages, contributed to hundreds of articles and interviews and continued to write until his fall in May.
Hugh played football and on his return to Perth from Geelong was hired as the Daily News’ youngest ever cadet journalist. He also loved art and had a talent for drawing and sculpting in clay.
Hugh’s interests in underwater exploration deepened when he joined a maritime archaeological expedition in the Mediterranean. This would lead to Hugh’s interest in and fascination with 17th and 18th century shipwrecks closer to home, including Batavia (1629) and Zeewyk (1727) he co-discovered.
Hugh’s Batavia tale, ‘Islands of Angry Ghosts’, won the Sir Thomas White Memorial Prize for the best book written by an Australian in 1966, published in the US, UK, France and the Netherlands.
Hugh dived on Dutch, Portuguese and Chinese wrecks and in 2001 joined a WA Museum expedition that discovered English explorer William Dampier’s Roebuck (1701) at Ascension Island and French explorer Louis de Freycinet’s Uranie (1821) in the Falklands.
In 2009, Hugh was honoured with the Order of Australia Medal ‘for services to Australia’s maritime heritage through the discovery of historic shipwrecks and as an author’.
Hugh wrote books about Exmouth, Broome and the Kimberley region and co-wrote in 1976 ‘Joe Nangan’s Dreaming’ with Aboriginal lawman ‘Butcher’ Joe Nangan.
Hugh was a go-to shark expert who filmed great white sharks and underwater wonders in Australia and overseas. One of the displays in his fearsome home collection included the jaws of a 4.7m shark Hugh caught at the Albany whaling station. The 900kg monster made a cameo appearance in the 1977 horror film ‘Orca’.
In 2015, reported exclusively by StreetWise, Academy winner Russell Crowe’s ‘Fear of God’ film company bought the option deal, renewed every 12 months, to film the Batavia mutiny and murder spree based on Hugh’s ‘Islands of Angry Ghosts’.
As Hugh said at his 90th birthday celebrations last year: “I’m a writer. It’s not the telling of the story that counts, it’s what’s in the story that counts.”
Family friend Ra Stewart described Hugh as a ‘superhero’, a larger than life character, “up at sparrows, jogged 10 laps of the beach each morning, went diving or snorkelling or windsurfing depending on the weather conditions of the day, spent a couple of hours writing and finished up with a sunset red on the hill”.
She said Hugh was the ‘reclusive castaway’ who spent months researching stories and recounting adventures: “‘Writing,’ dad would say, and I would wonder what kind of writing could captivate a grown man for weeks and months on end. He would venture out, his familiar dinghy stance with one hand holding the bow rope firm, the other hand on the tiller, braced and purposeful.”
Ra said it was Hugh’s non-fiction that fascinated: “When I read ‘Islands of Angry Ghosts’ in my early 20s, it suddenly dawned on me that Hugh wasn’t just the writer of these tales. Hughie was actually the protagonist in these adventures.”
Hugh was father to Christopher, Caroline and Petrana, brother to Liz, uncle to Cathy and Elly and companion Athena Paton.
Details at www.streetwisemedia.com.au.
