SOME years ago, the Family Research Group and the Historical Society were asked if we had any information on Mr Ivar Gronfors, who was thought to have lived in our area.
We certainly did as Jan Winn’s grandfather had lived in a house that Mr Gronfors sold to him in 1915.
On checking further we found a record of boats that August Ivar (nicknamed “Chips”) designed and built.
One such boat was a speed boat for my uncle, Alf Ward, with another for Frank Motum.
Given the isolation of the town, it is amazing what Chips accomplished using the local timber.
Most impressive was the 76’ long “Crescent” on 20 September, 1913.
The launching of the “Crescent” was celebrated in style and accounts were published in the Newcastle and local papers as well as the Sydney “Evening News”, under the headline “Fete Day at Port Stephens”.
The story read as follows:
“Last weekend saw Tea Gardens, Port Stephens, filled with visitors.
A locally built motor boat, designed and made by Mr. I. Gronfors, a Swedish shipbuilder, who has lately made his home in New South Wales, and whose yard is in the Tea Gardens, was transferred from the skids on Saturday and now floats in front of the esplanade.
On Friday and Saturday mornings visitors arrived from every district between Newcastle and Taree, and all the craft procurable were called into requisition for the occasion.
The timber scow brought a cargo of hardwood and a number of back woodsmen from Myall Lakes, and motor launches, fishing skiffs and flat-bottomed oyster boats made up the flotilla. Very few arrived by land, because it is a roadless district, and vehicles are therefore rare. Friday night saw all the young people at a dance at one of the two halls the village possesses, and the music and dancing were quite up to city form, the barcarole from “Tales of Hoffman” being transposed into an excellent waltz.
The local cricket club engineered the party, which broke up in true country style, at about 3 o’clock in the morning.
The great event of launching and christening the vessel took place about 12 o’clock on Saturday, and the gathering would have astonished persons who looked for population mainly from Tea Gardens and Nelson Bay, on the south side of the port. It was “everybody’s” boat, built of locally-got timber, in a locally put-up workshop: and when Mrs. Flanagan, the wife of one of the owners, pronounced the name to be Crescent 1, a great cheer went up, and everyone felt that Tea Gardens had scored a pronounced success.
Messrs. J. Flanagan and S. Smith have bought the motor vessel for excursions and passenger traffic between Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and the Hawkesbury.
Its size is 76 ft by 14 ft, with a depth of 7 ft. and it is fitted with twin screws propelled by two 40 b.h.p. semi Diesel Nat engines, being the largest installation of the semi-Diesel marine engine up to date in New South Wales.
A large party sat down to luncheon in the dining room of the Port Stephens Hotel, where the owners presented Mr Gronfors with a very handsome gold watch to mark their appreciation of the excellence of his workmanship in providing a large passenger motor boat on the same scale as those used in Sweden for similar tourist work. Saturday night saw another big dance in the rival hall and Sunday was spent in excursions up the Myall Lakes and in getting the visitors from more distant parts back to their homes.”
This article has the by-line Mary Salmon.
The Newcastle Herald two days earlier described the fittings for the vessel in a little more detail, mentioning that it could accommodate 250 passengers, with two cabins, a dining room and ample deck space with seating.
It adds that the building time had been 12 months, and the design was by Mrs Gronfors.
These articles can be read in full on trove.nla.gov.au.
August Ivar Gronfors was born in Finland in 1885 and after travelling the world as mariner, then working in Newcastle and Tasmania, arrived with his wife and family in Tea Gardens where he set up a successful boat building business, using his skills on a variety of seacraft, including yachts, speed boats and launches.
In 1929 Gronfors and Flight Lieutenant Curzon de Hamel, who had been in the Australian Flying Corps, announced that they would build a seaplane at Tea Gardens and use the Myall River as its base.
However there is no evidence that these plans ever went ahead.
By Anne JOHNSON, Tea Gardens Family Research & Local History. Inc..
