1960

The two sculptures that became known as the Bondi Mermaids were installed on the large rock at Ben Bucker on 3 April 1960. The rock is a 235-ton boulder located on Bondi Beach’s northern headland and was reportedly thrown up by the seas on 15 July 1912. It came to be known as Mermaid Rock because of the two sculptures. Local artist Lyall Randolph Williams created the sculptures from bronze-coloured fibreglass around a cement base. He modelled them on Jan Carmody, who in 1959 had been crowned Miss Australia Surf, and Lynette Whillier, who’d swum at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Mermaid Jan’s remains are now on display in a special Perspex case on the first floor of Waverley Library.

One month after the sculptures were installed on the rock, students from Sydney University removed Mermaid Jan as part of a Commemoration Day prank. She was later recovered at the university’s Engineering School and underwent repair and restoration. The Mermaids were very well loved, and the general public paid for the work.

Mermaid Lynette was never seen again after being swept off the rock in 1974 during a heavy storm. Mermaid Jan lost an arm and her tail during the same storm and sat alone till 1976, when Waverley Council removed her remains. For many years after, they were stored at a Waverley Council depot. In the late 1980s, they were moved to Waverley Library, where in 1999 the Friends of Waverley Library paid for them to be preserved by Sydney Artefacts Conservation. 

Courtesy Waverley Library Local Studies.