1901 - 1974

On 3 April 1960, at age 59, local artist Lyall Randolph Williams controversially installed his two fibreglass-and-cement mermaid sculptures on the large rock at Ben Buckler. They became much loved local icons, and the rock came to be known as Mermaid Rock. Waverley Council had declined to sponsor the project, and Lyall decided to install the two sculptures at his own expense, claiming that because they’d be a certain distance offshore, they came under the Lands Department’s jurisdiction, not council’s. He claimed that the department had approved their installation.

Lyall filled two bronze-coloured fibreglass moulds with cement to craft the images, which he based on Jan Carmody, who in 1959 had been crowned Miss Australia Surf, and Lynette Whillier, who’d swum at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

One month after he’d installed the figures, some Sydney University students stole Mermaid Jan as part of a Commemoration Day prank. She was later recovered at the uni’s engineering school and was repaired and restored. The general public paid for the restoration so that ‘Jan’ and ‘Lynette’ could be reunited.

Mermaid Lynette was swept off the rock in 1974 during a heavy storm and was never seen again. Mermaid Jan lost an arm and her tail during the same storm and sat alone on the rock for two years, till Waverley Council removed what was left of her, restored her and placed her remains on public display at Waverley Library.

Courtesy the National Library of Australia and Waverley Library Local Studies Collection.