paspal

The Australian Pearls and the Greek Connection

Australian South Sea pearls have long been regarded as the "Rolls Royce" of the pearling industry. They are the largest, most lustrous and naturally beautiful cultured pearls in the world, sometimes reaching sizes of up to two and a half centimetres or one inch in diameter! Australian cultured pearls form part of what is known as the South Sea pearl group. The South Sea area extends from Burma and the Gulf of Thailand through the Sulu Sea of the Philippines, Malaysia, the Indonesian Arafura Sea and north west Australia. It continues into the Cook Islands, eastward through Tahiti to the Tuamotu Archipelago and the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia. All pearls cultivated here are referred to as "South Sea pearls". There are two types of oysters found in this area which give birth to the beautiful South Sea pearl - the pinctada maxima (silver lip or gold lip oyster), and the pinctada margaritifera (black lip oyster).

The ocean is home to the pearl. Originally, pearls were formed by accident in pearl oysters. They were created when a foreign body of some sort, such as a grain of sand or a parasite, found its way into the pearl oyster. The oyster reacted by coating the irritant with layer upon layer of the pearly substance, known as "nacre", that gives the pearl its unique appearance and luminescent beauty.
Australian South Sea pearls are cultured pearls, and they are formed by more or less the same process except that in this case, humans rather than nature introduce the irritant. A bead is inserted into the oyster by a technician, creating a pearl which turns out every bit as natural as one that originated in the wild.
The north west coast of Australia is an ideal location for pearl cultivation-there is scarcely any water pollution, few people and extremely good tides. The pinctada maxima is found abundantly in these waters, with the silver lip variety mainly responsible for producing the beautiful Australian pearl. These oysters can reach sizes of up to 30cm in diameter and may weigh up to 5.5kg.
Australian pearls are cultivated for a minimum of two years. They have a thick nacre coating, hence they tend to be large, durable and possess a high lustre. They range in size from six to 18mm however, the average measurement is 10 to 12mm.
Usually their shape varies from off-round to baroque, with baroque being the most common and the least expensive. The baroque shape is one that is neither round nor symmetrical but irregular in shape. Perfectly round Australian pearls are very rare-the larger the pearl, the more it tends to deviate from round.
As for colour, Australian pearls are produced in shades of silver, silver pink and silver white. Although not as common, golden coloured pearls are also available.
Quality Australian cultured pearls are available in a range of sizes, shapes and colours to tempt even the most discerning!
The commercial development of pearl cultivation started by Con Denis George, a Greek migrant , born in Constantinople and migrated to Australia in 1948 who first experimented with the cultivation of pearls in North Queensland (Cairns). However it has has been perfected by another Greek migrant form Kastelorizo, Nicholas Paspaley, in Darwin and the North of Australia in the 60s

The Paspaley family.

From Kastelorizo to Darwin and the greatest company of high quality cultured pearls (in the world).

The fishing for pearl oysters (pearling) started in the 1850s in the Shark bay region of Western Australia but soon moved further north. Pearl oyster was sought not only for their pearls but also for their shells which were utilised in the production of buttons, knife handles, jewels and inlay of clocks. Initially pearl oysters were gathered in shallow waters but gradually pearling took place in deeper waters.

A number of town in Western Australia became associated with the pearling industry, Dampier and Karratha as the pearling grounds and Onslow as a support port. In 1870 Cossack , north of Karratha became the centre of the pearling industry. In its heydays Cossack was one of the most multicultural cities of Western Australia with hundred of residents and a port associated exclusively with the pearling industry.
When the pearling grounds in the sea around the area were exhausted the pearling fleet moved further north and Cossack became a small village with numerous of abandoned buildings. The last resident of the town left in 1955 and the town was (partially) re-inhabited after 1983 when the Western Australia Government decide to restore the town as a tourist attraction and used young offenders to rebuilt/restore some of the old buildings.
When the first group arrived in the abandoned town they found an old abandoned pearl lugger ( a vessel used for pearl fishing) tied at the wharf, still floating despite the cyclones that hit the area during all this years. EARLY 20TH CENTURY The new pearling port was Port Hedland and it was here that the first serious Greek connection with the pearling industry eventuated. However a Greek person ,Mr Antonios Julian, who jumped ship in Albany in March 1870, was the first Greek to go north to Cossack where he worked as a pearler.

Today Port Hedland is the greatest export port of Australia, exporting iron ore brought from Newman, 500 kms inland, by trains 300-400 carriages long traveling on the largest privately owned railway line in the world. In 1919 Theodosis Michael Paspalis, a tobacco merchant from Kastellorizo arrived with his family in Port Hedland. Port Hedland at that time was a small port servicing the pastoral industry of the Pilbarra region of Western Australia. A small miserable hot place with a great advandage , a good port near the pearling grounds. In Port Hedland he established a grocery shop and bought a share in a pearl lugger. Unfortunately Theodosis died 5 years later but his sons Michael and Nikolas and his daughter Mary continued their father's interest in pearling. A number of other Greeks were also involved with the pearling industry in Port Hedland, Broome and in the North West of Western Australia. George Marinos and George Thomas worked in Port Hedland, Jack Koutsoukis and Michael Canaris worked in Broome and John Theoharis (who was call king John by the local Aborigines) was based on Thursday islands.

Michael Paspalis worked in Port Hedland for a number of years and acquired a number of pearl luggers. He was a good pearler and a good sailor and he was the only pearler who managed to rescue his fleet from a cyclone that wrecked nearly all the other luggers in the Port Hedland area in the early 20s. A story has it that Michael Paspalis found the pearl of his dreams virtually because of a dream. The story goes as follows: Michael dreamt one day that he would find a beautiful pearl the next day. The dream was so vivid that next morning Michael sat on the lugger deck and insisted that he would be the only one to open all the oysters that the divers would bring from the bottom of the sea. He ordered all the Asian and islanders crew away and he opened one oyster after the other until a magnificent pearl was found inside one of the oysters.
Without betraying his joy he hidden the pearl in his pocket and later pretending that he would go to bring new supplies from Port Hedland he left the lugger. In Port Hedland he sold the pearl for 400 pounds, a large some for that time. From Port Hedland to Broome.

The Paspalis siblings realised that pearling in Port Hedland was not as profitable as before since all the pearl fields in the region had been exhausted. They decided to move further north to Brome where they established their business. Broome is a small coastal town in the North West of Western Australia that in the beginning of the 20th century was the world centre of mother-of-pearl production. In 1925 Broome boasted 400 pearling luggers and produced 80% of the world's market of mother of pearl, and it had reached a population of 5000 people.

The depression in the late 1920s- early 30s hit Broome very hard. World War II and the entry of Japan in the war caused the collapse of the pearling industry. In Broome 500 Japanese divers were arrested and interned for the period of the war. Pearl luggers were dragged in the coast and burnt for fear that they would fall into enemy hands. Some luggers were sailed down south to Perth. The end of the war brought some revival of the industry in Broome but the Australian government would not trust the Japanese divers and Australian officials were send around the world to find suitable replacement for the Japanese divers. It was this mistrust of the Japanese divers that brought the first kalymnians from the Aegean to the Arafura sea, from Kalymnos to Broome. The Darwin years. Nicholas Paspaley ( he changed his name from Paspalis to Paspaley) still persisted in Port Hedland until World War II when most civilians were evacuated . After the war he bought four luggers which wer abandoned by the Australian navy on Darwin's Dinah Beach. He became the first man back into pearling out of Darwin. The pearl market collapsed in the late 50s but Nicholas Paspaley turned his attention to pearl cutlure. In 1956 he had established in partenership with a Japanese businessman, Mr Kuribavashi, a cultured peral farm , in Kuri bay, 420 kms north of Broome. it was the largest culture pearl farmin the world.

In 1963 the Paspaley Pearling Company togehter with the Arafura Pearling Co (another Japanese company) commenced culture operations at Port Essington, east of Darwin. The rest is history!! In the early 80s the Kuri Bay farm used 200,000 shells per year in its production, a Queensland farmused approximately 70,000 shells a year and the Paspaley Pearling Co farm at Port Essington up to 70,000 sheel per year. Indonesia uses approx. 100,000 shels, Burma approx. 40,000 and Malaysia 30,000 shells. Nicholas Paspaley died in 1984 , in his late 60s and today his company is managed by Nicholas Paspaley (junior) and daughter Roselyn, whilst the other daughter Marilynne is a well known actress.

For comments: konv@arafura.net.au

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