Stories from the reef, the island & beyond
A curated collection of news, media coverage and articles about Low Isles — from the latest caretaker updates and conservation milestones to the deep history of this extraordinary place on the Great Barrier Reef.
The lighthouse keeper's wife: a story buried for nearly 150 years
Jane Ann Owen arrived in Australia from Northumberland, England in 1873, married Welsh-born mariner Daniel Hugh Owen three days after their ship docked in Brisbane, and by 1878 was living on Low Island — the first lighthouse-keeping family at the newly built Far North Queensland lightstation. In 1880, aged 42, she died of tuberculosis after a nine-day illness, and was buried on the island's western shore. A Port Douglas newspaper reported she had "endeared herself to many near and far."
For nearly 150 years, Jane's grave was all but forgotten. Then, decades of shifting sand and seasonal storms began to close the gap between her resting place and the sea. By 2022, erosion had cut almost to the headstone. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (Reef Authority) and Queensland's Department of Environment faced a choice: let the sea take her, or move her inland. They chose to act — and the Low Isles Gravesite Relocation Project was born.
Excavations in November 2023 and September 2024 revealed the remarkably well-preserved remains of a small woman, buried east-to-west in the Christian tradition, wrapped in a blanket and without jewellery or coffin fittings — a simple grave. Yet among her bones was a surprising detail: a gold maxillary dental plate inset with porcelain teeth, suggesting a woman who had once been reasonably affluent. Her skeleton told further stories — scoliosis, arthritis, a congenital knee abnormality and poor dental health — the physical record of a life lived in hardship on the frontier.
"Jane's story is extraordinary because it connects so many threads: migration, maritime history and navigation, the challenges of women on the frontier. Through her, we glimpse what life was like for women and families who kept the lights burning, ensuring mariners, supplies and people could safely traverse the Great Barrier Reef."
— Celeste Jordan, lead archaeologist and DETSI principal heritage officerIn September 2024, Jane's carefully cleaned and recorded remains were reburied in a new site further inland, with an Anglican minister conducting a service in keeping with her Church of England faith. A small cotton handkerchief — hand-stitched by lead archaeologist Celeste Jordan with the Hexham Abbey cross from Jane's home county — was sewn with the smallest bone fragments and placed with her. LIPS member and former island caretaker Renata Musson was living on Low Island throughout the project, and helped prepare the site in the days leading up to the dig.
The project — the first of its kind on a protected area of the reef — is a reminder that caring for the Great Barrier Reef means safeguarding its human stories too. Interpretive signage is now being developed on the island to share Jane's story with visitors.
↗ Read the full story in Australian GeographicThe caretakers return: Steve & Louise come home to Low Isles
Steve Sharpe and Louise Collier have returned to Low Isles as the island's new live-in caretakers — and for this couple, it truly is a homecoming. Steve and Louise first volunteered as caretakers in 2003, won a paid tender two years later, and spent several years raising their family on this remote coral cay before leaving in December 2008.
Their son Tom was born in February 2005 — the day after a warning of potentially damaging winds — spending the first four years of his life on the island. Now 21, Tom has returned with his parents for the handover, before heading back to work in Japan.
"Unfinished business" — how Steve and Louise describe their decision to return to the island they never really left behind.
Low Isles is the only Great Barrier Reef island with live-in caretakers. Their duties include maintaining the grounds, repairing buildings and water systems, monitoring for unauthorised vessels, and engaging with the roughly 50,000 tourists who visit each year.
The island has changed since their first stint — solar power has replaced the 200 litres of diesel they once ferried by boat each month, satellite internet has replaced dial-up, and vegetation has grown back after the dry period of the 2000s. Steve and Louise are hoping their two-year term can be extended. LIPS warmly welcomes them back to this very special place.
↗ Read the full article on ABC NewsLIPS named Volunteer Museum of the Year at the 2026 Gallery & Museum Achievement Awards
The Low Isles Preservation Society has been named Volunteer Museum / Gallery of the Year at the 2026 Gallery and Museum Achievement Awards (GAMAA), presented by Museums & Galleries Queensland at Ipswich Art Gallery on 8 October 2026.
LIPS was recognised for its outstanding achievement in transforming the Low Isles Museum into an engaging and accessible cultural destination celebrating the rich scientific, maritime and cultural heritage of the Great Barrier Reef.
LIPS volunteers — together with island caretakers Ren and Col Musson — partnered with Senior Museum Development Officer Dr Jo Wills to undertake a comprehensive redevelopment of the Museum's collections, interpretation and visitor experience, shaped around four key themes: Traditional Custodians and Sea Country; the Low Isles Lighthouse and its keepers; the 1928–29 Great Barrier Reef Expedition; and the biodiversity and global significance of the Great Barrier Reef.
"The Low Isles Preservation Society demonstrates what can be achieved when passionate volunteers come together with a shared vision and commitment to preserving and sharing their community's heritage."
— Rebekah Butler, Executive Director, Museums & Galleries QueenslandThe project elevated First Nations perspectives and previously underrepresented stories, strengthened partnerships with Queensland Museum, GBRMPA and the Department of Environment, and has become a catalyst for broader regional projects celebrating maritime history and Sea Country.
↗ View the 2026 GAMAA awardsHistorical news & articles
Low Isles has been making news for nearly a century. Below is a selection of older articles, media coverage and records that trace the island's long history — from the 1928 Great Barrier Reef Expedition to decades of conservation, caretaking and community.
CAIRNS ZOOLOGICAL SURVEY AT LOW ISLES
Townsville Daily Bulletin, Saturday 25 September 1954, page 5
Members of the staffs of the Biological schools both of the Queensland and Sydney
Universities as well as others, such as from the Department of Harbours and Marine took a particularly active part In exploring the zoological inhabitants of Low Isles. Furnished with a large collection of literature, particularly those published by the British Museum and compiled by the members of the Yonge, 1929 expedition, etc., special arrangements for collecting were made use of, for example, small fish were captured by the simple method of stunning them with derris powder, causing them to float upon the surface as well as the use of nets and all sorts of contrivances. Receptacles specially made tor collections, such as glass tubes and bottles of all sizes were used, and the necessary preservatives, mostly formalin, were part of the equipment. After collecting, done mostly at a time when the tide was lowest, the various specimens were sorted and labelled, some with metallic numerals, others on paper specially printed with details written In Indian ink so that they may be placed In the solutions where they cannot be mixed up causing confusion, whilst note books are crammed with details of localities, all marked on maps provided for the purpose and adding other relevant particulars. The specimens after being individually packed and sorted out finally find places In specially constructed crates and securely screwed down pending arrival at their respective destinations. The whole arrangement was a masterpiece of organisation to ensure arrival at the respective schools in best condition until finally stored for effective study, perhaps many months or even years later.
BALANOPRORA FUNGOSA.
Mr. F. S. Averkoff has posted from Mossman, what he calls a 'root plant resembling a fungus’. However it turns out to be the flowering plant already described in these columns as Balanophora fungosa in the issues no. 76 of July 24, 1938 and 668 of June 17, 1949, and is usually parasitic on the root of a plant immediately beneath the surface of the ground. Only one Australian species is known the few existing species comprising the small Family Balanophoraceae. It is an unusually curious plant of a peculiar shining straw colour, only a few inches high with a globular flowering head about half to three-quarters of an inch in diameter, occupied for the most part by the very tiny cinnamon coloured male florets, while the diminutive female flowers form a band about Its base. Mr. Avenkoff adds some further interesting particulars. Goats are very fond of it even when it Is brown, preferring the young mushroom like plants. When freshly dug and cut it smells like peanuts. Aboriginals do not eat it. It grows prolifically around the Bloomfield River and adjacent streams.
Key Chart of Low Isles. Townsville Daily Bulletin, Saturday 25 September 1954
Launch Burst into Flames. Courier Mail Thursday 25 March 1937
SEA TRAGEDIES, Capricornian Thursday 8 March 1928, page 12
LOW ISLES
Lying 8 1/2 miles from Island Point, Port Douglas are the picturesque low Isles. The eastern one is about half a mile long by a quarter of a mile wide, and is the resort in the season of large numbers of Torres Straits pigeons which roost among the trees that are about 65 feet above water. On the western islet is a circular white tower with a red dome like a tam 'o shanter, and from it at night is flashed a white dioptric light of the 3rd order. The duration of each flash is 0.2 seconds, and of the eclipse 11.8 seconds, and the power is that of 100,000 candles. They are all needed, as this is an important turning point for ships bound up through the intricate inner route, and the weather frequently misbehaves itself there and would swallow up any less power. It has been known even to devour the whole 100,000 candle power, and leave ships groping about and praying for the merest glimmer.
This island is coming into the public eye, shortly, as on it the British scientific committee under Dr. C. M. Yonge, will make their headquarters while conducting marine biological work among the adjacent reefs. It got quite different notoriety 21 years ago— on 18th March, 1907 — when W. T. Hannah, first assistant Light keeper, disappeared into the night with his 14 year old daughter Doris, and his 10 year old son Oscar. The following is taken from the 'Port Douglas and Mossman Record ' of March 22nd, 1907.
'It appears that it was Hannah's turn on Sunday last to go on watch in the lighthouse from 8 o'clock in the evening until midnight. He went up to the lighthouse for that purpose. The superintendent of the lighthouse was also there, it being his duty to see that the light was properly lit. During the day Hannah's behaviour had certainly been most peculiar. He had been singing, praying, and swearing by turns. The superintendent said to him: 'What is the matter with you, Hannah?' and be replied: 'There is nothing the matter with me.' The superintendent then said, 'You had better go down below and have a camp for a few hours, and then you will be all right.' Hannah did not seem inclined to go, so the second assistant light keeper was ordered to burn the flare up for the Port Douglas pilot boat, as he could see that Hannah was evidently not altogether right in his head. As bad luck would have it, the pilot at Port Douglas did not, evidently, see the signal, though it was kept burning for a considerable time, nor was it apparently noticed by anyone else on the mainland. When Hannah saw the flare-up burning, he seemed to pull himself together, and stood beside the Supt. for a while. 'At about 10 o'clock Hannah appeared to calm down and become more rational, so the Supt. went down from the lighthouse, but kept looking at the light himself. At midnight Hannah went off duty, having a quarter of an hour previously called the man whose duty it was to relieve him. Everything then appeared to be all right. Hannah went to bed at his cottage shortly after midnight and slept until six o'clock the next morning. During the early part of Monday, he attended to his share of the routine work of the light house. At about 10 o'clock that morning, the Supt. said to him: 'This is a holiday, Hannah. You need not do anything more to-day.' On hearing this, Hannah jumped up in the air and shouted 'Hooray.' Hannah then went to his house, and was afterwards heard romping with the children, singing, praying, and swearing in turn. The Supt. was now quite certain that Hannah was not mentally sound, so he gave instructions to burn the flare up again.
The signal, fortunately, was answered that night, and Pilot Mathews started out from Port Douglas in the pilot cutter about 10-30 p.m. Hannah had then nothing else to do but to go home until called to do his watch at midnight. They went to call Hannah about a quarter to twelve, only to find that be had gone out in the flatty. The assistant then went to report the matter to the superintendent and they got their wives to go up the lighthouse and watch the light while they themselves went down to get their boat to search for the missing man.
They noticed that Hannah's flatty, a little bit of a boat, had disappeared, and thought that Hannah, in a fit of temporary insanity, had gone off fishing. The two searchers were after Hannah - they did not know at that time that Hannah had his two eldest children with him. After going round both the islands and finding no trace of either Hannah or his flatty, they put back at about ten minutes past two, and had just got into dry clothes when Pilot Mathews arrived at the Island in the pilot cutter.
Pilot Mathews went up and asked Mrs. Hannah where her husband was, and she replied: “He went out to meet you, and took the children (mentioning two of them by name) with him.''
It was elicited that Hannah took with him in the boat a tin hat box, which contained a suit of clothes for the boy, and a dress for the girl, along with a few nick-nacks. He also took a portmanteau, containing his shaving gear, a suit of clothes for himself of white duck. Besides these things he took a long pole and a white sheet to use for a sail, although there was no provision made for attaching a sail to the flatty, which was only about six feet long and 2ft 6in wide, and evidently incapable of carrying one mile alone from the island to Port Douglas.
Five years and ten months rolled by, and then, in January of 1913 a search party out looking for traces of the vanished Dancing Wave went as far as Cape Bedford. There they found shattered portions of the ship they were looking for, and then, higher up on the beach they found the Low Isles flatty. In it were the skeletons of two children, and the veil, which had been so reluctantly lifted, was again dropped. The sea holds the secret of what transpired on that night of horror, and the sea holds many such secrets for all time.
If men are held to be responsible for their actions, then southern officialdom should have been arraigned for the murder of two innocent children. The charge would have been that of keeping men out in positions of isolation until their minds gave way. So imbedded was this barbarous practice, that Proudfoot shoal lightship was withdrawn because eventually the light keepers went mad. Of the mentality of the officialdom which saw nothing grotesque in the awful confession, it seems impossible to more than speculate, though it gives a first-hand indication of mans’ inhumanity to his fellow men' even in this age of ultra-civilisation and humanity.