Lake Burley Griffin opened in April 1964 with tremendous excitement but few realised at the time how dangerous it could be.   The Sydney Morning Herald in 1965 was to refer to this ‘ornamental lake’ as an icy death trap.  That is what it was on 26 November 1964, 50 years ago.

The first rowing calendar included a ‘marathon’.  It never took place.

37 year old Col Panton and 35 year old Bruce Shields had been training for the event in a tub pair coxed by Col’s son Stuart.  Col had been in Canberra for less than a year while his family, including 9 year old Stuart, had been in Australia for only about a month.  Stuart could not swim and life jackets were not worn.

Bruce Shields account of the event was published in The Australian on 27 November.

“Mr Shields said they had been rowing for about six miles, and were nearing King’s Avenue Bridge when a sudden squall caught the craft.  They tried to beach the boat on the rocky shore of a nearby island, but then decided to head for calm water under the bridge.  Only 100 yards from shore the boat capsized.  Mr Shields said that the boy panicked and Mr Panton went to help him.”

At the Coroner’s hearing In December he gave a more detailed account of the day.  The tub apparently had been ‘shipping water’ for some time and they had stopped at Spinnaker Island to empty it.  It continued to ship water on the return and Stuart Panton was asked to bail out the boat using a can but this was lost overboard.  They went under Commonwealth Bridge and fatefully decided that it was too rough to attempt another landing to empty the boat.  The result was that the boat eventually sunk beneath them.

The boat then overturned and Col and Stuart Panton were separated from it.  Bruce Shields released one of the oars and used this to pull the Pantons back to the boat.   There was then a tug of war as Col Panton desperately hung onto the rudder and his son while Bruce tried to pull Stuart onto the upturned boat.  However, the Pantons could not hold on and they drifted away from the boat and drowned.

A bus driver, Bill Beadman, was driving over the bridge and saw the crew in difficulty.  He stripped down and rescued Bruce Shields.  Apparently, on reaching Shields, Shields simply said ‘I’ve had it’, exhausted as he was from the rowing and in his attempts to save the Pantons.  Beadman, however, managed to bring him to shore.  A woman, Mrs Vanlent, also dived in to help but was driven back by the waves.

An appeal was set up by the Burns Club, for whom Col and Bruce rowed, for Mary Panton and her two surviving children.  It topped over £1300 which was a considerable sum in those days, when a 3 bedroom house in Curtin could be purchased for around £6,000.

Onlookers lining King’s Avenue Bridge in 1964 to watch rowers near the site of the impending tragedy.  Photo by courtesy of the National Library of Australia

The event showed the best and worst of human nature.  While Bill Beadman was risking his life to save the crew, someone stole his watch, a Christmas present from this wife.  Beadman’s said the thief had missed “I’ll bet he’ll be sorry when he hears that”.

There was a bizarre epilogue to this event reported by the Canberra Times.  On 5 February 1965, Bill Beadman was driving his bus in the City when he witnessed a smash between two cars.  He said “I saw a man get slewed about and finish up hanging out of one of the cars’.  He stopped his bus and ran around to help him only to find that again it was Bruce Shields.   In fact, there had been an announcement that very morning that Bill Beadman was to be awarded the British Empire Medal for gallantry for his rescue of Bruce Shields although he did not know that at the time.

The event spawned considerable discussion around Lake safety.  There was an immediate announcement of the extension of Canberra police patrols and installation of emergency telephones.  Editorials and letters to the editors varied but there was an underlying recognition that safety had to start with those using the Lake.  It was ironic that in March 1965 the only rowing eight owned by the ANU was wrecked when a police patrol, heading into the sun, ‘ran across the shell’.

The cancelled marathon, which is run over about 9 kms, was run in subsequent years and it is now known as the Col Panton Memorial Marathon.  One of the Rowing Association’s boats supervising rowing in the ACT is, fittingly, called the Beadman.

This is an extract from Vince McMahon’s January 2011 History of the Black Mountain Rowing Club in the Context of the ACT Rowing Community.