US FAMILY COMMEMORATES 100TH SHARK DEATH ANNIVERSARY AT COTTESLOE BEACH

EXCLUSIVE: PERTH hotelier Michael Church could not have known when he left the water at Cottesloe on a stinking hot day in 1925 that his swimming buddy would be killed by a shark after he decided to go back in.
His son Geoffrey, 74, said thousands of people crowded the beach including the retired accountant’s father and 56-year-old Simon Ettleson who lived at Perth Metropole Hotel leased by the Church family.
“Simon and my father went swimming and after they got out of the water sat on the beach reading,” Geoffrey told StreetWise at Simon’s grave site. “Simon asked the old man whether he wanted to go back in, but he decided to stay and read his book. Simon went back in and that’s when the shark got him.”
Geoffrey says his father spoke reluctantly of the tragic events which not only rattled beach lovers that day, but changed life surfing and beach safety in WA for decades. The next shark death occurred here in 2000.
Michael was 18 and would never enter the water again, Geoffrey said, his father having died in 1987, aged 80. Michael’s father, Geoffrey’s grandfather ‘Ted’ Edgar John Church, leased the Exchange Hotel in Kalgoorlie and Metropole and Criterion hotels in Perth. Teddy died in 1948.
Simon was a bookmaker’s clerk and for several years after leaving the WA goldfields was a ‘permanent’ resident at Metropole until his death at Cottesloe on November 22, 1925.
Simon’s great great nephew Jonathan Adolph told StreetWise his family plans to travel from the US to WA to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Uncle Simon’s death at Cottesloe Beach.
On Saturday, November 22, “we plan to mark the 100th anniversary on the beach with a (hopefully uneventful!) swim at 3pm”. Simon’s family also will pay their respects at Simon’s grave at Karrakatta. No relative has ever visited the grave.
Geoffrey said he hoped to meet Simon’s family, his own family memorial just a few feet from Simon’s grave, “which needs cleaning”. He is happy to help give it a spruce up.
Incredibly, it turns out that Geoffrey’s father was not the only ‘eyewitness’ at the beach in 1925. Geoffrey told his retired business partner Greg Bryant that he had spoken to StreetWise about the shark death: “Coincidentally, my business partner’s old man was down there as well and saw it. His father was Roy, roughly a bit older than my father, but they didn’t know each other.”
Neither Geoffrey or Greg who went to the same school and have known each other for more than 60 years knew their fathers were on the same beach the same day Simon was taken by a shark.
“I don’t ever recall over my lifetime my old man swimming in the ocean again after that,” Geoffrey said at Simon’s grave. “He told us what happened, I was quite young. There were big crowds, it was a stinking hot day and they (his father and Simon) were reading a book. I can’t recall who was reading it, but one of the books ends with a bloke who walks into the sea and never returns.”
Geoffrey told StreetWise he also recalls his mother taking him to the former WA Museum site at Francis Street to visit the former shark and megamouth displays: “She said, ‘that’s the one that got Simon’.”
The preserved head of the shark caught by local police and gun-toting citizens after it killed Simon in 1925 is stored in a ‘safe house’ in Bunbury at the request of Edwards’ family.
“As a piece of Australian history, it should remain in your country,” Adolph told StreetWise. He added that it was great to hear Geoffrey shared his family history, “the connection to someone just one generation removed from Simon himself”.
He said his own research revealed family connections in the eastern states including John Ettelson, a prominent merchant in Victoria who was 12 years older than Simon, and who may have been a factor in Simon’s decision to live in Australia.
“My original plan was to recreate Simon’s travel route, arriving in Victoria before making our way west,” he said, adding the family will fly to the Goldfields for a few days to better understand Simon’s life in Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie before he moved to Perth and into the Metropole.
Adolph contacted StreetWise after having read details of the shark death in the October 2023 edition in which Hugh provides details of the 1925 shark attack. Readers can view the exclusive interview between Adolph and Edwards at www.streetwisemedia.com.au.
StreetWise approached Andrew Forrest, local councils and life saving clubs about having the head put on display for the 100th anniversary commemoration or supporting the family during its visit. Crickets.
Adolph said the family had hoped to meet Edwards who passed away in 2024. However, they said they were grateful for having met Hugh online organised by StreetWise and Silver Key Films (www.silverkeyfilms.com).