02/11/2026
This is worth a read on Grace Bussell and why Gracetown is named after her 😎❤️
In December 1876, a 16-year-old girl rode her horse down a steep coastal slope and straight into the violent surf of Western Australia.
A steamship was sinking, and people were struggling to survive in the waves.
Her name was Grace Bussell.
The SS Georgette had developed a leak while traveling along Australia’s southwestern coast. Lifeboats had been launched, but one overturned, drowning seven people. The damaged vessel eventually drifted toward the rocks at Calgardup Bay.
A Noongar stockman named Sam Isaacs spotted the disaster. He traveled roughly 20 kilometers to alert the Bussell family, then returned with Grace, who volunteered to help.
What followed was an extraordinary rescue.
Grace and Sam rode their horses into the breaking waves, approaching passengers trapped in the surf. Desperate survivors grabbed the horses’ manes, saddles and tails, clinging to whatever they could reach as the riders guided them toward shore.
The rescue effort lasted hours.
Approximately 50 people survived the wreck, with Grace and Sam playing crucial roles in bringing those stranded in the surf to safety.
Grace became a national heroine. Newspapers celebrated the teenage girl who had ridden into the sea. She received a silver medal from the Royal Humane Society and a gold watch.
Sam Isaacs also received a bravery medal, but his was bronze.
As an Aboriginal man in colonial Australia, his contribution received considerably less public attention, even though he had discovered the wreck, raised the alarm and risked his life in the same dangerous waters.
Grace later married, raised seven children and died in 1935.
Her name lives on in Western Australian place names, including Gracetown.
Sam’s contribution took much longer to receive comparable recognition.
The rescue itself was remarkable enough: a teenage girl and an Aboriginal stockman riding horses into the ocean to save strangers.
But the story also reveals how differently two people could be remembered for the same extraordinary act of courage.
