First Australian surfboards

I’ve been enjoying searching the National Library’s collection of digitised Australian newspapers. The Sydney Morning Herald now appears to be digitised up to about 1940. I did a search for the first mention of the word ‘surfboard’. Apart from a couple of mentions in the 1880s, referring to the expertise of the natives of the Sandwich Islands on their surfboards, the first use of the word in an Australian context appears to be a mention in the SMH of 24 January 1913. In a report on the recent meeting of Manly Council, it stated that Aldermen were unanimous that the ordinance relating to the practice of "surfboard shooting" at Manly was in future to be enforced. “Alderman Neale stated that he had seen no fewer than ten surfboards among the thick of the bathers.” This is well before the much-publicised visit and demonstrations of surfing by Duke Kahanamoku in 1914, and it gives considerable support to the assertion that there was a strong local surfing culture at Manly before the Duke dropped in.