Black Rock, Ocean Road, Palm Beach

A rock relief carving funded by the Midget Farrelly Recognition Committee and supported by his family.

Midget Farrelly was the first Australian man to win a major international surfing title, the 1962 Makaha International Surfing Championships, the unofficial world surfing championship of the day. In 1964 he won the inaugural World Surfing Championship at Manly Beach in Sydney in the men’s division, alongside Phyllis O’Donnell who won the women’s title.

Born 13 September 1944, Farrelly lived at Palm Beach for 54 years where he surfed almost every day. His wife Beverlie continues to live in the family home. Most mornings and some evenings, Farrelly could be seen in the surf on one of his many short or Malibu surfboards. He was involved with the Palm Beach and Whale Beach Surf Lifesaving clubs for over 20 years as an accomplished sweep and trainer of younger rowers. He started his first surfboard business in Palm Beach at the age of 18 years.

In 1961, Midget Farrelly became the first president of Australia’s oldest surfboard riders club, Dee Why Surfing Fraternity, which still operates under the same name today. He presented a ten-part television series about surfing in Australia, The Midget Farrelly Surf Show, for the ABC in 1967. He was inducted
into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 and into the Surfing Walk of Fame at California’s Huntington Beach in 2007.

When Midget Farrelly passed on 6 August 2016, aged 71 years, over 1,000 people from throughout Australia, as well as overseas, attended his Paddle Out Tribute at Palm Beach in September 2016, where his wife and family scattered his ashes.