Dillon, D'Alton & Wyatt Families
Australia 1850-1910
by Ruairí Lynch
Work in Progress - last updated: 25 April 2021
Work in Progress - last updated: 25 April 2021
Introduction
A century after the birth of a grand-aunt Alice Wyatt on her parents sheep station in the remote North-Western bushland of Australia's New South Wales, I lived nearby for a few years unaware of the extended family connections to the area.
Some thirty years later, Freddie Dwyer in his 2015 article on the wedding of a Grand-Uncle, Dennis Lynch to Alice Wyatt (see here), piqued an interest to research this long deceased & distant Grand-Aunt's Australian background. I wanted to discover a little more on her British & Irish colonial settler parents and what must have been their challenging and unremittingly difficult lives on a remote 19th century Australian sheep station. From the boom, drought & bust years of the 1880s-90's to their family tragedies in the last years of the 19th century and the first year of the 20th century and their return to Ireland.
With so few primary documents surviving to 2020, insights into this era can be best discovered in both Australian history & Australian literature. However, writers of this time either romanticise the Australian experience of outback and bush life through the poems of a former war correspondent & bush horseman, Banjo Patterson or underlines the harshness of life & death with the short stories and poems of the cynical & battered alcoholic journalist, Henry Lawson.
However, it took a genteel young woman from one of Sydney's wealthy Harbour suburbs, who never actually ventured into the remote parts of the nation to perfectly capture the unique relationship between most Australians and their rugged, spectacular and at times, unforgiving continent home.
Dorothea Mackellar writes effortlessly in her simple but much loved evocative 1908 poem: 'My Country':
A century after the birth of a grand-aunt Alice Wyatt on her parents sheep station in the remote North-Western bushland of Australia's New South Wales, I lived nearby for a few years unaware of the extended family connections to the area.
Some thirty years later, Freddie Dwyer in his 2015 article on the wedding of a Grand-Uncle, Dennis Lynch to Alice Wyatt (see here), piqued an interest to research this long deceased & distant Grand-Aunt's Australian background. I wanted to discover a little more on her British & Irish colonial settler parents and what must have been their challenging and unremittingly difficult lives on a remote 19th century Australian sheep station. From the boom, drought & bust years of the 1880s-90's to their family tragedies in the last years of the 19th century and the first year of the 20th century and their return to Ireland.
With so few primary documents surviving to 2020, insights into this era can be best discovered in both Australian history & Australian literature. However, writers of this time either romanticise the Australian experience of outback and bush life through the poems of a former war correspondent & bush horseman, Banjo Patterson or underlines the harshness of life & death with the short stories and poems of the cynical & battered alcoholic journalist, Henry Lawson.
However, it took a genteel young woman from one of Sydney's wealthy Harbour suburbs, who never actually ventured into the remote parts of the nation to perfectly capture the unique relationship between most Australians and their rugged, spectacular and at times, unforgiving continent home.
Dorothea Mackellar writes effortlessly in her simple but much loved evocative 1908 poem: 'My Country':
Thanks to xitsm3lissax.
Primary record sources for this article have been somewhat limited on the various Stations or large land holdings mentioned. While the original station owners and managers would have certainly kept employee, stock and rainfall records, even personal diaries, few records have survived and those that have are generally not available publicly either in archives or online. As most pastoral properties were privately owned, survival of station records were dependent on the foresight of owners and the amount of value they placed on these records. For this reason, examples deposited in official repositories are rare, some continue to be kept privately, but many more have been either lost or destroyed over the years.
Fortunately, through the Australian National & State Museums, newspaper archives, land leases, personal papers and previously published information, a reasonably clear picture can be made of Outback life in the last few decades of the Nineteenth Century.
As with most articles here, this is an ongoing work in progress which is added to and amended as further information is contributed or discovered as further archives become available.
Let's begin in Ireland, just after the famine in September 1849 with the Dillon sisters from Clonpet, Clanwilliam, Co Tipperary....
Fortunately, through the Australian National & State Museums, newspaper archives, land leases, personal papers and previously published information, a reasonably clear picture can be made of Outback life in the last few decades of the Nineteenth Century.
As with most articles here, this is an ongoing work in progress which is added to and amended as further information is contributed or discovered as further archives become available.
Let's begin in Ireland, just after the famine in September 1849 with the Dillon sisters from Clonpet, Clanwilliam, Co Tipperary....
‘Most countries send out oil or iron, steel or gold, or some other crop, but Ireland has had only one export and that is its people.’
United States President John F. Kennedy. Speech at the Kennedy ancestral home, New Ross, Co. Wexford, Ireland, June 1963
No country in Europe has experienced more emigration over the last two centuries as has Ireland. Approximately ten million people emigrated from the island between 1800-1950 with the Famine of 1846-49 accounting for the highest rates. As with the Kennedys, the destination of choice for many was the United States, with Britain and Australia also accounting for many hundreds of thousands of Irish migrants. Roughly one in two people born in Ireland in the nineteenth century emigrated and it was not unusual for entire families or at least two or more family members to emigrate together.
One such family were that of Martin Dillon (1781- July 6, 1843) and Margaret Crowe of Clonpet, Co. Tipperary and their fourteen children.
One such family were that of Martin Dillon (1781- July 6, 1843) and Margaret Crowe of Clonpet, Co. Tipperary and their fourteen children.
In the Tithe Applotment books for Clonpett Civil Parish of 1832, there is a Martin Dillon listed living in Clonpet Townland.
Almost twenty years later in the Griffith’s Valuation for Clonpet in 1851 there is a Margaret Dillon living in Clonpet. Within fifty years, by the 1901 Census there are no Dillons living at Clonpet. All but one were either deceased or had emigrated to Australia.
Almost twenty years later in the Griffith’s Valuation for Clonpet in 1851 there is a Margaret Dillon living in Clonpet. Within fifty years, by the 1901 Census there are no Dillons living at Clonpet. All but one were either deceased or had emigrated to Australia.
Our story concerns four of the Dillons in 1849 - the second-youngest, eighteen year old Bridget (1831-1924), the youngest member of the family, James (1833-1877) and sisters, twenty-four year old Margaret 'Ellen' (1825-1869) and thirty year old Hanora (1819-1917).
Having survived the Famine and the resultant social and economic chaos and with so few opportunities available to a deceased Tipperary tenant farmer's children, many of the Dillon's brothers and sisters had already emigrated to Australia. Hanora was about to marry a local Tipperary merchant, Richard D'Alton (1814-1875) and remain in Ireland. Bridget, Margaret and James were now of an age where there remained little alternative but to emigrate. From surviving letters, it is clear that the Dillons were literate and points to the reality that they had been educated somewhat before the benefits of primary education became compulsory in 1831. All three Dillons were 'Assisted Immigrants' - their voyage costs were subsidised fully or partially by the colonial government.
To put the effect of the famine into real terms, after Co. Cork, Co. Tipperary suffered the largest estimated loss of population in Ireland arising from the Famine during 1841-1851 with 24% or 136,941 persons lost to disease or emigration. The Dillons were leaving behind an island and people devastated by one of the worst natural disasters to have occurred in Europe. Within a few short years, Ireland's population of almost 8.4 million fell to 6 million with over one million people lost to famine and famine related disease and some 1.4 million emigrating.
Families generally did not migrate unless necessary, but younger members of families did, so much so that emigration almost became a rite of passage, as evidenced by the data that show that, unlike similar emigrations throughout world history, women emigrated just as often, just as early, and in the same numbers as men. The emigrants would send remittances (reaching a total of £1,4 million by 1851) back to family in Ireland, which, in turn, allowed another member of their family to leave. Such an example were the Dillons.
The population as recorded by the Census Commission in 1851 was 6,552,385. The Commissioners stated that, had the Famine not occurred, the population would have been 9,018,799. The commissioners calculated that, as a percentage of the 1841 population, mortality from 1845 to 1850 ranged from 6.4% in 1845 to 18.5% in 1847, 17.9% in 1849 and 12.2% in 1850
The Commissioners wrote somewhat glowingly in their concluding report, a remarkable Malthusian comment which still echoes through the years to today: "In conclusion, we feel it will be gratifying to your excellency to find that although the population has been diminished in so remarkable a manner by famine, disease and emigration between 1841 and 1851, and has been since decreasing, the results of the Irish census of 1851 are, on the whole, satisfactory, demonstrating as they do the general advancement of the country."
The famine and its effects permanently changed the island's demographic, political, and cultural landscape, producing an estimated two million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline. For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory. The strained relations between many Irish and their British government soured further because of the famine, heightening ethnic and sectarian tensions and boosting Irish nationalism and republicanism in Ireland and among Irish emigrants in the United States and elsewhere.
Having survived the Famine and the resultant social and economic chaos and with so few opportunities available to a deceased Tipperary tenant farmer's children, many of the Dillon's brothers and sisters had already emigrated to Australia. Hanora was about to marry a local Tipperary merchant, Richard D'Alton (1814-1875) and remain in Ireland. Bridget, Margaret and James were now of an age where there remained little alternative but to emigrate. From surviving letters, it is clear that the Dillons were literate and points to the reality that they had been educated somewhat before the benefits of primary education became compulsory in 1831. All three Dillons were 'Assisted Immigrants' - their voyage costs were subsidised fully or partially by the colonial government.
To put the effect of the famine into real terms, after Co. Cork, Co. Tipperary suffered the largest estimated loss of population in Ireland arising from the Famine during 1841-1851 with 24% or 136,941 persons lost to disease or emigration. The Dillons were leaving behind an island and people devastated by one of the worst natural disasters to have occurred in Europe. Within a few short years, Ireland's population of almost 8.4 million fell to 6 million with over one million people lost to famine and famine related disease and some 1.4 million emigrating.
Families generally did not migrate unless necessary, but younger members of families did, so much so that emigration almost became a rite of passage, as evidenced by the data that show that, unlike similar emigrations throughout world history, women emigrated just as often, just as early, and in the same numbers as men. The emigrants would send remittances (reaching a total of £1,4 million by 1851) back to family in Ireland, which, in turn, allowed another member of their family to leave. Such an example were the Dillons.
The population as recorded by the Census Commission in 1851 was 6,552,385. The Commissioners stated that, had the Famine not occurred, the population would have been 9,018,799. The commissioners calculated that, as a percentage of the 1841 population, mortality from 1845 to 1850 ranged from 6.4% in 1845 to 18.5% in 1847, 17.9% in 1849 and 12.2% in 1850
The Commissioners wrote somewhat glowingly in their concluding report, a remarkable Malthusian comment which still echoes through the years to today: "In conclusion, we feel it will be gratifying to your excellency to find that although the population has been diminished in so remarkable a manner by famine, disease and emigration between 1841 and 1851, and has been since decreasing, the results of the Irish census of 1851 are, on the whole, satisfactory, demonstrating as they do the general advancement of the country."
The famine and its effects permanently changed the island's demographic, political, and cultural landscape, producing an estimated two million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline. For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory. The strained relations between many Irish and their British government soured further because of the famine, heightening ethnic and sectarian tensions and boosting Irish nationalism and republicanism in Ireland and among Irish emigrants in the United States and elsewhere.
With low probability of Bridget, Margaret or James returning to the family home in Tipperary, the trio would have had an "American Wake" the day before departure in September 1849.
It is not know exactly when the "American Wake" came into being, but it was practised at least as early as 1830. It became more popular as immigration increased and was particularly popular in the west of Ireland. To the native Irish speakers in Mayo it was known as the "feast of departure". The emigrant made the rounds of friends and neighbours in the week preceding his departure to let them know they were leaving and to extend an informal invitation to the "wake". This usually started in the evening before the emigrant was to depart and lasted until the early hours of the next morning.
In the early days the wakes were sober affairs since many people did not have food, drink or money to serve refreshments. They were primarily occasions to give advice to the emigrant and to ask him or her to give messages to loved ones and family members already in the country they were leaving for. As time went on, the wakes took on more of a celebratory atmosphere with food, drink, dancing, and music. In some cases the entire expense for the "American wake" was sent along with the sailing ticket by relatives already in America or Australia. The night was a mixture of gaiety and sadness. There were understably, bouts of crying and keening and ballads about the difficulties of departing and the hard life of the immigrant were sung.
"...when money was scarce, travel slow and perilous, illiteracy widespread, and mail service highly uncertain and destinations only vaguely perceived, the departure for North America or further afield of a relative or neighbour represented as final a parting as a descent to the grave.'
When morning came the emigrant said good bye to his parents and family. A "convoy" of his friends and acquaintances accompanied him to a particular crossroads or to the train station, if one was near. These wakes often ranked in importance only slightly lower than births, marriages, and deaths. There was an additional factor deeply rooted in Irish folklore that contributed to the correlation of going to the United States, which lay to the west, and to death. According to ancient voyage tales, the land of the dead lay in the mythical isles of the west. Western travellers were believed fated to an early demise. Western rooms were traditionally reserved for older parents who had already relinquished control of farms to their sons, in other words the most likely to be the next to die. Ironically, Tir no nog, the mythical western "Land of the Young", was the place from which no one returned except to wither and die.
It is not know exactly when the "American Wake" came into being, but it was practised at least as early as 1830. It became more popular as immigration increased and was particularly popular in the west of Ireland. To the native Irish speakers in Mayo it was known as the "feast of departure". The emigrant made the rounds of friends and neighbours in the week preceding his departure to let them know they were leaving and to extend an informal invitation to the "wake". This usually started in the evening before the emigrant was to depart and lasted until the early hours of the next morning.
In the early days the wakes were sober affairs since many people did not have food, drink or money to serve refreshments. They were primarily occasions to give advice to the emigrant and to ask him or her to give messages to loved ones and family members already in the country they were leaving for. As time went on, the wakes took on more of a celebratory atmosphere with food, drink, dancing, and music. In some cases the entire expense for the "American wake" was sent along with the sailing ticket by relatives already in America or Australia. The night was a mixture of gaiety and sadness. There were understably, bouts of crying and keening and ballads about the difficulties of departing and the hard life of the immigrant were sung.
"...when money was scarce, travel slow and perilous, illiteracy widespread, and mail service highly uncertain and destinations only vaguely perceived, the departure for North America or further afield of a relative or neighbour represented as final a parting as a descent to the grave.'
When morning came the emigrant said good bye to his parents and family. A "convoy" of his friends and acquaintances accompanied him to a particular crossroads or to the train station, if one was near. These wakes often ranked in importance only slightly lower than births, marriages, and deaths. There was an additional factor deeply rooted in Irish folklore that contributed to the correlation of going to the United States, which lay to the west, and to death. According to ancient voyage tales, the land of the dead lay in the mythical isles of the west. Western travellers were believed fated to an early demise. Western rooms were traditionally reserved for older parents who had already relinquished control of farms to their sons, in other words the most likely to be the next to die. Ironically, Tir no nog, the mythical western "Land of the Young", was the place from which no one returned except to wither and die.
"on approaching a cluster of houses, we were were startled — to say the truth, out blood ran cold— at the loud cry of a young girl who ran across the road, with a petticoat over her head, which did not conceal the tears on her convulsed face. A crowd of poor people came from — we know not where — most of the in tears, women weeping quietly, others with unbearable cries. A man, his wife, and three young children were going to America. They were well dressed, all shod, and the little girls bonneted. There was some delay — much delay — about where to put their great box; and the delay was truly painful........ All eyes were fixed on the neighbors who were going away for ever. The last embraces were terrible to see; but worse were the kissings and clasping of hands during the log minutes that remained after the woman and children had taken their seats...... When a distant turn in the road showed the hamlet again, we could just distinguish the people standing where we left them. As for the family, — we could not see the man, who was on the other side of the car. The woman's face was soon like other people's, and the children were eating oatcake very composedly"
Letters from Ireland By Harriet Martineau, Reinhard S. Speck, 1852
Bridget, Margaret & James left Clonpet Co. Tipperary, travelling (accompanied no doubt by family members for part of the journey and with other neighbours emigrating) by foot, horse & coach & train to Dublin, taking an emigrant ship to Britain, then overland by train from Wales to Plymouth on the south coast.
....We are bent over in a bad light.
We are sewing a last sight of shore.
We are sewing coffin ships.
And the salt of exile.
And our own death in it.
For history’s abandonment we are doing this...
"In a Bad Light" by Eavan Boland (1944-2020)
The Last of England by Ford Maddox Brown, 1855. An oil-on-panel painting depicting two emigrants leaving England to start a new life in Australia with their baby. The theme was inspired by the emigration of the sculptor Thomas Woolner, a fellow Pre-Raphaelite, who left for the goldfields of Australia in July 1852. In the same year, 369,000 emigrants left Britain to seek their fortune overseas. Brown himself, hardly able to make a living from his art, was contemplating emigrating to India when he began work on The Last of England. As the main focus of the picture he chose a middle-class couple, 'high enough, through education and refinement, to appreciate all they are now giving up, and yet depressed enough in means to have to put up with the discomforts and humiliations incident to a vessel "all one class".' Beneath her shawl the woman cradles a small baby, whose tiny hand (modelled on that of Brown's own child) is just visible, grasping its mother's hand. The models for the figures were the artist himself and his second wife, Emma. The father's brooding expression betrays his anxiety and apprehension at the voyage ahead, while the mother's serene features convey her trust and sense of resignation.
Farewell to thee England, oh land of our birth,
The pride and the glory and queen of the earth.
We sail with sad hearts to a land far away
In search of the bread that may fail if we stay.
Charles Bennett, The Emigrants. Illustrated London News, June 19, 1852
Farewell to thee England, oh land of our birth,
The pride and the glory and queen of the earth.
We sail with sad hearts to a land far away
In search of the bread that may fail if we stay.
Charles Bennett, The Emigrants. Illustrated London News, June 19, 1852
The Passenger Act of 1847 had officially ensured that each (eligible) emigrant leaving Britain or Ireland had 10 cubic feet of space and a sufficient supply of potable water and food aboard the emigrant vessels. Realistically, most captains did not obey this requirement and many passengers died from disease in the cramped quarters aboard. Of the estimated 1.5 million Irish that emigrated from 1845 to 1851, upwards of 20-45% died either aboard their 'coffin ships' on the journey to a new life or shortly after arrival in their new home.
The Dillon sisters & brother went aboard the Backwall frigate 'The Maitland' in late September and prepared to sail with 288 men, women and children plus crew. Formerly a convict transport ship to Australia, The Maitland's cargo had changed to the more lucrative emigrant market in 1846 under Admiralty Charter. The sailing was delayed due to a not uncommon outbreak of cholera aboard resulting in 7 deaths and the vessel was isolated for a period with all aboard. Finally cleared to leave port, 'The Maitland' captained by William Henry left Plymouth on 2 October 1849 bound for Australia.
Life at sea was uncomfortable and often hazardous, particularly for passengers who travelled cheaply in 'steerage' (the lowest deck and below the water line). Storms were common in the Southern Ocean, but were not the only danger. Hygiene was poor at the best of times and worse in bad weather. 'Batten-down the hatches' meant passengers on the lowest deck were confined without ventilation or light in conditions that were ideal for the spread of disease. The use of candles or oil lanterns was restricted and sometimes forbidden – cramped conditions with timber, straw mattresses, hemp (rope) and tar caulking, meant a fire could spread with terrifying speed. Contagious diseases or a disaster at sea or shipwreck left little hope for rescue – few sailors or passengers could swim, and there were rarely enough life-boats for the numbers on board.
The ships surgeon was particularly busy on the Maitland's outward voyage - cholera re-appeared resulting in one death, five more deaths from diarrhoea but with eight children born at sea.
Usual stops en-route would have included Gibraltar and Cape Town for water and supplies before the long run across the frequently stormy Southern Ocean to Fremantle in Western Australia and then onto Victoria.
Young, marriageable English speaking women (even if they were Roman Catholic Irish) were particularly welcome in the emerging state of Victoria as they were viewed as a stabilising influence to the rough, masculine colonial societies, while also helping fill the need for marriagable partners and employment as domestic servants. Australian society was essentially British and with it, largely sectarian with a distinct cultural, racial and religious divide. The Irish Roman Catholic influx from the early 1850's was viewed with a degree of suspicion and hostility but for many, not sufficiently so to prevent marriage.
The Dillon sisters & brother went aboard the Backwall frigate 'The Maitland' in late September and prepared to sail with 288 men, women and children plus crew. Formerly a convict transport ship to Australia, The Maitland's cargo had changed to the more lucrative emigrant market in 1846 under Admiralty Charter. The sailing was delayed due to a not uncommon outbreak of cholera aboard resulting in 7 deaths and the vessel was isolated for a period with all aboard. Finally cleared to leave port, 'The Maitland' captained by William Henry left Plymouth on 2 October 1849 bound for Australia.
Life at sea was uncomfortable and often hazardous, particularly for passengers who travelled cheaply in 'steerage' (the lowest deck and below the water line). Storms were common in the Southern Ocean, but were not the only danger. Hygiene was poor at the best of times and worse in bad weather. 'Batten-down the hatches' meant passengers on the lowest deck were confined without ventilation or light in conditions that were ideal for the spread of disease. The use of candles or oil lanterns was restricted and sometimes forbidden – cramped conditions with timber, straw mattresses, hemp (rope) and tar caulking, meant a fire could spread with terrifying speed. Contagious diseases or a disaster at sea or shipwreck left little hope for rescue – few sailors or passengers could swim, and there were rarely enough life-boats for the numbers on board.
The ships surgeon was particularly busy on the Maitland's outward voyage - cholera re-appeared resulting in one death, five more deaths from diarrhoea but with eight children born at sea.
Usual stops en-route would have included Gibraltar and Cape Town for water and supplies before the long run across the frequently stormy Southern Ocean to Fremantle in Western Australia and then onto Victoria.
Young, marriageable English speaking women (even if they were Roman Catholic Irish) were particularly welcome in the emerging state of Victoria as they were viewed as a stabilising influence to the rough, masculine colonial societies, while also helping fill the need for marriagable partners and employment as domestic servants. Australian society was essentially British and with it, largely sectarian with a distinct cultural, racial and religious divide. The Irish Roman Catholic influx from the early 1850's was viewed with a degree of suspicion and hostility but for many, not sufficiently so to prevent marriage.
The Maitland Voyage 1849-50
Built and launched in Cacutta, india in 1811, the Maitland made four voyages for the East India Company between 1812-30. Three voyages were made as a convict transport to Van Diemen's Land during the 1840-46. In 1847, the Maitland changed it's shipping cargo specifications and was subsequently chartered under Admiralty control. Refitted and improved, the Maitland began shipping migrants on the more lucrative long-distance run from Britain to Australia for two voyages in 1849/50 and 1855. Thereafter she traded widely before she was wrecked c.1869. September 2020: Research is ongoing detailing the Dillon sisters voyage on the Maitland in 1849-50. A link will be made available here when completed. |
Below: the passenger manifest of The Maitland recording passengers disembarked on January 9, 1850.
Margaret Dillon is listed as unmarried, 26 years of age, worked as a Dairymaid, from Co. Tipperary, could read and write, and faith is of the 'Church of Rome' Brigid Dillon is listed as unmarried, 18 years of age, a House Servant from Co. Tipperary, and like her sister, able to read and write and of the 'Church of Rome'. Their brother James, aged just 16, an agricultural labourer and he could both read and write.
Margaret Dillon is listed as unmarried, 26 years of age, worked as a Dairymaid, from Co. Tipperary, could read and write, and faith is of the 'Church of Rome' Brigid Dillon is listed as unmarried, 18 years of age, a House Servant from Co. Tipperary, and like her sister, able to read and write and of the 'Church of Rome'. Their brother James, aged just 16, an agricultural labourer and he could both read and write.
Just under one hundred days later, on 9 January 1850, the 283 men, women and child emigrants that had survived the voyage arrived at Port Phillip, Melbourne.
Shortly after arrival, Bridget began working for L. Solomon of Melbourne for an annual wage of £64. She would remain in Melbourne for the next 74 years, marrying and raising a family but never returning to Ireland. Bridget's older sister, Hanora (1819-1917) was possibly the only sibling to remain in Ireland, had married c.1847, Richard D'Alton (1814-75) a Tipperary Merchant, political activist and pioneering Gaelic scholar. By 1849, they had two daughters, Margaret 'Maggie' and Mary Louisa and lived in Clonpet, Clanwilliam, Co. Tipperary. |
The southern continent that the Dillons had emigrated to was largely peaceful. 'The vast heart of the continent had barely been touched by the white settlers, to whom it was a distant back country of desert dunes, forbidding heat and unknown dangers...." Australian society was 'firmly shaped as white, male dominated, hierarchical, dependent on Britain, closely governed and highly urbanised. The freedoms, inherited from Britain, of religion, press and association were upheld and treasured...law and order on the English model was accepted...the proportion of three males to one female had not changed much by the end of the 1850s but there were seven times as many females as 1851. This made a difference to the whole fabric of society..."
John Molony. The Penguin Bicentennial History of Australia. Viking 1987. p101/108-109
By 1850, there had been a clear change in European settlement of Australia. The transportation of convicts while continuing was being gradually phased out between 1840 & 1868 and the continent was dividing into five seperate colonies - each exhibiting more loyalty to Mother England at times, than to it's neighbours.
John Molony. The Penguin Bicentennial History of Australia. Viking 1987. p101/108-109
By 1850, there had been a clear change in European settlement of Australia. The transportation of convicts while continuing was being gradually phased out between 1840 & 1868 and the continent was dividing into five seperate colonies - each exhibiting more loyalty to Mother England at times, than to it's neighbours.
In a letter dated September 1st, 1850, Bridget wrote to Hanora, her last remaining sister in Ireland, of her new life in the Colony:
Bridget describes the minutiae of life in Port Phillip/Melbourne of the time and of the southern hemisphere spring:
Bridget & Ellen were following older sibliings to Australia including sister, Alice (1810-1890) and brother, John Dillon (1807-1861), who had emigrated in the early 1840's.
John had married Catherine Donovan in Melbourne 1845 and by 1850 he had acquired the 'Horse and Jockey' inn at Black Dog Creek (near Chiltern, Victoria) some 200 miles north of Melbourne and a busy spot close to the Wahgunyah cattle run, a 30,000 acre (47 square mile) cattle station.
Bridget observed in her letter that John:
John had married Catherine Donovan in Melbourne 1845 and by 1850 he had acquired the 'Horse and Jockey' inn at Black Dog Creek (near Chiltern, Victoria) some 200 miles north of Melbourne and a busy spot close to the Wahgunyah cattle run, a 30,000 acre (47 square mile) cattle station.
Bridget observed in her letter that John:
The 'two fine boys' were his sons Martin John Dillon (1847-1877) and Malachi Dillon (1850-1930), both born at Loddon River, Victoria. The Loddon River region became both the first and one of the largest gold producing sites of Australia. By the time the discovery of gold was announced, The Dillon family had just moved some 290kms west and were running Black Dog Creek's 'Horse and Jockey' inn. Bridget's mention of James is their brother, James Michael Dillon (1833-1877) who had emigrated with Bridget and Margaret.
The Black Dog Inn also known as the Horse and Jockey hotel, built by John Dillon in 1851, remained in business until the liquor licence was cancelled and last drinks called in 1920, after which the Dillon family sold it. Situated on the Black Dog Creek just west of Chiltern township the building is now a private residence. Image courtesy of www.realestate.com.au (The property went up for sale in 2017)
The Black Dog Creek Inn was, initially at any rate, a rough low roofed wooden structure used as a bush pub, stables and as a change over point by the mails to change horses. In 1851 John Dillon demolished the original structure and erected a brick inn which was opened in 1852. From 1854 to 1857 it was used as a police barracks, and between the hotel and the creek was a slab gaol which stood into the twentieth century. The inn was used by fellow Irishman, Robert O'Hara Burke of the ill-fated Burke-Wills Expedition (1860-61) in his role as Magistrate and District Inspector of Police for the nearby goldfields of Beechworth. He resided at the Black Dog Inn during much of 1854, recording that the stables were in disrepair and that the landlord (Dillon) wanted money from him to improve them.
It would appear that money was an ongoing issue with John. As his sister observed in her letter to Hanora on September 1st, 1850:
Nothing new there between some sisters-in-law, however £20 in 1850 was not an unsubstantial sum. According to the Office for National Statistics composite price index, today's prices in 2020 are 13,450.52% are hardly surprisingly higher than average prices since 1850. The British pound experienced an average inflation rate of 2.93% per year during this period, causing the real value of a pound to decrease. In other words, £20 in 1850 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £2,710.10 in 2020, a difference of £2,690.10 over 170 years. (source data here)
In Bridget's letter to Honora, we can glean a great deal of information as regards her life in Australia and her previous life in Ireland. At a time when letters between Australia & Ireland would have taken the best part of two months to transport one way, there evidently had already been some written communication between Hanora and her sister, Bridget.
Martin Dillon (1822-1900) had remained in Ireland looking after his ageing mother and the family farm. He married Honora 'Margaret' Quirke (1834-1911) in February 1856 in Tipperary. However, he and his family also left Ireland and emigrated to Australia, arriving aboard the 'Eastern Empire' with their four children in June 1863. The probability is that his mother Margaret had died around this time and with little future in Ireland, left for the more promising shores of Australia. Sadly, within a short time of arrival, their infant son, Patrick aged 16 months died of scarlet fever. Between 1863 and his death in 1900, Martin built up a farm at Bulla, Victoria, naming it 'Clonpett Farm'. An indication of the size of the holding is that on his death, dying intestate, there were 1,127 acres. 685 acres were subsequently bought from the estate by his sons Martin & William with the balance sold to provide for their sister.
Bridget goes on to describe how her siblings are faring in Victoria:
Bridget goes on to describe how her siblings are faring in Victoria:
John Dalton (1810-1882) was Ellen Dillon's husband. Michael was their second child, born in June 1850 in Melbourne, Victoria.
These are Bridget's siblings (in birth order):
- John Dillon (1807-1861) married Catherine Donovan in Melbourne, Victoria, 1845.
- William Dillon (1809- ?)
- Alice Dillon (1810-1890)
- Michael Dillon (1812 - ?)
- Timothy Dillon (1814-?)
- Margaret Mary Dillon (1817-1910) married Tipperary man Thomas Ryan (1823-1878)
- Hanora Dillon (1820-1917) married Richard D'Alton. Remained in Ireland.
- Michael Dillon (1822 ? )
- Martin Dillon (1822-1900)
- Mary Dillon (1823-? )
- Ellen (1825-1869). Married John Dalton (1810-1882)
- Bridget Dillon (1831-1924)
- James Michael Dillon (1833-1877). Married Mary Duhy in Victoria,1855.
As a reasonably educated young woman with family members for support, Bridget was more fortunate than some on arrival in Australia. Between 1849 and 1851, the Earl Grey scheme took orphaned girls aged between 14 to 19 from workhouses across Ireland to work in Australia as servants, and to help populate the new colony.
"The first orphans girls arrived from Ireland to Australia aboard the Lady Kennaway on September 11th, 1848. Most of the girls were from counties Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal, and many were Gaelic speakers. A total six ships, the Lady Kennaway, Pemberton, Diadem, New Liverpool, Derwent and Eliza Caroline, sailed across the world with 4,000 Irish Famine orphan girls, with 1,700 of them arriving in Melbourne. The orphans had an important - still widely unknown - role in the Australian story, and one which countless Australians can claim in their own family story." Siobhán O'Neill in The Irish Times, Thursday November 7, 2019.
After the horror of starvation and loss of family and home in the Irish Famine, surviving the destitution of the infamous workhouses and enduring an arduous sea voyage, the orphans reached a strange and intimidating new land. However, that was not how the local populace saw the arrival of these orphaned Irish girls.
An excerpt from The Argus, which was Melbourne’s main newspaper of the day, on April 4th, 1850 thundered:
“Another ship-load of female immigrants from Ireland has reached our shores, and yet, though everybody is crying out against the monstrous infliction, and the palpable waste of the immigration fund, furnished by the colonists in bringing out these worthless characters …”.
Another excerpt from The Argus on April 24th, 1850 of a citizen echoed society’s clamour:
“The whole country cries out against the further admission into our colony, of such degraded beings as the majority of the female orphans have been found.Nor has their cry been raised without reason, for we venture to say, every vessel that brings an increase of this kind to our female population, brings a melancholy increase to the vice and lewdness that is now to seem rampant in every part of our town. From this class we have received no good servants for the wealthier classes in the towns, no efficient farm servants for the rural population, no virtuous, and industrious young women, fit wives for the labouring part of the community; and by the introduction of whom a strong barrier would be erected against the floods of iniquity that are now sweeping every trace of morality from the most public thoroughfares of our city.”
For more information on the Earl Grey Orphan Scheme - Trevor McClaughlin has produced a wonderful insight into the Irish orphan girls shipped to help populate the Colonies - click here.
"The first orphans girls arrived from Ireland to Australia aboard the Lady Kennaway on September 11th, 1848. Most of the girls were from counties Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal, and many were Gaelic speakers. A total six ships, the Lady Kennaway, Pemberton, Diadem, New Liverpool, Derwent and Eliza Caroline, sailed across the world with 4,000 Irish Famine orphan girls, with 1,700 of them arriving in Melbourne. The orphans had an important - still widely unknown - role in the Australian story, and one which countless Australians can claim in their own family story." Siobhán O'Neill in The Irish Times, Thursday November 7, 2019.
After the horror of starvation and loss of family and home in the Irish Famine, surviving the destitution of the infamous workhouses and enduring an arduous sea voyage, the orphans reached a strange and intimidating new land. However, that was not how the local populace saw the arrival of these orphaned Irish girls.
An excerpt from The Argus, which was Melbourne’s main newspaper of the day, on April 4th, 1850 thundered:
“Another ship-load of female immigrants from Ireland has reached our shores, and yet, though everybody is crying out against the monstrous infliction, and the palpable waste of the immigration fund, furnished by the colonists in bringing out these worthless characters …”.
Another excerpt from The Argus on April 24th, 1850 of a citizen echoed society’s clamour:
“The whole country cries out against the further admission into our colony, of such degraded beings as the majority of the female orphans have been found.Nor has their cry been raised without reason, for we venture to say, every vessel that brings an increase of this kind to our female population, brings a melancholy increase to the vice and lewdness that is now to seem rampant in every part of our town. From this class we have received no good servants for the wealthier classes in the towns, no efficient farm servants for the rural population, no virtuous, and industrious young women, fit wives for the labouring part of the community; and by the introduction of whom a strong barrier would be erected against the floods of iniquity that are now sweeping every trace of morality from the most public thoroughfares of our city.”
For more information on the Earl Grey Orphan Scheme - Trevor McClaughlin has produced a wonderful insight into the Irish orphan girls shipped to help populate the Colonies - click here.
Dangers of bushfires were prominent from early settlement. A gigantic bush fire swept through a vast swathe of country from South Australia close to Port Phillip in February 1851. Named 'Black Thursday' as ash fell in Melbourne's streets and smoke filled the skies for days in the 45c heat.
On 1 July 1851, writs were issued for the election of the first Victorian Legislative Council, and the absolute independence of Victoria from New South Wales was established proclaiming a new Colony of Victoria.
A major force within the Colonies was the 'Squatocracy' - the rich military officers and free settlers who had moved gradually into the more fertile hinterlands of New South Wales & Victoria. They had simply laid claim to or 'squatted' upon enormous tracts of land, often larger than 20,000 acres/31 square miles blocks of land, which had become large sheep farming concerns. There was widespread violence & exploitation of Aboriginal land and peoples and growing social tensions between the large land holding squatters and just about everyone - from the new small famers ('free selectors') to the urban dwellers and the 'Currency Lads' (Australian born British & Irish) and new immigrants.
Just nine days after Victoria was proclaimed an independent colony, at Clunes, ninety miles north-west of Melbourne, gold was found.
In July 1851, gold was discovered in both NSW and Victoria and what became known as the Australian Gold Rush began. Gold was the catalyst for great change in Australia. The belief that you could dig your own fortune naturally attracted people from across the country and around the world. Melbourne lost half its men to the goldfields, crews abandoned their ships in port, shepherds deserted their flocks; the call in London, California, Germany and Italy was, ‘off to the diggings’.
Within a year, more than 500,000 prospectors from around the world (quickly named 'diggers') were scrabbling in the gold fields of Australia. These “diggers” in a few short years forged a strong, unified & self-reliant identity, independent of colonial British authority and in turn had a profound impact on the Australian national identity. |
The gold rushes caused a huge influx of people from overseas. Australia's total population more than tripled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871. Australia first became a multicultural society during the gold rush period. Between 1852 and 1860, 290,000 people migrated to Victoria from the Britain & Ireland, 15,000 came from other European countries, and 18,000 emigrated from the United States. The amount of gold produced in the decade of the 1850s was vast - Australian gold accounted for 40% of the total world production of the precious metal int he decade and would remain a more valuable export than wool until the 1870s.
An entertaining introduction to the Australian Goldrush thanks to the National Museum of Australia's series of 'Defining Moments' by historian David Hunt and illustrator Lucinda Gifford from Melbourne's Sketch Group:
An entertaining introduction to the Australian Goldrush thanks to the National Museum of Australia's series of 'Defining Moments' by historian David Hunt and illustrator Lucinda Gifford from Melbourne's Sketch Group:
In the goldfields, there was frenetic activity where teams of four or six men worked a claim, digging, shovelling, washing and cradling from dawn to dusk. In a lunar landscape of mine shafts, discarded heaps, shanties and tents, followed the unofficial grog shops and prostitution and the potential of riches beyond wildest dreams.
"The past life of a gold digger was of no consequence to anyone except himself. All that mattered was his ability to wield a shovel, to withstand heat and cold, water, mud, flies and fleas, dysentery and eye disease - meanwhile fortified by meat, damper and tea...the diggers were sustained by the search for gold which rewarded a minority handsomely, kept others in moderate comfort and sent away about a third empty handed'
John Molony. The Penguin Bicentennial History of Australia. Viking 1987. p105
For all of the chaos of the diggings, there was also considerable self-imposed and policed discipline, order and honesty. Another key factor was a strong political solidarity between the diggers which contrasted enormously with the lynch-law of the Californian gold-fields of 1849/50. Most of the diggers were mostly young, unmarried, adventurous, British & Irish and reasonably educated
As gold-rush immigrants flooded into Victoria in 1852, a tent city, known as Canvas Town, was established at South Melbourne. The area soon became a massive slum, home to tens of thousands of migrants from around the world who arrived to seek their fortunes in the goldfields. Alfred Tennyson would have come but his wife forbade it, Henrik Ibsen wrote of 'Ballarat beyond the desert sands'. A mass exodus of the Melbourne police force saw only two constables reporting for duty on New Years day 1852.
This massive influx of people was, however, a serious challenge for the governments of New South Wales and Victoria. There were limited finances to provide services and the colonial budgets were already well overstretched and very much in the red. To raise needed funds, but also to discourage a flood of people moving to the diggings and to control unauthorised mining on Crown land, the cash strapped New South Wales Governor Charles Fitzroy and Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe of Victoria, imposed a Gold License for each colony at a cost 30 shillings per month( £168 in 2020 values). In 1854 it was possible to purchase a gold license for a three month period for two pounds or forty shillings** (£223).
License fees were to be paid in advance to Gold Commissioners (many of whom it turned out were corrupt and skimmed off a proportion of the fees), the issued fragile paper license were required to be carried & made available for inspection 'at all times'. The license was to cover mining and all trades, except that of store-keeper, and the stipulations included that 'all persons on the Gold Fields maintain a due and proper observance of Sundays', a 12 feet square digging area per miner and 'no mining will be permitted where it would be destructive of any line of road'
Fines were also introduced with a penalty for mining without a licence or for not having a licence on them being £6 (£670) for a first offence and if convicted of a second offence, a fine and imprisonment for six months. There was also a provision for payment of half of any fine imposed to an informer or prosecutor.
"The past life of a gold digger was of no consequence to anyone except himself. All that mattered was his ability to wield a shovel, to withstand heat and cold, water, mud, flies and fleas, dysentery and eye disease - meanwhile fortified by meat, damper and tea...the diggers were sustained by the search for gold which rewarded a minority handsomely, kept others in moderate comfort and sent away about a third empty handed'
John Molony. The Penguin Bicentennial History of Australia. Viking 1987. p105
For all of the chaos of the diggings, there was also considerable self-imposed and policed discipline, order and honesty. Another key factor was a strong political solidarity between the diggers which contrasted enormously with the lynch-law of the Californian gold-fields of 1849/50. Most of the diggers were mostly young, unmarried, adventurous, British & Irish and reasonably educated
As gold-rush immigrants flooded into Victoria in 1852, a tent city, known as Canvas Town, was established at South Melbourne. The area soon became a massive slum, home to tens of thousands of migrants from around the world who arrived to seek their fortunes in the goldfields. Alfred Tennyson would have come but his wife forbade it, Henrik Ibsen wrote of 'Ballarat beyond the desert sands'. A mass exodus of the Melbourne police force saw only two constables reporting for duty on New Years day 1852.
This massive influx of people was, however, a serious challenge for the governments of New South Wales and Victoria. There were limited finances to provide services and the colonial budgets were already well overstretched and very much in the red. To raise needed funds, but also to discourage a flood of people moving to the diggings and to control unauthorised mining on Crown land, the cash strapped New South Wales Governor Charles Fitzroy and Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe of Victoria, imposed a Gold License for each colony at a cost 30 shillings per month( £168 in 2020 values). In 1854 it was possible to purchase a gold license for a three month period for two pounds or forty shillings** (£223).
License fees were to be paid in advance to Gold Commissioners (many of whom it turned out were corrupt and skimmed off a proportion of the fees), the issued fragile paper license were required to be carried & made available for inspection 'at all times'. The license was to cover mining and all trades, except that of store-keeper, and the stipulations included that 'all persons on the Gold Fields maintain a due and proper observance of Sundays', a 12 feet square digging area per miner and 'no mining will be permitted where it would be destructive of any line of road'
Fines were also introduced with a penalty for mining without a licence or for not having a licence on them being £6 (£670) for a first offence and if convicted of a second offence, a fine and imprisonment for six months. There was also a provision for payment of half of any fine imposed to an informer or prosecutor.
This Gold License was strongly resented as being grossly unfair and little more than yet another tax. With this tax was also the issue of a lack of political representation - few if any of the miners had voting rights.
In December 1851, the Victorian government announced that it intended to triple the licence fee from £1 to £3 a month, from 1 January 1852. This move incited protests around the colony, including the hurriedly convened Forest Creek Monster Meeting of December 1851 & in Ballarat, 115 kilometeres west of Melbourne, diggers became so agitated that they began to gather arms. Alarmed, the government hastily repealed its plans due to the reaction.
When the easily obtainable surface gold began to run out during 1852, the licence fee became an increasingly stronger point of contention. In that year the 35,000 miners in the Victorian goldfields were producing about five ounces of gold per head. By 1854 that population had almost tripled while production had decreased to 1½ ounces per head.
Meanwhile, during this period of the early 1850's, business for the Black Dog Creek Inn was largely from locals, drovers and as a change of horses for the mail service. This was until the dramatic discovery of gold in the nearby Beechworth region known as The Ovens. Within days of the discovery of gold, there was a population boom as thousands of miners now rushed to area to stake a claim. The golden heyday for the region was just five years from 1852 with some prospectors making their fortunes and clearing up to an unheard of 25kg of the precious metal. Most, unfortunately found nothing.
Three years after arriving in the colony, Bridget married Richard Feehan, the owner of the City Arms in Melbourne (and son of Tipperary emigrees) at St. Francis Catholic Church on 20 January, 1853, It's recorded that shortly after, the newly-weds travelled to Chiltern to visit John Dillon and no doubt to experience and perhaps be part of the Northern Victoria gold-rush.
At the time of the Feehan's visit, the area around Chiltern had a rough and ready frontier existence, with no permanent roads, just dirt tracks, no rail connection but with some rudimentary semblance of law and order.
Trouble, however, was brewing closer to the capital in the southern goldfields of Ballarat.
In December 1851, the Victorian government announced that it intended to triple the licence fee from £1 to £3 a month, from 1 January 1852. This move incited protests around the colony, including the hurriedly convened Forest Creek Monster Meeting of December 1851 & in Ballarat, 115 kilometeres west of Melbourne, diggers became so agitated that they began to gather arms. Alarmed, the government hastily repealed its plans due to the reaction.
When the easily obtainable surface gold began to run out during 1852, the licence fee became an increasingly stronger point of contention. In that year the 35,000 miners in the Victorian goldfields were producing about five ounces of gold per head. By 1854 that population had almost tripled while production had decreased to 1½ ounces per head.
Meanwhile, during this period of the early 1850's, business for the Black Dog Creek Inn was largely from locals, drovers and as a change of horses for the mail service. This was until the dramatic discovery of gold in the nearby Beechworth region known as The Ovens. Within days of the discovery of gold, there was a population boom as thousands of miners now rushed to area to stake a claim. The golden heyday for the region was just five years from 1852 with some prospectors making their fortunes and clearing up to an unheard of 25kg of the precious metal. Most, unfortunately found nothing.
Three years after arriving in the colony, Bridget married Richard Feehan, the owner of the City Arms in Melbourne (and son of Tipperary emigrees) at St. Francis Catholic Church on 20 January, 1853, It's recorded that shortly after, the newly-weds travelled to Chiltern to visit John Dillon and no doubt to experience and perhaps be part of the Northern Victoria gold-rush.
At the time of the Feehan's visit, the area around Chiltern had a rough and ready frontier existence, with no permanent roads, just dirt tracks, no rail connection but with some rudimentary semblance of law and order.
Trouble, however, was brewing closer to the capital in the southern goldfields of Ballarat.
Starting in 1853, miners began to gather in ‘monster’ meetings to voice their complaints about the hated licence fees. Delegations presented their concerns to Governor La Trobe, but all were ignored. Not a good political move as many of the diggers were politically engaged — some had participated in the Chartist movement for political reform in Britain during the 1830s and 1840s, while others had been involved in the anti-authoritarian revolutions that spread across Europe in 1848, including Ireland.
In June 1854, the newly arrived Governor of Victoria, Charles Hotham, alarmed at the increasing costs to the Treasury and the growing expense of goldfields administration, ordered the police to redouble their exertions in collecting the fees. To miners just scraping by, the payment of £12 per annum licence fees was impossible, and there is no doubt that hundreds did endeavour to evade payment, but the innocent suffered with the guilty. These grievances were common to all the Victorian fields, and had under Latrobe's administration produced riots at Beechworth and Castlemaine, but Ballarat, always the most domestic of the goldfields, had a reputation for peaceful progressiveness and little trouble.
Ballarat by 1854 was a thriving mixed settlement complete with banks, shops, theatres, schools, hotels, libraries, churches, lawyers, a newspaper, gold assayers and a hospital under construction.
The situation on the goldfields became increasingly tense as police regularly ran ‘licence hunts’ by day and night to track down diggers who hadn’t paid their fees or were unable to produce their licence on demand. The miners claimed the police were extorting money, accepting bribes and imprisoning people without due process. This was largely the case, many of the police were former convicts from Tasmania known colloquially as 'Vandemonians', overtly accepting bribes and happy enough to rough up & haul off to prison any who didn't pay or did not have their licence 'on their person'. The fact that they also received half of any fine imposed on a hapless miner, added to the growing racour. Most diggers were not a rabble of un-educated vagabonds or assorted criminals, but mostly literate, respectable and determined to improve their lot.
Simmering issues and widespread discontent in the goldfields finally came to a head on 7 October 1854, when a Scottish miner James Scobie was killed in an altercation at the Eureka Hotel in Ballarat. The proprietor, J.F. Bentley, was accused of the killing. A court of inquiry was held and Bentley was quickly exonerated. Naturally, the diggers suspected a miscarriage of justice; not a difficult conclusion since one of the court members, John D’Ewes, was a police magistrate well known to have taken bribes from Bentley.
On 17 October, a large group of some 5,000 men and women gathered in Ballarat to discuss the case. They decided to appeal the decision and request some much needed political reforms in the goldfields including representative voting rights, later forming the Ballarat Reform League. The meeting itself was orderly, but towards the end of proceedings a cry was raised that the police (who had been ordered to protect the hotel) were trying to disperse the meeting, and the miners, becoming furious, swept aside the police, smashed the place up, and burned the hotel to the ground.
Over the following weeks, miner delegates (including Irishmen Peter Lalor and Timothy Hayes) attempted to negotiate with Goldfields Commissioner Robert Rede and the new Governor of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham, on matters relating to Bentley and Scobie's death, the men being tried for the burning of the Eureka Hotel, and on the broader issues of abolition of the licence, suffrage and democratic representation of the gold fields, and disbanding of the Gold Commission. Hotham refused to release the prisoners and had already sent additional troops to Ballarat, which gave considerable offence by marching through the town with fixed bayonets.
The Ballarat Reform League formed on 11 November demanded full civic rights together with the abolition of the licence fee and revolutionarily proclaimed that 'the people are the only legitimate source of all political power'
On 16 November 1854 Governor Hotham appointed a Royal Commission on the goldfields' problems and grievances. However, by 27 November, the Governor had dismissed demands from the representatives and anticipating some disorder, had speedily despatched a further contingent of British soldiers of the 40th Regiment of Foot to Ballarat to reinforce the police and soldiers already stationed there.
On 29 November, Black, Humffray, and Kennedy reported to a mass meeting held at Bakery Hill the result of their deputation to the Governor, and Vern proposed a burning of the hated licences, which was then carried out. Next day the police carried out a specially vicious and vigorous licence-hunt, and when the troops marched back to camp, the diggers hastened to a conference with the leaders of the Reform League.
As these military reinforcements marched into Ballarat from Melbourne the following day, 28 November, they were attacked by a group of miners. A number were injured and a rumour of the death of a drummer boy began (there was even a memorial erected to him in Ballarat Cemetery for many years, although historical research has shown that the lad, John Egan, continued military service until dying in 1860.)
On 29 November at a meeting of about 12,000 'diggers', the miners delegation reported on it's failure to achieve any success in negotiations with the authorities. The miners now agreed to open resistance and to burn the hated licences.
Commissioner Rede now responded, somewhat unwisely, by ordering police to conduct a licence search the following day, 30 November. Eight defaulters were found and arrested, which prompted action by an angry mob of miners who prevented the police from leaving and freed their prisoners. The available militia were called out and managed to rescue the beleaguered police. With tensions high, the miners now arranged to meet at Bakery Hill the following day.
By this time, the police contingent at Ballarat had been joined and surpassed in number by soldiers from British Army garrisons in Victoria, including detachments from the 12th (East Suffolk) Regiment of Foot and 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot.
The stage was now set for the most famous fifteen minutes in Australian history.
The Ballarat Reform League formed on 11 November demanded full civic rights together with the abolition of the licence fee and revolutionarily proclaimed that 'the people are the only legitimate source of all political power'
On 16 November 1854 Governor Hotham appointed a Royal Commission on the goldfields' problems and grievances. However, by 27 November, the Governor had dismissed demands from the representatives and anticipating some disorder, had speedily despatched a further contingent of British soldiers of the 40th Regiment of Foot to Ballarat to reinforce the police and soldiers already stationed there.
On 29 November, Black, Humffray, and Kennedy reported to a mass meeting held at Bakery Hill the result of their deputation to the Governor, and Vern proposed a burning of the hated licences, which was then carried out. Next day the police carried out a specially vicious and vigorous licence-hunt, and when the troops marched back to camp, the diggers hastened to a conference with the leaders of the Reform League.
As these military reinforcements marched into Ballarat from Melbourne the following day, 28 November, they were attacked by a group of miners. A number were injured and a rumour of the death of a drummer boy began (there was even a memorial erected to him in Ballarat Cemetery for many years, although historical research has shown that the lad, John Egan, continued military service until dying in 1860.)
On 29 November at a meeting of about 12,000 'diggers', the miners delegation reported on it's failure to achieve any success in negotiations with the authorities. The miners now agreed to open resistance and to burn the hated licences.
Commissioner Rede now responded, somewhat unwisely, by ordering police to conduct a licence search the following day, 30 November. Eight defaulters were found and arrested, which prompted action by an angry mob of miners who prevented the police from leaving and freed their prisoners. The available militia were called out and managed to rescue the beleaguered police. With tensions high, the miners now arranged to meet at Bakery Hill the following day.
By this time, the police contingent at Ballarat had been joined and surpassed in number by soldiers from British Army garrisons in Victoria, including detachments from the 12th (East Suffolk) Regiment of Foot and 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot.
The stage was now set for the most famous fifteen minutes in Australian history.
On 1 December, 1854 at Bakery Hill, many thousands of angry miners met. At this meeting, the charismatic Irishman Peter Lalor became the leader of the protest and led the diggers to the area around Eureka. (Lalor, a civil enginneer was born in Raheen, Co Laois, in 1827. His father, Patrick Lalor, was an outspoken agitator against the collection of Church of Ireland tithes and his eldest brother, James Fintan Lalor, had been one of the leaders of the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848.)
Lalor had been drawn to Ballarat by news of the gold rush in 1852 and now, though ironically a moderate who argued against direct action, led the men and women in unfurling the Southern Cross flag and an oath: ‘We swear by the Southern Cross, to stand truly by each other, and fight to defend our rights and liberties’.
Lalor had been drawn to Ballarat by news of the gold rush in 1852 and now, though ironically a moderate who argued against direct action, led the men and women in unfurling the Southern Cross flag and an oath: ‘We swear by the Southern Cross, to stand truly by each other, and fight to defend our rights and liberties’.
The white and blue Eureka Flag, said to be designed by a Canadian miner, Captain Henry Ross, and bearing nothing but the Southern Cross, was flown for the first (recorded) occasion; according to The Ballarat Times: "about eleven o'clock the 'Southern Cross' was hoisted, and its maiden appearance was a fascinating object to behold." The flag was believed to have been sewn by Anastasia Hayes. Reportedly influenced by earlier designs such as the Australian Federation Flag but as a gesture of defiance, it deliberately excluded the British Union Flag.
Itching for a showdown, the protesters now gathered timber from the nearby mineshafts, overturned carts and created a makeshift stockade. Over the next two days, men and women remained in and around the stockade performing military drills and making pikes in preparation for possible conflict. As the miners armed themselves and braced for a confrontation, the 27-year-old Lalor wrote to his fiancee, Alicia Dunne, in Geelong, that “the diggers, in self-defence, have taken up arms . . . and I would be unworthy of you, and of your love, if I were base enough to desert them”.
A further two hundred Americans, the Independent Californian Rangers, under the leadership of James McGill, arrived about 4pm on Saturday, December 2 to reinforce the protesters at the stockade. The Americans were armed with revolvers, Mexican knives and possessed horses. In a fateful decision, McGill decided to take most of the Californian Rangers away from the stockade to intercept rumoured British reinforcements coming from Melbourne. Rede's spies observed these actions. That night many of the miners went back to their own tents after the traditional Saturday night carousing, with the assumption that the Queen's military forces would not be sent to attack on the Sabbath (Sunday). A small contingent of miners remained at the stockade overnight, which the spies reported to Commissioner Rede.
Based on this infomation, Rede called for the police and army to move in, destroy the stockade, quell the revolt and arrest the leaders at first light the following day, Sunday 3 December.
A further two hundred Americans, the Independent Californian Rangers, under the leadership of James McGill, arrived about 4pm on Saturday, December 2 to reinforce the protesters at the stockade. The Americans were armed with revolvers, Mexican knives and possessed horses. In a fateful decision, McGill decided to take most of the Californian Rangers away from the stockade to intercept rumoured British reinforcements coming from Melbourne. Rede's spies observed these actions. That night many of the miners went back to their own tents after the traditional Saturday night carousing, with the assumption that the Queen's military forces would not be sent to attack on the Sabbath (Sunday). A small contingent of miners remained at the stockade overnight, which the spies reported to Commissioner Rede.
Based on this infomation, Rede called for the police and army to move in, destroy the stockade, quell the revolt and arrest the leaders at first light the following day, Sunday 3 December.
At 3 am on Sunday, 3 December, a party of 276 mounted & foot soldiers and police, under the command of Captain John W. Thomas approached the Eureka Stockade and a battle ensued. There is no agreement as to which side fired first, but the battle was fierce, brief, and terribly one-sided. The ramshackle army of defenders numbering only about 120 mostly Irish miners was hopelessly outclassed by a military regiment and was routed in about 10 minutes. Theophilus Taylor's account is succinct. "A company of troopers & military carried the war into the enemies camp. In a very short time numbers were shot and hundreds taken prisoner"
According to Lalor's report, fourteen miners (mostly Irish) died inside the stockade and an additional eight died later from injuries they sustained. A further dozen were wounded but recovered. Three months after the Eureka Stockade, Peter Lalor wrote: "As the inhuman brutalities practised by the troops are so well known, it is unnecessary for me to repeat them. There were 34 digger casualties of which 22 died. The unusual proportion of the killed to the wounded, is owing to the butchery of the military and troopers after the surrender."
During the battle, trooper John King the police constable, took down the Eureka flag. By 8 am, Captain Charles Pasley, the second in command of the British forces, sickened by the carnage, saved a group of prisoners from being bayoneted and threatened to shoot any police or soldiers who continued with the slaughter. Pasley's valuable assistance was acknowledged in despatches printed and laid before the Victorian Legislative Council.
One hundred and fourteen diggers, some wounded, were marched off to the Government camp about two kilometres away, where they were kept in an overcrowded lock-up, before being moved to a more spacious barn on Monday morning.
Of the soldiers and police, six were killed, including Captain Wise. Martial law was imposed, and all armed resistance collapsed. News of the battle spread quickly to Melbourne and other gold field regions, turning a perceived Government military victory in repressing a minor insurrection into a public relations disaster. Thousands of people in Melbourne turned out to condemn the authorities, in defiance of their mayor and some Legislative Councillors, who tried to rally support for the government. In Ballarat, only one man responded to the call for special constables, although in Melbourne 1500 were sworn in and armed with batons. Many people voiced their support for the diggers' requested reforms.
Exact numbers of deaths and injuries and persons are difficult to determine as many miners "fled to the surrounding bush and it is likely a good many more died a lonely death or suffered the agony of their wounds, hidden from the authorities for fear of repercussions." according to Eureka researcher and author Dr Dorothy Wickham.
Seriously wounded in the arm, Lalor hid among the stockade wreckage before escaping. He found refuge in the home of a Catholic priest, where his arm had to be amputated. When he saw the doctor wince as he carried out this grisly task, Lalor is supposed to have barked, “Courage! Courage! Take it off!” With a reward of £200 on his head, Lalor then travelled to Geelong, where he and Alicia married in secret. With public opinion firmly on his side, well-wishers raised enough money to buy the couple a 60-hectare estate near Ballarat.
The police eventually arrested and detained 113 of the miners and of these, 13 were taken to Melbourne and jailed pending trials. The first trial started on 22 February 1855, with various defendants being brought before the court on charges of high treason - which carried a mandatory death penalty. Under the auspices of Victorian Chief Justice Redmond Barry, all of the 13 accused men were rapidly acquitted by juries to great public acclaim. (Of the thirteen, seven were Irish and the others were Jamaican, Italian, Scottish, Dutch, American and Australian. Interestingly, two of the leaders were of African descent)
In March 1855 the Commission of Enquiry released their recommendations. It was scathing in its assessment of all aspects of the administration of the gold fields, and particularly the Eureka Stockade affair. The report made several major recommendations, one of which was to restrict Chinese immigration (and a fore-runner to the 'White Australia' policy). The hated gold licences were abolished, and replaced by an annual miner's right (set a nominal £1 per annum) and an export fee based on the value of the gold. One Mining warden replaced the multiple corrupt gold commissioners, and police numbers were cut drastically. The Legislative Council was expanded to allow representation to the major goldfields.
According to Lalor's report, fourteen miners (mostly Irish) died inside the stockade and an additional eight died later from injuries they sustained. A further dozen were wounded but recovered. Three months after the Eureka Stockade, Peter Lalor wrote: "As the inhuman brutalities practised by the troops are so well known, it is unnecessary for me to repeat them. There were 34 digger casualties of which 22 died. The unusual proportion of the killed to the wounded, is owing to the butchery of the military and troopers after the surrender."
During the battle, trooper John King the police constable, took down the Eureka flag. By 8 am, Captain Charles Pasley, the second in command of the British forces, sickened by the carnage, saved a group of prisoners from being bayoneted and threatened to shoot any police or soldiers who continued with the slaughter. Pasley's valuable assistance was acknowledged in despatches printed and laid before the Victorian Legislative Council.
One hundred and fourteen diggers, some wounded, were marched off to the Government camp about two kilometres away, where they were kept in an overcrowded lock-up, before being moved to a more spacious barn on Monday morning.
Of the soldiers and police, six were killed, including Captain Wise. Martial law was imposed, and all armed resistance collapsed. News of the battle spread quickly to Melbourne and other gold field regions, turning a perceived Government military victory in repressing a minor insurrection into a public relations disaster. Thousands of people in Melbourne turned out to condemn the authorities, in defiance of their mayor and some Legislative Councillors, who tried to rally support for the government. In Ballarat, only one man responded to the call for special constables, although in Melbourne 1500 were sworn in and armed with batons. Many people voiced their support for the diggers' requested reforms.
Exact numbers of deaths and injuries and persons are difficult to determine as many miners "fled to the surrounding bush and it is likely a good many more died a lonely death or suffered the agony of their wounds, hidden from the authorities for fear of repercussions." according to Eureka researcher and author Dr Dorothy Wickham.
Seriously wounded in the arm, Lalor hid among the stockade wreckage before escaping. He found refuge in the home of a Catholic priest, where his arm had to be amputated. When he saw the doctor wince as he carried out this grisly task, Lalor is supposed to have barked, “Courage! Courage! Take it off!” With a reward of £200 on his head, Lalor then travelled to Geelong, where he and Alicia married in secret. With public opinion firmly on his side, well-wishers raised enough money to buy the couple a 60-hectare estate near Ballarat.
The police eventually arrested and detained 113 of the miners and of these, 13 were taken to Melbourne and jailed pending trials. The first trial started on 22 February 1855, with various defendants being brought before the court on charges of high treason - which carried a mandatory death penalty. Under the auspices of Victorian Chief Justice Redmond Barry, all of the 13 accused men were rapidly acquitted by juries to great public acclaim. (Of the thirteen, seven were Irish and the others were Jamaican, Italian, Scottish, Dutch, American and Australian. Interestingly, two of the leaders were of African descent)
In March 1855 the Commission of Enquiry released their recommendations. It was scathing in its assessment of all aspects of the administration of the gold fields, and particularly the Eureka Stockade affair. The report made several major recommendations, one of which was to restrict Chinese immigration (and a fore-runner to the 'White Australia' policy). The hated gold licences were abolished, and replaced by an annual miner's right (set a nominal £1 per annum) and an export fee based on the value of the gold. One Mining warden replaced the multiple corrupt gold commissioners, and police numbers were cut drastically. The Legislative Council was expanded to allow representation to the major goldfields.
Overall, Eureka was a victory for the miners and was one of the key steps to Victoria instituting male suffrage in 1857 and female suffrage in 1908. The Governor of Victoria, Charles Hotham did not survive the year. He caught a chill while opening the Melbourne Gasworks on a mid-summer's day in December 1855 and promptly died. Commissioner Rede was quietly re-assigned to a lower position in rural Victoria. Peter Lalor remained a political moderate, elected unopposed to the Parliament of Victoria where he proved to be more conservative than most of his radical supporters would have hoped. He rose ultimately to become speaker of the Victorian Upper House in the famous 'Diggers' Parliament. He retired, distinguished and even more conservative, on a pension of £4,000 per annum in 1888 and died in 1889.
The actual significance of Eureka upon Australia's politics is not decisive. It has been variously interpreted as a revolt of free men against imperial tyranny, of independent free enterprise against burdensome taxation, of labour against a privileged ruling class, or as an expression of republicanism. Some historians believe that the prominence of the event in the public record has come about because Australian history does not include a major armed rebellion phase equivalent to the French Revolution, the English Civil War, or the American War of Independence, making the Eureka story inflated well beyond its real significance. Others, however, maintain that Eureka was a seminal event and that it marked a major change in the course of Australian history.
While millions of words have been written about Eureka and the leaders, the most apt perhaps comes from Mark Twain who wrote in his 1897 travel book "Following the Equator" :
The actual significance of Eureka upon Australia's politics is not decisive. It has been variously interpreted as a revolt of free men against imperial tyranny, of independent free enterprise against burdensome taxation, of labour against a privileged ruling class, or as an expression of republicanism. Some historians believe that the prominence of the event in the public record has come about because Australian history does not include a major armed rebellion phase equivalent to the French Revolution, the English Civil War, or the American War of Independence, making the Eureka story inflated well beyond its real significance. Others, however, maintain that Eureka was a seminal event and that it marked a major change in the course of Australian history.
While millions of words have been written about Eureka and the leaders, the most apt perhaps comes from Mark Twain who wrote in his 1897 travel book "Following the Equator" :
... I think it may be called the finest thing in Australasian history. It was a revolution—small in size; but great politically; it was a strike for liberty, a struggle for principle, a stand against injustice and oppression. ... It is another instance of a victory won by a lost battle. It adds an honorable page to history; the people know it and are proud of it. They keep green the memory of the men who fell at the Eureka stockade, and Peter Lalor has his monument."
Another entertaining introduction to Australian history - this time The Eureka Stockade thanks to the National Museum of Australia's series of 'Defining Moments' by historian David Hunt and illustrator Lucinda Gifford from Melbourne's Sketch Group:
Aside from revolts in the southern goldfields, two prominent dangers in the northern Victoria region at this time were travel and Bushrangers.
With no reliable or regular road transport services, and with what passed for roads as little more than paths, intense discomfort awaited all travellers and added substantially to the cost of transporting goods overland.
Just what was faced by intrepid travellers is best illustrated with a journalist's commentary from the South Australian Register of 17 October 1856. Reporting on the visit of the Sir MacDonnell, Governor of South Australia and Lady MacDonnell to the Ovens Goldfields and following their stop-over at the Horse & Jockey (Black Dog Inn). On hindsight, perhaps Mrs Mac had wished they had just stayed home in Adelaide.
With no reliable or regular road transport services, and with what passed for roads as little more than paths, intense discomfort awaited all travellers and added substantially to the cost of transporting goods overland.
Just what was faced by intrepid travellers is best illustrated with a journalist's commentary from the South Australian Register of 17 October 1856. Reporting on the visit of the Sir MacDonnell, Governor of South Australia and Lady MacDonnell to the Ovens Goldfields and following their stop-over at the Horse & Jockey (Black Dog Inn). On hindsight, perhaps Mrs Mac had wished they had just stayed home in Adelaide.
Travellers in rural parts of Victoria and New South Wales were certainly an intrepid bunch - aside from attrociously poor to non existent roads, another difficulty facing many was that of the Bushranger - those that took up 'robbery under arms as a way of life using the bush as their base'
William Strutt's Bushrangers on the St Kilda Road, painted in 1887, depicts what Strutt described as "one of the most daring robberies attempted in Victoria" in 1852. The road was the scene of frequent hold-ups during the Victorian gold rush by bushrangers, mostly former convicts from Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania), which collectively became known as the St Kilda Road robberies. Thanks to Wikipedia.
Bushranging - the artful skill of relieving travellers of their cash, gold and jewels and other encumbrances - had been part and parcel of rural bush life since the 1790's and had become so prevalent and successful that by 1820, many of it's practitioners found themselves with a price on their heads and if captured, the noose. The Bushranger was more often than not, an Irish immigrant or descendant of political transportees and could also rely on shelter, food and protection amongst their own family and friends.
Most were colourful characters and with names equally as colourful as their reputations. 'Bold Jack Donaghue', Captain Thunderbolt, Jackey Jackey Westood, Davis the Jewboy, Captain Moonlight, 'Mad Dog' Morgan, 'Gentleman Matt' Cash and 'Yankee Jack' Ellis were just a few that plied their trade on the lonely colonial roads. Sheltered by many settlers, Bushrangers tended to lead lives that 'nasty, brutish and short'.
With the Gold rush booming, so did Bushranging. Many freed settlers former convicts and opportunists quickly saw that riches need not necessarily be dug from the ground. In New South Wales during the 1860's, many famous gangs including 'The Wild Colonial Boys' of Frank Gardiner, John Gilbert and Ben Hall pulled off audacious heists. Captain Thunderbolt in a 6 year career robbed mail coaches, inns and travellers until finally fatally shot in 1870, bringing an end to bushranging in New South Wales. However, the most famous bushranger of all was yet to make an impact - Ned Kelly in the late 1870s.
In neighbouring Victoria, with so much wealth in the colony nothing succeeded like excess in the 1850's & 60's. During these 'Roaring Days' the local election campaign of 1855, one candidate, David Cameron, in a popular and by all accounts, successful publicity attempt, rode a horse shod with four solid gold horseshoes on the hustings and yes, he was elected. Melbourne Theatres became popular with entertainers on the circuit - those that met with the visiting miners approval were showered with gold nuggets - a much more acceptable substitute for bouquets.
In 1855, 11,493 Chinese arrived in Melbourne from mainland China. In an effort to halt this migration, Colonial officials introduced fiscally discriminatory regulations such as entry taxes or complex bureaucratic procedures such as requiring all Chinese travelling outside of New South Wales to obtain special re-entry certificates. In 1855, Victoria enacted the Chinese Immigration Act, severely limiting the number of Chinese passengers permitted on an arriving vessel. To evade the new law, many Chinese were landed in the south-east of South Australia and travelled more than 400 km across country to the Victorian goldfields, along tracks which are still evident today. Resented by most miners in the goldfields, riots, injury and killings were soon to follow and became the foundations of the White Australia policy.
In 1857, reflecting the growing presence of Irish Catholic immigrants, John O'Shaughnessy became the colony's second Premier with the former Young Irelander, Charles Gavan Duffy as his deputy. Melbourne's Protestant establishment was ill-prepared "to countenance so startling a novelty". In 1858–59, Melbourne Punch cartoons linked Duffy and O'Shanassy to the terrors of the French Revolution
Most were colourful characters and with names equally as colourful as their reputations. 'Bold Jack Donaghue', Captain Thunderbolt, Jackey Jackey Westood, Davis the Jewboy, Captain Moonlight, 'Mad Dog' Morgan, 'Gentleman Matt' Cash and 'Yankee Jack' Ellis were just a few that plied their trade on the lonely colonial roads. Sheltered by many settlers, Bushrangers tended to lead lives that 'nasty, brutish and short'.
With the Gold rush booming, so did Bushranging. Many freed settlers former convicts and opportunists quickly saw that riches need not necessarily be dug from the ground. In New South Wales during the 1860's, many famous gangs including 'The Wild Colonial Boys' of Frank Gardiner, John Gilbert and Ben Hall pulled off audacious heists. Captain Thunderbolt in a 6 year career robbed mail coaches, inns and travellers until finally fatally shot in 1870, bringing an end to bushranging in New South Wales. However, the most famous bushranger of all was yet to make an impact - Ned Kelly in the late 1870s.
In neighbouring Victoria, with so much wealth in the colony nothing succeeded like excess in the 1850's & 60's. During these 'Roaring Days' the local election campaign of 1855, one candidate, David Cameron, in a popular and by all accounts, successful publicity attempt, rode a horse shod with four solid gold horseshoes on the hustings and yes, he was elected. Melbourne Theatres became popular with entertainers on the circuit - those that met with the visiting miners approval were showered with gold nuggets - a much more acceptable substitute for bouquets.
In 1855, 11,493 Chinese arrived in Melbourne from mainland China. In an effort to halt this migration, Colonial officials introduced fiscally discriminatory regulations such as entry taxes or complex bureaucratic procedures such as requiring all Chinese travelling outside of New South Wales to obtain special re-entry certificates. In 1855, Victoria enacted the Chinese Immigration Act, severely limiting the number of Chinese passengers permitted on an arriving vessel. To evade the new law, many Chinese were landed in the south-east of South Australia and travelled more than 400 km across country to the Victorian goldfields, along tracks which are still evident today. Resented by most miners in the goldfields, riots, injury and killings were soon to follow and became the foundations of the White Australia policy.
In 1857, reflecting the growing presence of Irish Catholic immigrants, John O'Shaughnessy became the colony's second Premier with the former Young Irelander, Charles Gavan Duffy as his deputy. Melbourne's Protestant establishment was ill-prepared "to countenance so startling a novelty". In 1858–59, Melbourne Punch cartoons linked Duffy and O'Shanassy to the terrors of the French Revolution
The impact of white settlement on Australia's native flora, fauna and biodiversity has been devastating. From sheep and cattle unbalancing frail soil and vegetation and introduced pests such as capeweed, Scotch thistle and Bathhurst burr that have proven impossible to eradicate. Introduced fauna - dogs, cats, foxes, ferrets, hares and buffalo competed with native species, driving some to extinction, horses, donkeys and camels ran wild & multiplied in remote areas, trout and redfin were set lose in rivers, lakes and streams causing the virtual extinction of native fish. However, aside from human settlers, there is one species that has caused far more damage.
There are few places on earth where scientists can pinpoint the precise beginnings of a plague. In 1859, Thomas Austin, a British gentleman farmer near Geelong, Melbourne was feeling a little homesick - so much he instigated one of the world's largest ecological disasters. Among his consignment from Britain of sparrows, blackbirds, hares, partridges were 24 Oryctolagus cuniculus - the common European Rabbit. “The introduction of a few rabbits could do little harm and might provide a touch of home,” he said at the time.
Released into the wild and hunted for sport & food, they soon bred with local domesticated bunnies resulting in a hybrid much more suited to Australian conditions. Pretty soon, they were all doing what rabbits do best and spreading. By 1864, complaints started coming in from farmers throughout the region as crops were being overrun and decimated by the bunnies. It only grew worse as the critters migrated on an eating and erosion spree across Australia. In the 1880s, Colonial governments passed numerous laws to combat the overwhelming rabbit population: one of these was the 1883 Rabbit Nuisance Act. One of its provisions was that children could receive six months in prison for letting loose a tame rabbit. When shooting, trapping and poisoning of rabbits wasn’t enough, some extraordinary measures were required. |
In 1907, the Western Australian No. 1 Rabbit Proof Fence was completed. It stretched over eleven hundred miles — a distance twice the length of Great Britain — from Starvation Boat Harbour on the south coast to a point near Cape Keraudren on the northwest coast. Guarded by riders on camels, the fence was constructed in an attempt to prevent the rabbits from literally eating their way across Australia. Unfortunately, such a massive fence proved impossible to maintain, and it proved ultimately ineffective.
Since their introduction from Britain in 1859, the effect of rabbits on the ecology of Australia has been devastating from habitat and species loss to serious erosion: "Between 1906 and 1936, rabbits destroyed all three species of parrots and twenty-three of the twenty-six (23/26) tree species found on an island off the southern coast of Australia. In other areas of Australia it is estimated that 66-75% of the native mammal species have vanished due to the rabbit infestation."
In the 1950s, due to the introduction of myxomatosis, the rabbit population dwindled down to 5% of its original size. This 5% resiliently built up resistance and once again re-populated the nation. In 1996, the Australian government started using a controversial calicivirus – inappropriately termed the “final solution” to kill off the rabbit population. The Australian Environmental Management Authority reports that the rabbit population is decreasing, however, there are still plague conditions throughout parts of Australia.
Since their introduction from Britain in 1859, the effect of rabbits on the ecology of Australia has been devastating from habitat and species loss to serious erosion: "Between 1906 and 1936, rabbits destroyed all three species of parrots and twenty-three of the twenty-six (23/26) tree species found on an island off the southern coast of Australia. In other areas of Australia it is estimated that 66-75% of the native mammal species have vanished due to the rabbit infestation."
In the 1950s, due to the introduction of myxomatosis, the rabbit population dwindled down to 5% of its original size. This 5% resiliently built up resistance and once again re-populated the nation. In 1996, the Australian government started using a controversial calicivirus – inappropriately termed the “final solution” to kill off the rabbit population. The Australian Environmental Management Authority reports that the rabbit population is decreasing, however, there are still plague conditions throughout parts of Australia.
Gold rushes flared like bushfires around eastern and western Australia for the next two decades and then sporadically until the end of the century. The last great find was to be in the Western goldfields of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie in 1892.
The gold exported to Britain from the Australian gold-fields in the 1850s paid off all of Britain's foreign debts and helped lay the foundation of her enormous commercial expansion in the latter half of the century
As with all gold rushes, the seams were quickly exhausted. By 1857, with most of the alluvial gold extracted from the southern Victorian goldfields area and a drought hampering any further work, hopeful prospecting took place nearer to Dillon's 'Black Dog Inn' at the Black Dog Creek in northern Victoria. Nothing was found until late in 1858 when larger reserves were discovered and another gold rush was on. This time, Dillon was perfectly placed to benefit directly from another population boom.
In the first bloom of the rush there were allegedly some ten to twenty thousand living around the settlement. The local diggings turned up the largest nugget of the entire goldfields region.... However, the alluvial gold was short-lived and soon dwindled. Diggers now turned their attention to the more specialised deep quartz reef mines which required the capital of a company to set up and mine. Consequently the population thinned back to a more manageable level. With such a large population, a new town site was surveyed at Black Dog Creek in 1860 although sales of allotments were delayed owing to objections from mining companies. Chiltern was proclaimed a municipality in 1862. Unusually, the first council consisted entirely of representatives from the miners' group.
Dillon died in January 1861 and his wife Catherine carried on the Black Dog Inn business into the late 1880s
By 1865 there were about 2200 residents and 400 domiciles. Agriculture and vineyards were under way, there were two steam-powered sawmills and highly profitable quartz-reef mining was ongoing. Buildings included 12 hotels (Dillons was one outlet selling hard liquor), a post office, a telegraph station, the Federal Standard newspaper office, three banks, a court, a court of mines, five insurance offices, a reading room, a coach office and a newsagency.
By 1888 there were still twelve hotels although the population had shrunk to 1243 and the number of banks to two. Gold mining continued to turn a profit until the early 20th century. The last reef was abandoned in 1911. Today, Chiltern is a country town of some 1400 people which is distinguished by its historic streetscape of well-preserved brick buildings and old-fashioned timber verandahs.
By 1867, Bridget and Richard were parents to a son, Richard and two daughters, Margaret & Ellen who were being educated locally at the Convent of Mercy in Nicholson St, Fitzroy.
Hanora's daughter & Bridget's niece, Margaret 'Maggie' D'Alton had also emigrated to Australia and at this time was living at Wattle Hill, Essendon. In a letter home dated 27 August 1867, wrote:
The gold exported to Britain from the Australian gold-fields in the 1850s paid off all of Britain's foreign debts and helped lay the foundation of her enormous commercial expansion in the latter half of the century
As with all gold rushes, the seams were quickly exhausted. By 1857, with most of the alluvial gold extracted from the southern Victorian goldfields area and a drought hampering any further work, hopeful prospecting took place nearer to Dillon's 'Black Dog Inn' at the Black Dog Creek in northern Victoria. Nothing was found until late in 1858 when larger reserves were discovered and another gold rush was on. This time, Dillon was perfectly placed to benefit directly from another population boom.
In the first bloom of the rush there were allegedly some ten to twenty thousand living around the settlement. The local diggings turned up the largest nugget of the entire goldfields region.... However, the alluvial gold was short-lived and soon dwindled. Diggers now turned their attention to the more specialised deep quartz reef mines which required the capital of a company to set up and mine. Consequently the population thinned back to a more manageable level. With such a large population, a new town site was surveyed at Black Dog Creek in 1860 although sales of allotments were delayed owing to objections from mining companies. Chiltern was proclaimed a municipality in 1862. Unusually, the first council consisted entirely of representatives from the miners' group.
Dillon died in January 1861 and his wife Catherine carried on the Black Dog Inn business into the late 1880s
By 1865 there were about 2200 residents and 400 domiciles. Agriculture and vineyards were under way, there were two steam-powered sawmills and highly profitable quartz-reef mining was ongoing. Buildings included 12 hotels (Dillons was one outlet selling hard liquor), a post office, a telegraph station, the Federal Standard newspaper office, three banks, a court, a court of mines, five insurance offices, a reading room, a coach office and a newsagency.
By 1888 there were still twelve hotels although the population had shrunk to 1243 and the number of banks to two. Gold mining continued to turn a profit until the early 20th century. The last reef was abandoned in 1911. Today, Chiltern is a country town of some 1400 people which is distinguished by its historic streetscape of well-preserved brick buildings and old-fashioned timber verandahs.
By 1867, Bridget and Richard were parents to a son, Richard and two daughters, Margaret & Ellen who were being educated locally at the Convent of Mercy in Nicholson St, Fitzroy.
Hanora's daughter & Bridget's niece, Margaret 'Maggie' D'Alton had also emigrated to Australia and at this time was living at Wattle Hill, Essendon. In a letter home dated 27 August 1867, wrote:
Aunt Bridget has been unwell this month past from a severe cold; she got better of it but has again got unwell. When she was at the worst, the Superioress of the Convent of Mercy in Melbourne and one of her sisters went to see her....few in Melbourne, according to their means have done as much for the Nuns as she has done..."
(the last transport ship was 1868 and contained most of the 'recalcitrant' Fenians following the 1868 Rising)
Australia's population changed dramatically as a result of the rushes. In 1851 the Australian population was 437,655, of which 77,345, or just under 18%, were Victorians. A decade later the Australian population had grown to 1,151,947 and the Victorian population had increased to 538,628; just under 47% of the Australian total and a seven-fold increase. In some small country towns where gold was found abundantly, the population could grow by over 1000% in a decade.
Gold also ended transportation of convicts from Britain to Van Diemen's Land and any possibility of it being reintroduced in any of the eastern colonies. The St. Vincent became the last transport vessel to the island on 26 May 1853, Norfolk Island took the last convict in 1855 and Van Diemen's Land went for a rebranding exercise by changing it's name to Tasmania. By the end of 1856, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia all had self-government and the secret ballot for all males over 21.
The last major gold rush in Victoria was at Berringa, south of Ballarat, in the first decade of the 20th century. Gold mining became nothing more than a hobby in Victoria for decades mainly because of the depth and costz. The First World War also drained Australia of the labour needed to work the mines. More significantly, the prohibition on the export of gold from Australia in 1915 and the abolition of the gold standard, winding down stockpiling of gold and production of sovereigns throughout the Empire saw Australian gold towns shrink, in some cases, being totally abandoned. The slump in gold production never recovered.
Among the last bushrangers was the Kelly gang in Victoria, led by Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous bushranger.
Kelly was born in the then-British colony of Victoria in December 1854 as the third of eight children to Irish parents. His father, a transported convict, died shortly after serving a six-month prison sentence, leaving Kelly, then aged 12, as the eldest male of the household. The Kellys were a poor selector family who saw themselves as downtrodden by the Squattocracy and as victims of persecution by the Victoria Police. While a teenager, Kelly was arrested for associating with bushranger Harry Power, and served two prison terms for a variety of offences, the longest stretch being from 1871 to 1874 on a conviction of receiving a stolen horse. He later joined the "Greta mob", a group of bush larrikins known for stock theft. Kelly may have faded into obscurity but for Premier of Victoria, Graham Berry's decision to sack some 300 judges, police magistrates, coroners and other public servants in January 1878. This pushed the Police Commissioner, Captain Standish to protect his power base and prove his value to society and what better way than to arrest the prominent lawbreakers, the Kellys. |
A violent confrontation with a policeman followed at the Kelly family home and Kelly was indicted for his attempted murder. Fleeing to the bush, Kelly vowed to avenge his mother, who was imprisoned for her role in the incident. After he, his younger brother Dan, and two associates—Joe Byrne and Steve Hart—shot dead three policemen, the Government of Victoria proclaimed them outlaws. Kelly had the distinction of having the highest bounty within the British Empire placed on their heads. (that is until 1920 with the £10,000 bounty on Michael Collins)
Kelly and his gang eluded the police for two years, thanks in part to the support of an extensive network of sympathisers. The gang's crime spree included raids on Euroa and Jerilderie, and the killing of Aaron Sherritt, a sympathiser turned police informer. In a manifesto letter, Kelly—denouncing the police, the Victorian government and the British Empire—set down his own account of the events leading up to his outlawry. Demanding justice for his family and the rural poor, he threatened dire consequences against those who defied him. |
Herbert Harvey Wyatt (1855-1901) was a member of a long established and distinguished Staffordshire family of yeomen, which can be traced back to Humphrey Wyatt of Weeford, born c.1540.
In the mid-eighteenth century the Wyatts branched out into building and architecture, at first locally, but soon they were on the national stage, the most distinguished, if somewhat controversial being James Wyatt, the King’s architect (1746-1813). According to Alice’s second cousin, the journalist and parliamentarian Woodrow Wyatt, Baron Wyatt of Weeford (1918-97), there were twenty-eight architects in all, right down to the late nineteenth century. They were certainly England’s preeminent architectural family. Another relative was Robert Elliott Storey Wyatt (1901-95), captain of the England cricket team in 1933-35.
Herbert was a direct descendant of James Wyatt’s oldest brother William (1734-80), also an architect, who practised in Staffordshire and the English midlands. William’s great-grandson and Herbert's father was a lawyer turned Anglican clergyman the Rev Arthur Harvey Wyatt (1827-1906), rector of Corse in Gloucestershire, who had a large family and married twice.
Herbert was born in 1855 and christened on 18 October 1855 at Berkswich with Walton, Staffordshire. Herbert's mother, Emmeline died c. 1860.
Both Herbert Harvey and older brother Edgar Arthur (1853-79) appear to have been brought up by their grandparents, Harvey (c.1799-1876) and Jemima Wyatt on their 500 acre farm at Acton Hill, near Barton-under-Needwood, in Staffordshire. Harvey had also succeeded his father, the land surveyor Robert Harvey Wyatt (d. 1836), as local agent to the Anson family, Earls of Lichfield. In due course this position passed to Harvey’s second son, Robert (1835-86), who like Arthur had been trained as a barrister. Herbert's brother Edgar, a talented cricketer, died in 1879 aged 26 in Sussex, while Herbert decided at about this time, to seek his fortune in Australia.
Herbert Wyatt's arrival in Australia was c. March/April 1878 but vessel and arrival date are unknown. The first record of his presence has been found in The Port Augusta Dispatch of Saturday, April 20, 1878 which records Wyatt's arrival aboard the 273 ton SS Flinders from Port Adelaide carrying cargo, sundry stores and interestingly 21 named passengers in cabin accommodation and 16 unnamed passengers in steerage.
Wyatt may have originally landed from Britain in Port Adelaide or further east in Victoria some weeks previously. Research on Shipping Registers continues.
In the mid-eighteenth century the Wyatts branched out into building and architecture, at first locally, but soon they were on the national stage, the most distinguished, if somewhat controversial being James Wyatt, the King’s architect (1746-1813). According to Alice’s second cousin, the journalist and parliamentarian Woodrow Wyatt, Baron Wyatt of Weeford (1918-97), there were twenty-eight architects in all, right down to the late nineteenth century. They were certainly England’s preeminent architectural family. Another relative was Robert Elliott Storey Wyatt (1901-95), captain of the England cricket team in 1933-35.
Herbert was a direct descendant of James Wyatt’s oldest brother William (1734-80), also an architect, who practised in Staffordshire and the English midlands. William’s great-grandson and Herbert's father was a lawyer turned Anglican clergyman the Rev Arthur Harvey Wyatt (1827-1906), rector of Corse in Gloucestershire, who had a large family and married twice.
Herbert was born in 1855 and christened on 18 October 1855 at Berkswich with Walton, Staffordshire. Herbert's mother, Emmeline died c. 1860.
Both Herbert Harvey and older brother Edgar Arthur (1853-79) appear to have been brought up by their grandparents, Harvey (c.1799-1876) and Jemima Wyatt on their 500 acre farm at Acton Hill, near Barton-under-Needwood, in Staffordshire. Harvey had also succeeded his father, the land surveyor Robert Harvey Wyatt (d. 1836), as local agent to the Anson family, Earls of Lichfield. In due course this position passed to Harvey’s second son, Robert (1835-86), who like Arthur had been trained as a barrister. Herbert's brother Edgar, a talented cricketer, died in 1879 aged 26 in Sussex, while Herbert decided at about this time, to seek his fortune in Australia.
Herbert Wyatt's arrival in Australia was c. March/April 1878 but vessel and arrival date are unknown. The first record of his presence has been found in The Port Augusta Dispatch of Saturday, April 20, 1878 which records Wyatt's arrival aboard the 273 ton SS Flinders from Port Adelaide carrying cargo, sundry stores and interestingly 21 named passengers in cabin accommodation and 16 unnamed passengers in steerage.
Wyatt may have originally landed from Britain in Port Adelaide or further east in Victoria some weeks previously. Research on Shipping Registers continues.
Port Augusta Dispatch newspaper, Saturday, April 20, 1878. Thanks to the National Library of Australia & State Library of South Australia.
Note the advert for fares between Adelaide and Port Augusta - equivalent prices in 2020: Saloon: £300 & Steerage £179 one way.
Note the advert for fares between Adelaide and Port Augusta - equivalent prices in 2020: Saloon: £300 & Steerage £179 one way.
Wyatt's obituary reports his arrival in 'The Colonies' as being before 1880 and shortly after landing, employed and learning the ropes at Clare Station on the Lachlan, southern central NSW owned by William Cambell. One of Australia's richest pastoralists, Cambell (1810-96) was one of the first to discover gold in Victoria and later a member of the State parliament & Legislative Council.
The next newspaper reference for Wyatt is contained in a 'Stock Report' published by the Riverine Grazier, 1 May, 1878 (below).
Stock Reports were key sources of information at a time when communications were simpler. These record and number flocks of sheep and herds of cattle along with their manager or head drover as all passed on foot & horseback over established stock routes to various markets. The information was then telegraphed to various Grazier's Offices and printed daily in the capital city & local newspapers. These reports provided essential information to owners (as well as family members of the droving team) as to progress, when the stock could be expected at certain points and also, vitally for the owners - the animal mortality rate en-route from station to market.
Wyatt is recorded as in charge of 2,700 'fat sheep' passing westwards through the town of Hay in the western Riverina region, south-western NSW (a few days distant from Clare Station) on the Melbourne stock route.
The next newspaper reference for Wyatt is contained in a 'Stock Report' published by the Riverine Grazier, 1 May, 1878 (below).
Stock Reports were key sources of information at a time when communications were simpler. These record and number flocks of sheep and herds of cattle along with their manager or head drover as all passed on foot & horseback over established stock routes to various markets. The information was then telegraphed to various Grazier's Offices and printed daily in the capital city & local newspapers. These reports provided essential information to owners (as well as family members of the droving team) as to progress, when the stock could be expected at certain points and also, vitally for the owners - the animal mortality rate en-route from station to market.
Wyatt is recorded as in charge of 2,700 'fat sheep' passing westwards through the town of Hay in the western Riverina region, south-western NSW (a few days distant from Clare Station) on the Melbourne stock route.
In 1880, when Kelly's attempt to derail and ambush a police train failed, he and his gang, dressed in armour fashioned from stolen plough mouldboards, engaged in a final gun battle with the police at Glenrowan. Kelly, the only survivor, was severely wounded by police fire and captured. Despite thousands of supporters attending rallies and signing a petition for his reprieve, Kelly was tried, convicted and sentenced to death by hanging, which was carried out at the Old Melbourne Gaol. His last words were famously reported to have been, "Such is life".
Historian Geoffrey Serle called Kelly and his gang "the last expression of the lawless frontier in what was becoming a highly organised and educated society, the last protest of the mighty bush now tethered with iron rails to Melbourne and the world".
In the century after his death, Kelly became a cultural icon, inspiring numerous works in the arts and popular culture, and is the subject of more biographies than any other Australian. Kelly continues to cause division in his homeland: some celebrate him as Australia's equivalent of Robin Hood, while others regard him as a murderous villain undeserving of his folk hero status.
Historian Geoffrey Serle called Kelly and his gang "the last expression of the lawless frontier in what was becoming a highly organised and educated society, the last protest of the mighty bush now tethered with iron rails to Melbourne and the world".
In the century after his death, Kelly became a cultural icon, inspiring numerous works in the arts and popular culture, and is the subject of more biographies than any other Australian. Kelly continues to cause division in his homeland: some celebrate him as Australia's equivalent of Robin Hood, while others regard him as a murderous villain undeserving of his folk hero status.
Ned Kelly has progressed from outlaw to national hero in a century, and to international icon in a further 20 years. The still-enigmatic, slightly saturnine and ever-ambivalent bushranger is the undisputed, if not universally admired, national symbol of Australia.
Graham Seale
"In the time since his execution, Kelly has been mythologised into a "Robin Hood" character, a political icon and a figure of Irish Catholic and working-class resistance to the establishment and British colonial ties. In the Jerilderie Letter, Kelly demanded that wealthy squatters share their land with, and redistribute their wealth to, the rural poor, for "it will always pay a rich man to be liberal with the poor ... if the poor is on his side he shall lose nothing by it"....Favourable accounts of Kelly from his captives, and his "public performances" of burning mortgage documents at Euroa and Jerilderie, contributed to his reputation as a man of the people."
The primary issue during the years leading up to the 1880's was that of land and a fair allocation of land to settlers. A good example of how land division was managed and allocated is that of New South Wales.
The Colony of New South Wales was founded as a British penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825. The colony then also included the island territories of New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the colony's area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became New Zealand and the various states and territories of Australia. New South Wales accounts for 10% percent of the total land area of Australia, it's 806,642 square kms, bigger than Pakistan, slightly bigger than Texas, four times the size of the UK and eleven times larger than the island of Ireland. The history of NSW is largely one of gold and land. |
The squatters' grip on agricultural land in the colony of New South Wales was challenged in the 1860s with the passing of Land Acts that allowed those with limited means to acquire land. Both selectors and squatters used the broad framework of the Land Acts to maximise their advantages in the ensuing scramble for land. There was a general manipulation of the system by squatters, selectors and profiteers alike. The legislation secured access to the squatter's land for the selector, but thereafter effectively left him to fend for himself.
However discontent was rife and a political shift in the early 1880s saw the setting up of a commission to inquire into the effects of the land legislation. The Morris and Ranken committee of inquiry, which reported in 1883, found that the number of homesteads established was a small percentage of the applications for selections under the Act, especially in areas of low rainfall such as the Riverina and the lower Darling River. The greater number of selections were made by squatters or their agents, or by selectors unable to establish themselves or who sought to gain by re-sale. The Crown Lands Act of 1884, introduced in the wake of the Morris-Ranken inquiry, sought to compromise between the integrity of the large pastoral leaseholds and the political requirements of equality of land availability and closer settlement patterns. The Act divided pastoral runs into Leasehold Areas (held under short-term leases) and Resumed Areas (available for settlement as smaller homestead leases) and allowed for the establishment of local Land Boards.[5]
Victoria
After the excitement of the first gold rush died away, more immigrants wanted to settle on land and make a living other than panning for gold. The issue of land distribution and ownership was dealt with in 1861 under The Lands Act and Occupation Act.
Selection referred to "free selection before survey" of crown land in some Australian colonies under land legislation introduced in the 1860s. These acts were intended to encourage closer settlement, based on intensive agriculture, such as wheat-growing, rather than extensive agriculture, such as wool production. Selectors often came into conflict with squatters, who already occupied the land and often managed to circumvent the law
Economically, the colony was on a sound footing from the 1850s. Responsible government was granted to NSW in 1855, and all males over the age of twenty-one were enfranchised in 1858 (in 1896, Tasmania became the last colony to grant universal male suffrage). As the economy strengthened further in the 1860s, ethnic and class tensions subsided. British troops were no longer needed and they were withdrawn in 1870.
NSW and Victoria competed with each other economically, in sports events and culturally. Both Sydney and Melbourne vied to be the capital of the emerging country of Australia. Both would lose out. Nevertheless, the development of NSW continued, and its residents and politicians played important roles in moving the colonies towards Federation in 1901.
The Robertson Land Acts allowed those with limited means to acquire land. With the stated intention of encouraging closer settlement and fairer allocation of land by allowing 'free selection before survey', the Land Acts legislation was passed in 1861. The relevant acts were named the Crown Lands Alienation Act and Crown Lands Occupation Act. The application of the legislation was delayed until 1866 in inland areas such as the Riverina where existing squatting leases were still to run their course. In any case severe drought in the Riverina in the late 1860s initially discouraged selection in areas except those close to established townships. Selection activity increased with more favourable seasons in the early 1870s.
Both selectors and squatters used the broad framework of the Land Acts to maximise their advantages in the ensuing scramble for land. There was a general manipulation of the system by squatters, selectors and profiteers alike. The legislation secured access to the squatter's land for the selector, but thereafter effectively left him to fend for himself. Amendments passed in 1875 sought to remedy some of the abuses perpetrated under the original selection legislation.
However discontent was rife and a political shift in the early 1880s saw the setting up of a commission to inquire into the effects of the land legislation. The Morris and Ranken committee of inquiry, which reported in 1883, found that the number of homesteads established was a small percentage of the applications for selections under the Act, especially in areas of low rainfall such as the Riverina and the lower Darling River. The greater number of selections were made by squatters or their agents, or by selectors unable to establish themselves or who sought to gain by re-sale. The gaining of lands through agents—often old people who willed the land to the squatter—was known as dummying.[1] The Crown Lands Act of 1884, introduced in the wake of the Morris-Ranken inquiry, sought to compromise between the integrity of the large pastoral leaseholds and the political requirements of equality of land availability and closer settlement patterns. The Act divided pastoral runs into Leasehold Areas (held under short-term leases) and Resumed Areas (available for settlement as smaller homestead leases) and allowed for the establishment of local Land Boards.[2]
Since 1880, New South Wales has been divided into three geographical and political divisions: Eastern, Central and Western. These were established primarily for management of Crown land leases to private persons.
The Western Division runs from Queensland down to Victoria, sometimes following the county boundaries, but often cutting through counties. The Barwon River delineates the northern section of the eastern boundary, and the Lachlan River the southern section of the eastern boundary. This division is slightly larger than Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales combined. The Western Division (that was to contain all the Homestead Leases) was further divided into 10 Land Districts: Balranald Bourke Brewarrina Cobar Hay North Hillston North Walgett North Wentworth Wilcannia Willyama (Broken Hill area up to Queensland border) The Far West region is generally a fairly flat and low-lying area in the western part of the state, which is too dry to support wheat or other crops. An area with limited rainfall, and the only major rivers found in the region are the Darling and the Murray (on its southern edge), which originate in the Great Dividing Range to the east. Its only city is Broken Hill, and other significant towns are Bourke, Brewarrina, Cobar, Ivanhoe and Wentworth.The major industries are mining and extensive pasturing. During good seasons in the 1870s and 1880s, large sheep stations were established with high stocking rates, partly in response to a widespread belief that the introduction of European agriculture would cause climate change in favour of European conditions. This 'rain follows the plough' myth was shattered by the droughts of the 1890s, and many of the stations established during this period were subsequently abandoned. |
About this time, Herbert Wyatt moved further west in New South Wales to work as an overseer at Wanaaring Station for the owner/manager Charley Hebden of the Hebden Brothers Partnership.
In the region, he was to meet his wife, acquire a Homestead Lease, raise their children and spend the rest of his life.
Situated on the Paroo River, some 980 kilometres from Sydney, and 180 km west of Bourke, Wanaaring is in the traditional lands of the Paaruntyi people and The Burke and Wills expedition were the first Europeans to the area. The climate is semi-arid, featuring low rainfall, very hot summer temperatures and cool nights in winter.
Charley Hebden became enamoured with the "back" country; it held a strange fascination for him and many since, and for some years he made Wanaaring his headquarters, in spite of heat, flies, occasional floods and chronic drought.
He bred some fine racehorses at Wanaaring Station, and with some of them won many races at Randwick in Sydney under the skilful training of Mr. P. Nolan. Britain, one of his own breeding, won a number of races, and at one time was second favourite for the Melbourne Cup.
In the region, he was to meet his wife, acquire a Homestead Lease, raise their children and spend the rest of his life.
Situated on the Paroo River, some 980 kilometres from Sydney, and 180 km west of Bourke, Wanaaring is in the traditional lands of the Paaruntyi people and The Burke and Wills expedition were the first Europeans to the area. The climate is semi-arid, featuring low rainfall, very hot summer temperatures and cool nights in winter.
Charley Hebden became enamoured with the "back" country; it held a strange fascination for him and many since, and for some years he made Wanaaring his headquarters, in spite of heat, flies, occasional floods and chronic drought.
He bred some fine racehorses at Wanaaring Station, and with some of them won many races at Randwick in Sydney under the skilful training of Mr. P. Nolan. Britain, one of his own breeding, won a number of races, and at one time was second favourite for the Melbourne Cup.
October 28, 1880, a Far West New South Wales pastoral property some 100 miles north west of Bourke near Wanaaring named Tinapagee Station went under the hammer in a Melbourne saleroom. The 740,000 acres (300,000 Ha or 1,160 square miles) run with 58,000 'first class sheep' was sold to Richard Feehan. Pastoral investment in the 1880's west of the Darling river was largely fuelled by speculative Victorian money and in the midst of a boom, it certainly appeared like a good investment for the Melbourne publican. During the Feehan ownership, the station would arguably enjoy its “golden” years, before the financial reverses and the 'Federation Drought' of the 1890s claimed another victim and brought the good times to an inglorious end.
The land around Tinapagee was first taken up in the 1860's by the Melbourne woolbroking partnership of McComas and Heaney.
Burke and Wills had not long before passed through the area on their ill-fated journey north, and a young Ernest Giles – later to make his name as an explorer in Central Australia – was at that time making forays into the unsettled lands west of the Darling in search of likely pastoral country. Tinapagee was one of the outposts of civilisation when Giles reportedly staggered across its welcome threshold after a gruelling and unsuccessful expedition, to be taken care of by Mr McComas (who became a lifelong friend).
By the late 1870s, Tinapagee was in the hands of another Melbourne-based partnership, Fitzgerald and Co, and stocking-up with sheep to cash in on the booming demand for wool, now accessible to markets thanks to the advent of river transport. (With a 30km frontage to the Paroo River, transportation was not going to be difficult.) This partnership comprised Maurice (M.P.) Fitzgerald (who later bought Fort Bourke Station, with two relatives) and two other Melbournians, Richard Feehan and Andrew Tobin. Tobin, who had started out in a livery stable business in Melbourne, used his Tinapagee involvement as a springboard for his better-known venture: the aggregation of lands at Coonamble to form mighty Wingadee Station.
But it was Feehan, the high-profile Melburnian whose City Arms Hotel had prospered during the goldrush era, who would make a lasting mark at Tinapagee, and came to regard it as more than a speculative throw of the dice. Feehan had already dabbled in pastoral affairs closer to home – one of his farms was the site of what later became the Moonee Valley Racecourse (where his descendants still hold an annual family reunion) – but like so many of his boomtime peers, he hankered after bigger things. Shortly after buying Tinapagee, Feehan acquired the 320,000ha “Beechal Creek” aggregation over the border in western Queensland, near the head of the Paroo.
The land around Tinapagee was first taken up in the 1860's by the Melbourne woolbroking partnership of McComas and Heaney.
Burke and Wills had not long before passed through the area on their ill-fated journey north, and a young Ernest Giles – later to make his name as an explorer in Central Australia – was at that time making forays into the unsettled lands west of the Darling in search of likely pastoral country. Tinapagee was one of the outposts of civilisation when Giles reportedly staggered across its welcome threshold after a gruelling and unsuccessful expedition, to be taken care of by Mr McComas (who became a lifelong friend).
By the late 1870s, Tinapagee was in the hands of another Melbourne-based partnership, Fitzgerald and Co, and stocking-up with sheep to cash in on the booming demand for wool, now accessible to markets thanks to the advent of river transport. (With a 30km frontage to the Paroo River, transportation was not going to be difficult.) This partnership comprised Maurice (M.P.) Fitzgerald (who later bought Fort Bourke Station, with two relatives) and two other Melbournians, Richard Feehan and Andrew Tobin. Tobin, who had started out in a livery stable business in Melbourne, used his Tinapagee involvement as a springboard for his better-known venture: the aggregation of lands at Coonamble to form mighty Wingadee Station.
But it was Feehan, the high-profile Melburnian whose City Arms Hotel had prospered during the goldrush era, who would make a lasting mark at Tinapagee, and came to regard it as more than a speculative throw of the dice. Feehan had already dabbled in pastoral affairs closer to home – one of his farms was the site of what later became the Moonee Valley Racecourse (where his descendants still hold an annual family reunion) – but like so many of his boomtime peers, he hankered after bigger things. Shortly after buying Tinapagee, Feehan acquired the 320,000ha “Beechal Creek” aggregation over the border in western Queensland, near the head of the Paroo.
The Tinapagee property began carrying a prized herd of Shorthorn cattle in a stud founded by Feehan in 1883 upon the dispersal of a noted Gippsland herd. Feehan also built a rambling 12 room homestead fringed with garden and a 40-stand (blade) shearing shed and wool scour.
Pressed bales of scoured wool were loaded onto camel trains and transported to Tilpa for loading on a river steamer to start the long journey to London sales, or later to Bourke, for loading on rail for dispersal to Sydney and Melbourne and then onto London.
Pressed bales of scoured wool were loaded onto camel trains and transported to Tilpa for loading on a river steamer to start the long journey to London sales, or later to Bourke, for loading on rail for dispersal to Sydney and Melbourne and then onto London.
Around 1884, Maggie D'Alton's sister Mary Louisa D'Alton (1849-1937), a second of Bridget's nieces, had decided to emigrate from Co. Tipperary to join her extended family. It's understood that on this voyage, she met her future husband, Herbert Harvey Wyatt who was returning to Australia after a visit to Britain. He was then employed as Manager of Wanaaring Station (an adjoining station to her Aunt's pastoral holding, Tinapagee.)
After arrival in Victoria, it's believed that at some time later in 1884, early 1885, Mary Louisa joined the Feehans in a family expedition to visit their pastoral holding, Tinapagee Station, some 700 miles to the North-West. This would have been quite an adventure at the time - overland by coach & horses from Melbourne to the Darling River. From there by paddleboat up the Darling to Bourke before another 100 plus mile trip by horse and buggy overland northwest to Tinapagee. There they stayed for some months.
After arrival in Victoria, it's believed that at some time later in 1884, early 1885, Mary Louisa joined the Feehans in a family expedition to visit their pastoral holding, Tinapagee Station, some 700 miles to the North-West. This would have been quite an adventure at the time - overland by coach & horses from Melbourne to the Darling River. From there by paddleboat up the Darling to Bourke before another 100 plus mile trip by horse and buggy overland northwest to Tinapagee. There they stayed for some months.
At Tinapagee, she met again with Herbert Wyatt when invited to a social gathering. This meeting blossomed into a relationship and within a short space of time, they announced their engagement. On the Feehan's and Mary Louisa's return to Melbourne later in 1885, their long-distance relationship was conducted through letters written and carried by the mails by riverboat and coach between Bourke and Melbourne.
However, this engagement was to cause a number of significant social & cultural difficulties within the respective families.
Herbert & Mary Louisa were members of different faiths, a not inconsiderable difficulty and issue for the period when race, class and sectarianism were very much a part of Australian society. During the 1880's, inter-faith marriages were a rare event in Ireland & Britain, according to one study conducted by Dr Alan Fernihough of Queen’s University Belfast. However, these 'mixed' marriages while far more common in Australia. While late Victorian-era sectarianism in Australia tended to reflect the political inheritance of Britain and Ireland, a strong stance on the issue was certainly taken by the Catholic hierarchy in the Colonies as socially unacceptable and actually prohibited by Plenary Councils from the late 1880s.
(For more information on these issues, see "Celebrating the Reformation: Its Legacy And Continuing Relevance" by Mark D Thompson and "Australia's Secular Foundations" by Malcolm Wood)
However, this engagement was to cause a number of significant social & cultural difficulties within the respective families.
Herbert & Mary Louisa were members of different faiths, a not inconsiderable difficulty and issue for the period when race, class and sectarianism were very much a part of Australian society. During the 1880's, inter-faith marriages were a rare event in Ireland & Britain, according to one study conducted by Dr Alan Fernihough of Queen’s University Belfast. However, these 'mixed' marriages while far more common in Australia. While late Victorian-era sectarianism in Australia tended to reflect the political inheritance of Britain and Ireland, a strong stance on the issue was certainly taken by the Catholic hierarchy in the Colonies as socially unacceptable and actually prohibited by Plenary Councils from the late 1880s.
(For more information on these issues, see "Celebrating the Reformation: Its Legacy And Continuing Relevance" by Mark D Thompson and "Australia's Secular Foundations" by Malcolm Wood)
Louth Village
The nearest settlement to Wanaaring & Tinapagee stations was a tiny village of Louth on the banks of the Darling River. Some 132 km northwest of Cobar, 100 km southwest of Bourke and 836 km northwest of Sydney, The town was established in 1859 when Thomas Andrew Mathews, an Irish immigrant from County Louth, built a pub to serve the passing trade along the then busy Darling River. At one stage the town grew to have three hotels, a cordial factory, three bakeries, two butchers, a post office, three churches, a Chinese garden, a general store, newspaper and a police station. Today, Louth is a sleepy little hamlet of less than 45 residents and better known for hosting NSW's premier Outback Race Meeting each August. The Shining Headstone The one remarkable attraction in Louth is the "Shining Headstone" which has officially declared an Australian National Monument. The headstone is the work of Peter Hoey-Finn of Bendigo who constructed it for Thomas Mathews to celebrate the life of his first wife, Mary Mathews, who died in 1869. The headstone was completed in Bendigo in 1882 and a year later it was transported up the Darling from South Australia on the Jane Eliza. It did not arrive in Louth until June, 1886. At the time the Darling River was too low and the Jane Eliza could not progress beyond Tilpa. It was eventually transported the final 90 km by bullock team. The monument cost £600 and was quarried from grey granite on Philip Island. It stood 7.6 m high and the Celtic Cross was 1.2 m high. It was positioned in such a way that on the anniversary of Mary Mathews' death, 19 August 1869, the sun reflects from the cross onto the house where she had once lived in Louth. The monument was installed in such a way that it caught the light of the setting sun and reflected it through town. Local folklore has it that the alignment of the headstone was achieved with the assistance of the navigational aids and expertise of the captain of the Jane Eliza. |
Between 1885 and 1902 1,759 Homestead Leases were granted only in the Western Division of New South Wales as an inducement or encouragement to settle the area. No regard was made for any of the traditional owners of these lands, the various Aboriginal tribes.
In sharp contrast to the previous land allocation system in Australia, every aspect of these Homestead Leases was highly regulated and policed.
In 1884 most of western New South Wales was made up of vast Pastoral Holdings, each Holding being divided into runs. These Pastoral Holdings or Leases were held by wealthy individuals, all mostly remote with by necessity almost self-sufficient communities made up mainly of male workers.
The Crown Lands Act of that year required that half of each of those existing runs in the Western Division be offered as Homestead Leases (HLs) to any interested person. A large run therefore became several Homestead Leases but these leases could only hold a maximum of 10,240 acres or about 16 square miles of land and then strictly only one lease per person to that maximum holding.
In August 1885, on the first day of issue, over a million acres of land was taken up as Homestead Leases. Rents per annum were set, depending on the location, potential quality of land, water holes and rivers. These leases were generally taken up by a couple - a man and his family (or a woman under certain conditions), often holding land for the first time. Conditions of the Homestead Lease were onerous, the leasee was required to pay a deposit, usually equal to a year's rent in advance, pay for a survey of the land, tackle the 16 square miles of fencing within 2 years, live on the lease holding for at least 6 months of each of the first 5 years, and then the necessity of having enough income to support his family plus buy stock, equipment and supplies for the holding. This represented quite a substantial outlay for most and possible largely through a land mortgage.
The first leases were usually granted for 15 years, broken into three periods of five years. At the end of the first five year period if the lessee had fulfilled all the required conditions he could claim the land as his own lease, although it still remained totally subject to Government regulations and leasehold conditions. Of those that survived the first five years of their lease, all were largely dependent on the availability of water, experience, good management and above all, a degree of pure luck. A Homestead lease could be forfeited if the terms were not maintained, a lease could also be surrendered if the leasee had been unable 'to make a go of it' for any number of reasons.
These Homestead Lease records hold a wealth of information, for the reasons why many of these original leases taken up in 1885 were surrendered by 1890 & 1895. Flood and rabbit plaques were the most common - both destroying the available forage for sheep and decimating stock, failure to pay the annual lease rent or to complete the stipulated fencing in time. Then there were the frequent accidents, death from disease or the occasional attacks by Aboriginal peoples.
In sharp contrast to the previous land allocation system in Australia, every aspect of these Homestead Leases was highly regulated and policed.
In 1884 most of western New South Wales was made up of vast Pastoral Holdings, each Holding being divided into runs. These Pastoral Holdings or Leases were held by wealthy individuals, all mostly remote with by necessity almost self-sufficient communities made up mainly of male workers.
The Crown Lands Act of that year required that half of each of those existing runs in the Western Division be offered as Homestead Leases (HLs) to any interested person. A large run therefore became several Homestead Leases but these leases could only hold a maximum of 10,240 acres or about 16 square miles of land and then strictly only one lease per person to that maximum holding.
In August 1885, on the first day of issue, over a million acres of land was taken up as Homestead Leases. Rents per annum were set, depending on the location, potential quality of land, water holes and rivers. These leases were generally taken up by a couple - a man and his family (or a woman under certain conditions), often holding land for the first time. Conditions of the Homestead Lease were onerous, the leasee was required to pay a deposit, usually equal to a year's rent in advance, pay for a survey of the land, tackle the 16 square miles of fencing within 2 years, live on the lease holding for at least 6 months of each of the first 5 years, and then the necessity of having enough income to support his family plus buy stock, equipment and supplies for the holding. This represented quite a substantial outlay for most and possible largely through a land mortgage.
The first leases were usually granted for 15 years, broken into three periods of five years. At the end of the first five year period if the lessee had fulfilled all the required conditions he could claim the land as his own lease, although it still remained totally subject to Government regulations and leasehold conditions. Of those that survived the first five years of their lease, all were largely dependent on the availability of water, experience, good management and above all, a degree of pure luck. A Homestead lease could be forfeited if the terms were not maintained, a lease could also be surrendered if the leasee had been unable 'to make a go of it' for any number of reasons.
These Homestead Lease records hold a wealth of information, for the reasons why many of these original leases taken up in 1885 were surrendered by 1890 & 1895. Flood and rabbit plaques were the most common - both destroying the available forage for sheep and decimating stock, failure to pay the annual lease rent or to complete the stipulated fencing in time. Then there were the frequent accidents, death from disease or the occasional attacks by Aboriginal peoples.
Herbert wrote weekly or so to his fiancee, Mary Louisa D'Alton from the Hebden Brothers Station, Wanaaring near the Tinapagee pastoral run during 1885 & 1886. Mary was staying with her Aunt, Bridget in the Feehan family home, 'Lismore' in Melbourne. No doubt, she also wrote weekly. Mail would take 2 weeks or more depending on climatic conditions to get from Melbourne to Acton Hill.
Feehan also bred many horses for the Melbourne sales, after the railway came to Bourke in 1885, and always drove the annual consignment to the railhead himself – an assignment he regarded as his yearly holiday treat.
Midsummer in Outback NSW, and Herbert is describing conditions at Wanaaring to Mary Louisa:
Feehan also bred many horses for the Melbourne sales, after the railway came to Bourke in 1885, and always drove the annual consignment to the railhead himself – an assignment he regarded as his yearly holiday treat.
Midsummer in Outback NSW, and Herbert is describing conditions at Wanaaring to Mary Louisa:
19 December, 1885
These hot nights, it is really a martyrdom to light the lamps at all, increasing the heat and bringing millions of insects to bother me. The weather the last fortnight has been really unbearable...the thermometer being over 100 [degrees] every day and about 90 [degrees] all night, so no wonder if one is sometimes in a bad temper...'
Worse was yet to come for the district early in the New Year. Herbert's next letter to Mary Louisa wrote of....
January 4, 1886
...a very high flood has come down the Paroo preventing the crossing of mails except by boats and they have been working hard at taking luggage and mails all day....it is the highest flood since 1882...I had to leave my horse tonight and swim...
Wyatt's neighbour continued to go from strength to strength as he staged a much-talked-about production sale in Bourke, offering 150 head of stud bulls and cows to widespread competition.
After such extensive flooding in the area, came another plaque. Herbert writes again on a date unknown but possibly late January 1886:
Talk about flies and mosquitoes, they are really dreadful and make one awfully savage. I have never known them much worse. I don't see much prospect of visiting for some time to come, what with pumping up tanks, and broken dams and sheep work...
Another of the surviving letters between Herbert and Mary Louisa clearly show the difficulties facing station owners as the southern summer ended:
17 May, 1886
...we have just had five months without enough rain to wet a pocket handkerchief. Wool is also at a standstill and altogether things look very gloomy...
In early July, Wyatt reported that the shearers had point blank refused to shear at a lower rate.
The economic situation was taking it's toll on Wyatt's neighbours and in particular, the Feehans. Wyatt in a letter to Mary Louisa comments on the developing situation regarding the Feehan holdings at Tinapagee and other stations.
The economic situation was taking it's toll on Wyatt's neighbours and in particular, the Feehans. Wyatt in a letter to Mary Louisa comments on the developing situation regarding the Feehan holdings at Tinapagee and other stations.
July 4, 1886
I am sorry to hear what you say about Mr. Feehan, though I expected they must be losing money, paying 8% for money the last few years means borrowing to pay the interest, instead of making something over. It is possible they may tide over for a time, if so, no doubt they will come out all right. It is a pity they were not satisfied with Tinapagee without going in for 'Beechal and Greece'.*
* Beechal is the 'Beechal Creek' Run. Shortly after buying “Tinapagee” Feehan acquired the 320,000ha “Beechal Creek” aggregation in western Queensland, near the head of the Paroo. As to reference of "Greece", possibly refers to Greece Station in South Australia. Research is ongoing,
Tinapaagee struggled through the crippling interest rates and economic crash and continued to operate.
By late July 1886, it was clear that Bridget Feehan was emphatic in her opposition to the marriage of her niece, Mary Louisa and the neighbouring British Overseer at Wanaaring Station, Herbert Wyatt.
However, we also discover that Bridget's strength of feeling was not something new or unexpected. Here's an excerpt of a letter from Herbert to Mary Louisa:
By late July 1886, it was clear that Bridget Feehan was emphatic in her opposition to the marriage of her niece, Mary Louisa and the neighbouring British Overseer at Wanaaring Station, Herbert Wyatt.
However, we also discover that Bridget's strength of feeling was not something new or unexpected. Here's an excerpt of a letter from Herbert to Mary Louisa:
July 31, 1886
......I am sorry Mrs Feehan is so much against our engagement, but I fully expected her opposition, as she was so unreasonable about Kitty's that had many things to recommend it...
Fanning Family History. https://fanningfamilyhistory.com/index.php/category/australian-families/dillon/
Feehan family history records Bridget as a most able person:
Despite Aunt Brigid's opposition, Herbert Wyatt travelled overland and both he and Mary Louisa D’Alton were married in Sydney in 1886 on a date currently unknown. Interestingly, this event was not held in Melbourne as perhaps the Victorian Catholic hierarchy had by this date, expressly forbidden inter-faith marriages. Bishop Murray of Melbourne had gone to far as to state that 'fatal indifference to religion, which is the curse of this country...has crept in through mixed marriages which have been so long tolerated' and refused permission for any Roman Catholic marriage ceremonies between faiths.
(NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages: 1768/1886 Sydney)
No doubt anxious to provide for both himself and new wife, Herbert Wyatt applied for a Homestead Lease in the Wanaaring district. His working experience had been as a manager for at least two large sheep stations...
In 1887, an original Australian Homestead Lease No. 335 (HL 335) of 10,240 acres in the Bourke - Landsborough - Barcoola land district was approved, (Wanaaring Block C on map below) granted & taken up by Herbert Harvey Wyatt. An annual rent of £85, 6 shillings and 8 pence was payable a year in advance. Wyatt named the station 'Acton Hill' after his British ancestral home.
Source: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~surreal/NSWW/Leases/1887.html#approvals
WANAARING PASTORAL HOLDING
This area is mainly flat, soft sandy to red loam soil country with varying degrees of timber and woody shrub cover, the property supports a wide assortment of native grasses, edible bush and seasonal herbages. Tinapagee was a homestead on the Paroo River in northwest New South Wales, Australia situated about 810km northwest of Sydney . Tinapagee is at an altitude of about 118m above sea level. The nearest ocean is the Southern Ocean about 700km west-southwest of Tinapagee. The nearest more populous place is the town of Bourke which is 170km away with a population of around 2,600.
In 1887, an original Australian Homestead Lease No. 335 (HL 335) of 10,240 acres in the Bourke - Landsborough - Barcoola land district was approved, (Wanaaring Block C on map below) granted & taken up by Herbert Harvey Wyatt. An annual rent of £85, 6 shillings and 8 pence was payable a year in advance. Wyatt named the station 'Acton Hill' after his British ancestral home.
Source: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~surreal/NSWW/Leases/1887.html#approvals
WANAARING PASTORAL HOLDING
This area is mainly flat, soft sandy to red loam soil country with varying degrees of timber and woody shrub cover, the property supports a wide assortment of native grasses, edible bush and seasonal herbages. Tinapagee was a homestead on the Paroo River in northwest New South Wales, Australia situated about 810km northwest of Sydney . Tinapagee is at an altitude of about 118m above sea level. The nearest ocean is the Southern Ocean about 700km west-southwest of Tinapagee. The nearest more populous place is the town of Bourke which is 170km away with a population of around 2,600.
Feehan continued to make a fist of the Tinapagee station and was able to offer for sale 14,000 wether hoggets in 1887.
Wyatt is recorded as transporting 800 sheep from Acton Hill to Sydney on September 26th. These would have been loaded onto river boats in the Bourke area and carried south to markets. On return home from town, Wyatt is noted in the 'Pastoral Intelligencer' reports that he began stocking his 16 square mile holding with 410 head of cattle being droved from Mooculta to Acton Hill and noted as passing over the Darling River at Darling Bridge, North Bourke on October 4th
Wyatt is recorded as transporting 800 sheep from Acton Hill to Sydney on September 26th. These would have been loaded onto river boats in the Bourke area and carried south to markets. On return home from town, Wyatt is noted in the 'Pastoral Intelligencer' reports that he began stocking his 16 square mile holding with 410 head of cattle being droved from Mooculta to Acton Hill and noted as passing over the Darling River at Darling Bridge, North Bourke on October 4th
The Darling River or Bourke Bridge is one of the most historic bridges in New South Wales. Opened on 4 May 1883, it is the oldest moveable span bridge in Australia. The Bourke Bridge was designed and constructed at the height of the River Trade era when the principal mode of transport for Western NSW and the Riverina District was some 200 paddle steamer-barge combinations operating the Murray-Darling River system. Stock movements over this bridge on a daily basis provided "Pastoral Intelligence" reports filed weekly with the major city newspapers and local press.
Designed by J H Daniels, its operation was modified by E M de Burgh in 1895 and 1903, both Public Works bridge engineers. The initiating contractor was prominent colonial bridge builder David Baillie, completed after his death by business associates McCulloch & Co. The main bridge over the Darling River was an expensive all-iron structure, involving imported wrought iron from England, most of it carted 400 miles from Bathurst with some by river boat from Echuca. It was more than a technical achievement. It was a political statement from successive Governments in Sydney against the poaching of its riches from the wool trade by South Australia and Victoria. The bridge provided easy direct access for wool teams to the railway in Bourke which arrived in September 1885, thereby avoiding difficult river bank loadings of barges. it was a 'gateway' structure for the inland districts of Northwest NSW and Southwest Queensland for 114 years until bypassed in 1997.
Designed by J H Daniels, its operation was modified by E M de Burgh in 1895 and 1903, both Public Works bridge engineers. The initiating contractor was prominent colonial bridge builder David Baillie, completed after his death by business associates McCulloch & Co. The main bridge over the Darling River was an expensive all-iron structure, involving imported wrought iron from England, most of it carted 400 miles from Bathurst with some by river boat from Echuca. It was more than a technical achievement. It was a political statement from successive Governments in Sydney against the poaching of its riches from the wool trade by South Australia and Victoria. The bridge provided easy direct access for wool teams to the railway in Bourke which arrived in September 1885, thereby avoiding difficult river bank loadings of barges. it was a 'gateway' structure for the inland districts of Northwest NSW and Southwest Queensland for 114 years until bypassed in 1997.
Homesteading in rural Australia provided a profitable and idyllic lifestyle for some, though life could just as quickly turn to misery during drought or flood.
Domestic life in the bush passed slowly. Gardening, music and books offered welcome diversions, while social interaction with neighbours, friends and visitors brought news and lively discussion to break the monotony, supplemented by an occasional trip to Sydney or one of the large inland towns. There were also times of heavy labour - sowing, harvesting, mustering, lambing, branding and shearing - as well as terrifying periods of drought, disease, bush fire and flood.
The isolation of many rural properties was such that dry supplies of flour, sugar, rice, tea were brought in only once a year which meant that most homesteads needed to be as self-sufficient as possible. Eggs, vegetables, milk, bacon, meat and fruit were produced on the property which saw the face of Australia's rapidly spreading agricultural districts gradually softened by the growth of the ornamental and kitchen gardens, orchards and plantations that surrounded the typical colonial bush homestead.
On larger properties, the homestead was occupied by the owner or manager, with his wife and family and attendant servants, surrounded by stables, out buildings and various accommodations for agricultural workers and stockmen with yards on either side for mustering horses, sheep and cattle. Most homesteads were alike in appearance and many had grown from an original single cell cottage. These long, low bungalows were usually built from slabs of hand-cut, local timber with a neat pitched roof, wide chimney piece to one side and deep cool verandahs set in the sheltered hollow of a hill amid carefully cultivated gardens against dramatic mountains of the broader landscape facing the river or fat pasturage below. The bush was kept at bay with post and rail fences criss-crossing over the spreading plains beyond the homestead gate approached by a sandy track winding up from the road or river bank.
However, most settlers lived simply and frugally in small holdings.
Habits from home were continued and retained in clothing. The heat of Australian summers were borne with tweeds, twill and serges, petticoats, waistcoats, flannels and the various acoutrements of fashion from Britain and Ireland.
Domestic life in the bush passed slowly. Gardening, music and books offered welcome diversions, while social interaction with neighbours, friends and visitors brought news and lively discussion to break the monotony, supplemented by an occasional trip to Sydney or one of the large inland towns. There were also times of heavy labour - sowing, harvesting, mustering, lambing, branding and shearing - as well as terrifying periods of drought, disease, bush fire and flood.
The isolation of many rural properties was such that dry supplies of flour, sugar, rice, tea were brought in only once a year which meant that most homesteads needed to be as self-sufficient as possible. Eggs, vegetables, milk, bacon, meat and fruit were produced on the property which saw the face of Australia's rapidly spreading agricultural districts gradually softened by the growth of the ornamental and kitchen gardens, orchards and plantations that surrounded the typical colonial bush homestead.
On larger properties, the homestead was occupied by the owner or manager, with his wife and family and attendant servants, surrounded by stables, out buildings and various accommodations for agricultural workers and stockmen with yards on either side for mustering horses, sheep and cattle. Most homesteads were alike in appearance and many had grown from an original single cell cottage. These long, low bungalows were usually built from slabs of hand-cut, local timber with a neat pitched roof, wide chimney piece to one side and deep cool verandahs set in the sheltered hollow of a hill amid carefully cultivated gardens against dramatic mountains of the broader landscape facing the river or fat pasturage below. The bush was kept at bay with post and rail fences criss-crossing over the spreading plains beyond the homestead gate approached by a sandy track winding up from the road or river bank.
However, most settlers lived simply and frugally in small holdings.
Habits from home were continued and retained in clothing. The heat of Australian summers were borne with tweeds, twill and serges, petticoats, waistcoats, flannels and the various acoutrements of fashion from Britain and Ireland.
The steady encroachment of European explorers and pastoralists into the lands of the Aborigines met with a variety of responses, from friendly or curious to fearful or violent reactions. Very often, early European exploratory expeditions only succeeded by means of the assistance rendered by Aboriginal guides or negotiators or by advice from tribes encountered along the expeditionary route. Nevertheless, the arrival of Europeans profoundly disrupted Aboriginal society. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, in Australia during the colonial period: "In a thousand isolated places there were occasional shootings and spearings. Even worse, smallpox, measles, influenza and other new diseases swept from one Aboriginal camp to another ... The main conqueror of Aborigines was to be disease and its ally, demoralisation".
Pastoralists often established themselves beyond the frontiers of European settlement and competition for water and land between indigenous people and cattlemen was a source of potential conflict—especially in the arid interior. In later decades Aboriginal men began working as skilled stockmen on outback cattle stations.
Christian missionaries sought to convert Aboriginal people. Prominent Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson (1965- ), who was raised at a Lutheran mission in Cape York, has written that Christian missions throughout Australia's colonial history "provided a haven from the hell of life on the Australian frontier while at the same time facilitating colonisation".
In the late 1880s, Aboriginal welfare advocate, Anglo-Irish anthropologist Daisy Bates commenced her work among the Aborigines after reading an allegation in The Times about atrocities against Aboriginals in north-west Australia. Bates came to fear that the Aboriginal race was destined for extinction.
Once Europeans had gained control of Aboriginal territory, the local Aborigines who had not been affected by disease or conflict were generally pushed into reserves or missions. Others settled on the fringes of white settlement or worked as station hands for white farmers. Some either intermarried or bore children with Europeans. European diet, disease and alcohol adversely affected many Aboriginal people. A relative few remained living traditional lives un-affected by Europeans at the close of the 19th century—mainly in the far North and in the Centralian deserts.
Pastoralists often established themselves beyond the frontiers of European settlement and competition for water and land between indigenous people and cattlemen was a source of potential conflict—especially in the arid interior. In later decades Aboriginal men began working as skilled stockmen on outback cattle stations.
Christian missionaries sought to convert Aboriginal people. Prominent Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson (1965- ), who was raised at a Lutheran mission in Cape York, has written that Christian missions throughout Australia's colonial history "provided a haven from the hell of life on the Australian frontier while at the same time facilitating colonisation".
In the late 1880s, Aboriginal welfare advocate, Anglo-Irish anthropologist Daisy Bates commenced her work among the Aborigines after reading an allegation in The Times about atrocities against Aboriginals in north-west Australia. Bates came to fear that the Aboriginal race was destined for extinction.
Once Europeans had gained control of Aboriginal territory, the local Aborigines who had not been affected by disease or conflict were generally pushed into reserves or missions. Others settled on the fringes of white settlement or worked as station hands for white farmers. Some either intermarried or bore children with Europeans. European diet, disease and alcohol adversely affected many Aboriginal people. A relative few remained living traditional lives un-affected by Europeans at the close of the 19th century—mainly in the far North and in the Centralian deserts.
In 1888, Alice Wyatt was born in Bourke.
(source: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages: 16972/1888 Bourke)
In 1888 Dunlop Station, owned by Sir Samuel McCaughey, became the first property in the world to experiment with mechanical sheep shearing. So revolutionary was the experiment that the shearing shed was subsequently visited by the Governor of New South Wales.
With such large tracts of land and stations, all livestock excluding sheep were branded to identify the owner. According to the Horse and Cattle Brand Register published by the New South Wales Government Gazette in July 1888, any horse or cattle branded with 'HhW' indicated that the owner was Herbert H Wyatt of Acton Hill Station.
Horse & Cattle Brand Register. NSW Government Gazette. Tuesday, 10 July 1888. Issue 443.
(source: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages: 16972/1888 Bourke)
In 1888 Dunlop Station, owned by Sir Samuel McCaughey, became the first property in the world to experiment with mechanical sheep shearing. So revolutionary was the experiment that the shearing shed was subsequently visited by the Governor of New South Wales.
With such large tracts of land and stations, all livestock excluding sheep were branded to identify the owner. According to the Horse and Cattle Brand Register published by the New South Wales Government Gazette in July 1888, any horse or cattle branded with 'HhW' indicated that the owner was Herbert H Wyatt of Acton Hill Station.
Horse & Cattle Brand Register. NSW Government Gazette. Tuesday, 10 July 1888. Issue 443.
Catherine Dillon, owner of the Black Dog Pub finally called time and passed away in 1888. The business was carried on by the family until 1920.
In Golden summer, Eaglemont Streeton showed a shepherd and sheep moving slowly homeward towards the end of the day. He captured the intense light, heat and dryness of many an Australian summer, using what would become his characteristic 'blue and gold' palette. He based the image on a small outdoor landscape. Streeton painted the foreground broadly, using shadows to lead the eye into the picture space, up to the gum trees silhouetted against the sky, conveying oneness with nature and a feeling of wellbeing. Summers were however, far more intense further inland in the North West of New South Wales.
Convinced the colonies would be stronger if they united, Sir Henry Parkes gave a rousing address at Tenterfield, New South Wales in 1889 calling for 'a great national government for all Australians'. Parkes's call provided the momentum that led to Australia becoming a nation rather than a collection of colonies. Parkes knew popular support was not enough, so he lobbied his fellow premiers to back federation.
Convinced the colonies would be stronger if they united, Sir Henry Parkes gave a rousing address at Tenterfield, New South Wales in 1889 calling for 'a great national government for all Australians'. Parkes's call provided the momentum that led to Australia becoming a nation rather than a collection of colonies. Parkes knew popular support was not enough, so he lobbied his fellow premiers to back federation.
In 1889, Edgar Arthur Wyatt (also known as Arthur Edgar) was born in Bourke. Named after his father's older brother who died young c.1879.
(source: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages: 16151/1889 Bourke)
Newspaper records report through weekly 'Pastoral Inteligencer' reports on 14 May, that 3,800 mixed sheep were sold by Wyatt (Acton Hill) to a Mr. Leeman. These were then droved towards Bourke with a stopover in the nearby village of Louth overnight.
(source: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages: 16151/1889 Bourke)
Newspaper records report through weekly 'Pastoral Inteligencer' reports on 14 May, that 3,800 mixed sheep were sold by Wyatt (Acton Hill) to a Mr. Leeman. These were then droved towards Bourke with a stopover in the nearby village of Louth overnight.
Commonplace in press at the time were notices of livestock discovered wandering on various stations throughout New South Wales. Take this example of a bay draught horse that was delivered to the animal pound in nearby Louth on 31 October 1889:
"Shearing the Rams" is an iconic Australian 1890 artwork by Tom Roberts. Distinctly Australian in character, the painting is a celebration of pastoral life and work, especially "strong, masculine labour", and recognises the role that the wool industry played in the development of the country. One of the best-known and most-loved paintings in Australia, Shearing the Rams has been described as a "masterpiece of Australian impressionism" and "the great icon of Australian popular art history". It forms part of the National Gallery of Victoria's Australian art collection, held at the Ian Potter Centre in Federation Square, Melbourne.
More details here.
More details here.
On 6 February 1890 delegates from each of the colonial parliaments and the New Zealand Parliament met at the Australasian Federation Conference in Melbourne. The conference agreed 'the interests and prosperity of the Australian colonies would be served by an early union under the crown'. It called for a national convention—formal meeting—to draft a constitution for a Commonwealth of Australia.
The first National Australasian Convention was held in Sydney in March and April 1891. It was attended by delegates from each of the colonies and the New Zealand Parliament. During the convention, Edmund Barton—who became the first Prime Minister of Australia—coined the catchcry 'a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation'.
The convention spent 5 weeks discussing and writing a draft constitution, which became the basis for the constitution we have today. Queensland Premier Sir Samuel Griffith is largely credited with drafting the constitution approved by the convention. However, his draft constitution was based on a version written by Tasmanian delegate Andrew Inglis Clark. Clark was inspired by the federal model of the United States, which, like Australia, faced the challenge of bringing together self-governing colonies as a nation.
Under the draft constitution the colonies would unite as separate states within the Commonwealth, with power shared between a federal—national—Parliament and state parliaments. This would give Australia a federal system of government.
Key features of the draft constitution included:
A federal Parliament comprising the Queen (represented by the Governor-General), a Senate and a House of Representatives. The 2 houses would have similar law-making powers—laws could only be passed or changed with the approval of both houses.
The federal Parliament would have responsibility for areas which affected the whole nation, such as trade, defence, immigration, postal and telegraphic services, marriage and divorce.
The House of Representatives was to be elected based on population, with members representing electorates made up of approximately the same number of people. Each state would elect the same number of representatives to the Senate. This would ensure states with larger populations would not dominate the Parliament.
A high court to interpret the constitution and resolve disputes between the federal and state governments.
The power to make and manage federal law was to be divided between the Parliament (who would make the law), the Executive (who would implement the law) and the Judiciary (who would interpret the law).
The convention delegates took the draft constitution back to their colonial parliaments for consideration and approval. Faced with an economic depression, the parliaments lost enthusiasm for federation. Federation's greatest champion, Parkes, retired from politics and following New South Wales governments did not share his passion for federation.
The convention spent 5 weeks discussing and writing a draft constitution, which became the basis for the constitution we have today. Queensland Premier Sir Samuel Griffith is largely credited with drafting the constitution approved by the convention. However, his draft constitution was based on a version written by Tasmanian delegate Andrew Inglis Clark. Clark was inspired by the federal model of the United States, which, like Australia, faced the challenge of bringing together self-governing colonies as a nation.
Under the draft constitution the colonies would unite as separate states within the Commonwealth, with power shared between a federal—national—Parliament and state parliaments. This would give Australia a federal system of government.
Key features of the draft constitution included:
A federal Parliament comprising the Queen (represented by the Governor-General), a Senate and a House of Representatives. The 2 houses would have similar law-making powers—laws could only be passed or changed with the approval of both houses.
The federal Parliament would have responsibility for areas which affected the whole nation, such as trade, defence, immigration, postal and telegraphic services, marriage and divorce.
The House of Representatives was to be elected based on population, with members representing electorates made up of approximately the same number of people. Each state would elect the same number of representatives to the Senate. This would ensure states with larger populations would not dominate the Parliament.
A high court to interpret the constitution and resolve disputes between the federal and state governments.
The power to make and manage federal law was to be divided between the Parliament (who would make the law), the Executive (who would implement the law) and the Judiciary (who would interpret the law).
The convention delegates took the draft constitution back to their colonial parliaments for consideration and approval. Faced with an economic depression, the parliaments lost enthusiasm for federation. Federation's greatest champion, Parkes, retired from politics and following New South Wales governments did not share his passion for federation.
A sepia toned photograph of a group of men in formal attire in front of a portico of a building. Six men (including Edmund Barton, fourth from left in the top hat) are seated on chairs. Eight men stand behind. Henry Parkes is fourth from left and Alfred Deakin is sixth from left. Thanks to the National Library of Australia.
There was a degree of uncertainty as regards the number of children born to Herbert and Mary. In addition to Alice in 1888 and Arthur Edgar in 1889, it was believed that there was a third child, the youngest, name unknown but understood to have died at a young age. Freddie O'Dwyer discovered the possibility of this child's existence as part of the 1911 Census research for the 2015 Lynch & Wyatt 1914 wedding article.
Research has now identified positively a second son: Walter Herbert who was born c. May 1891.
Wyatt occasionally wrote to the rural press either commenting on issues facing pastoralists (as in this query on the best way to erect rabbit proof netting' to help counter the perrenial threat in the outback - rabbits.
Research has now identified positively a second son: Walter Herbert who was born c. May 1891.
Wyatt occasionally wrote to the rural press either commenting on issues facing pastoralists (as in this query on the best way to erect rabbit proof netting' to help counter the perrenial threat in the outback - rabbits.
Richard Feehan Jnr certainly married well with Eleanor Prendergast in 1891. The Prendergasts, originally from Cloonconnor, Co. Mayo had extensive hotel interests in Melbourne including The Assembly, The Brittania and The American on Bourke Street and The Pastoral Hotel in Flemmington. No doubt his Mother was pleased.
In 1892 a young writer Henry Lawson was sent to Bourke by his Sydney Bulletin editor J.F. Archibald to get a taste of outback life and in an attempt to curb his heavy drinking. In Lawson's own words "I got £5 and a railway ticket from the Bulletin and went to Bourke. Painted, picked up in a shearing shed and swagged it for six months". The experience was to have a profound effect on the 25-year-old and his encounter with the harsh realities of bush life inspired much of his subsequent work. Lawson would later write "if you know Bourke you know Australia".
In 1892, a Fresh Lease under the 1889 Crown Land Act of the Australian Homestead Lease No. 335 was agreed between Wyatt and the Local District Board on 29 April 1892.
Also during 1892, Wyatt was optomistic enough about the future when he bought out another holding, HL 790, possibly adjacent to HL 335 from Hanah Dargin. Financed again by the Agency Land and Finance Co. of Australia Ltd, the conditions of residence were noted as fulfilled up to 31 August 1892.
However, tragedy was about to strike.
On November 1st, Herbert & Mary Louisa's youngest child, Walter Herbert Wyatt, died of unspecified causes.
Research discovered the death registry entry which confirms Walter's parentage but age and cause of death have yet to be confirmed. Further research eventually located his burial place in what is now known as ‘The Old Cemetery’ in Bourke. A single, forgotten and untended grave, with a simple weathered stone and surrounding metalwork. The inscription is faint and the lower part is not visible but reads "In Loving Memory of Walter Herbert Wyatt. Died 1st Nov 1892 aged 19 months."
Source: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages: 3118/1892 Bourke.
In 1892, a Fresh Lease under the 1889 Crown Land Act of the Australian Homestead Lease No. 335 was agreed between Wyatt and the Local District Board on 29 April 1892.
Also during 1892, Wyatt was optomistic enough about the future when he bought out another holding, HL 790, possibly adjacent to HL 335 from Hanah Dargin. Financed again by the Agency Land and Finance Co. of Australia Ltd, the conditions of residence were noted as fulfilled up to 31 August 1892.
However, tragedy was about to strike.
On November 1st, Herbert & Mary Louisa's youngest child, Walter Herbert Wyatt, died of unspecified causes.
Research discovered the death registry entry which confirms Walter's parentage but age and cause of death have yet to be confirmed. Further research eventually located his burial place in what is now known as ‘The Old Cemetery’ in Bourke. A single, forgotten and untended grave, with a simple weathered stone and surrounding metalwork. The inscription is faint and the lower part is not visible but reads "In Loving Memory of Walter Herbert Wyatt. Died 1st Nov 1892 aged 19 months."
Source: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages: 3118/1892 Bourke.
Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 07 November 2019), memorial page for Walter Herbert Wyatt (unknown–1 Nov 1892), Find A Grave Memorial no. 184957245, citing Bourke Cemetery, Bourke, Bourke Shire, New South Wales, Australia ; Maintained by Richie Wright (contributor 48346415) .
While the colonial parliaments put the issue of federation to one side, it had fired the public's imagination. Groups such as the Australian Federation League in New South Wales and the Australian Natives Association in Victoria continued to push for federation.
In 1893 a people's conference was held in Corowa, New South Wales, which agreed 'the best interests, present and future prosperity of the Australian colonies will be promoted by their early federation'. The Corowa Conference agreed to a proposal from Victorian delegate John Quick, that:
the colonial parliaments pass an Act to allow the direct election of delegates to a new federation convention which would decide on a draft constitution
a referendum be held asking the people to approve the draft constitution.
At a special premiers' conference held in Hobart in 1895 most of the colonies agreed to Quick's proposal. Queensland, fearing federation might mean the loss of its Pacific Islander labour force, decided not to take part. By this stage, New Zealand had decided not to be part of the federation process.
In 1893 a people's conference was held in Corowa, New South Wales, which agreed 'the best interests, present and future prosperity of the Australian colonies will be promoted by their early federation'. The Corowa Conference agreed to a proposal from Victorian delegate John Quick, that:
the colonial parliaments pass an Act to allow the direct election of delegates to a new federation convention which would decide on a draft constitution
a referendum be held asking the people to approve the draft constitution.
At a special premiers' conference held in Hobart in 1895 most of the colonies agreed to Quick's proposal. Queensland, fearing federation might mean the loss of its Pacific Islander labour force, decided not to take part. By this stage, New Zealand had decided not to be part of the federation process.
Feehan at neigbouring Tinapagee Station in 1893 was shearing 130,000 sheep.
Another Australian First was Women's suffrage with South Australia granting the right to vote in 1894. This 'Defining Moments' episode is thanks to the National Museum of Australia's series by historian David Hunt and illustrator Lucinda Gifford from Melbourne's Sketch Group:
1895: The Property Folio for HL 335 records that ‘Conditions satisfied 95.2952’. HL 790 conditions were passed as ‘satisfactory 95.4047).
By the mid-1890s, however, the pastoral party was over.
“Tinapagee”, like so many of the boomtime pastoral runs, was put in the hands of its creditor – in this case, Dalgety and Co.
But although Dalgety now called the shots, the station continued to be managed by Feehan’s son Maurice, who had worked on “Tinapagee” since the 1870s. Maurice left in 1901, and two years later – following the trail of his father’s former partner – was appointed manager of “Wingadee”, where he remained until his death in 1932.
(Nor did the foreclosure sour relations between the Feehan family and Dalgety: another of Feehan’s sons became a wool auctioneer for the company in Melbourne)
By the mid-1890s, however, the pastoral party was over.
“Tinapagee”, like so many of the boomtime pastoral runs, was put in the hands of its creditor – in this case, Dalgety and Co.
But although Dalgety now called the shots, the station continued to be managed by Feehan’s son Maurice, who had worked on “Tinapagee” since the 1870s. Maurice left in 1901, and two years later – following the trail of his father’s former partner – was appointed manager of “Wingadee”, where he remained until his death in 1932.
(Nor did the foreclosure sour relations between the Feehan family and Dalgety: another of Feehan’s sons became a wool auctioneer for the company in Melbourne)
A colour poster for a lottery with £1500 in prizes. Australia floats on an ocean and the ANA (Australian Natives Association) sun shines down. Six men each carrying a rolled-up piece of paper rush across the centre of the country towards New South Wales Premier Sire George Reid standing on the steps of the New South Wales Parliament House. Sir Henry Parkes looks on. In the South West of the country (where Perth is located) Western Australian Premier John Forrest looks on while putting a piece of gold in his pocket.
The second National Australasian Convention met 3 times during 1897 and 1898 in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, and used the 1891 draft constitution as a starting point for discussions. Elected and appointed representatives from all the colonies except Queensland took part in the convention.
One of the most significant changes made to the draft constitution related to the Senate. Senators would be directly elected by the people of each state instead of being selected by state parliaments. The new draft also set the number of members of the House of Representatives as roughly twice the number of senators.
Because the Senate and House of Representatives would have almost the same law-making powers, the delegates realised a way to break deadlocks between the 2 houses was needed. They decided disagreements could be resolved by dissolving—closing—both houses of Parliament and calling an election. The newly elected Parliament could then vote on the issue. If this failed to break the deadlock, it could be put to a vote in a joint sitting of both houses.
The convention also agreed to a proposal by Tasmanian Premier Sir Edward Braddon to return to the states three-quarters of the customs and excise tariffs collected by the federal government. 'Braddon's Blot', as it was called by its critics, was designed to reassure smaller states who were worried they would be worse-off under federation.
On 16 March 1898 the convention agreed to the draft constitution. After being agreed by the colonial parliaments, the people of each of the 6 colonies were then asked to approve the constitution in referendums.
One of the most significant changes made to the draft constitution related to the Senate. Senators would be directly elected by the people of each state instead of being selected by state parliaments. The new draft also set the number of members of the House of Representatives as roughly twice the number of senators.
Because the Senate and House of Representatives would have almost the same law-making powers, the delegates realised a way to break deadlocks between the 2 houses was needed. They decided disagreements could be resolved by dissolving—closing—both houses of Parliament and calling an election. The newly elected Parliament could then vote on the issue. If this failed to break the deadlock, it could be put to a vote in a joint sitting of both houses.
The convention also agreed to a proposal by Tasmanian Premier Sir Edward Braddon to return to the states three-quarters of the customs and excise tariffs collected by the federal government. 'Braddon's Blot', as it was called by its critics, was designed to reassure smaller states who were worried they would be worse-off under federation.
On 16 March 1898 the convention agreed to the draft constitution. After being agreed by the colonial parliaments, the people of each of the 6 colonies were then asked to approve the constitution in referendums.
By 1897, the Wyatt annual rental along with the majority of other leases in the region were reduced. In Wyatt’s lease for HL 335, this reduced to £85-6-8 per annum and HL 790 to £34-18-5 per annum.
An accurate picture of the lot of a Homestead Leasee, struggling with the realities of agriculture in Australia’s Western New South Wales and South-Western Queensland
Australian Pastoralists Review, March 15, 1897 Published; Melbourne, Vic. Twopenny, Pearce and Co.
Thanks to the State Library of New South Wales.
In June 1898 referendums were held in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Australia was the first nation to take a proposed constitution to the people for approval. (Switzerland had held a referendum to approve changes to its constitution in 1874).
Enthusiastic campaigns were waged urging people to vote 'yes' or 'no'. Anti-federation groups argued federation would weaken the colonial parliaments and interstate free trade would lead to lower wages and a loss of jobs. New South Wales Premier George Reid publicly criticised the proposed constitution but said he would vote for it in the referendum, earning him the nickname 'Yes-No Reid'.
The referendum was passed in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Although a majority of voters in New South Wales voted 'yes' in the referendum, it did not attract the 80 000 'yes' votes set by the New South Wales colonial parliament as the minimum needed for it to agree to federation. Queensland and Western Australia—concerned federation would give New South Wales and Victoria an advantage over the less-powerful states—did not hold referendums.
Enthusiastic campaigns were waged urging people to vote 'yes' or 'no'. Anti-federation groups argued federation would weaken the colonial parliaments and interstate free trade would lead to lower wages and a loss of jobs. New South Wales Premier George Reid publicly criticised the proposed constitution but said he would vote for it in the referendum, earning him the nickname 'Yes-No Reid'.
The referendum was passed in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Although a majority of voters in New South Wales voted 'yes' in the referendum, it did not attract the 80 000 'yes' votes set by the New South Wales colonial parliament as the minimum needed for it to agree to federation. Queensland and Western Australia—concerned federation would give New South Wales and Victoria an advantage over the less-powerful states—did not hold referendums.
In 1898, an adjoining station owned by Richard Edward Moore (HL 365) was transferred to Thomas Feehan (98/9290). Thomas Feehan then granted grazing to Herbert Wyatt (98/13062) which continued until 1907. Perhaps resulting from these rights, Wyatt then granted grazing rights on HL 790 to H. Colless.
In January 1899 the colonial premiers met privately to work out a way to bring about federation. Western Australian Premier John Forrest did not attend.
In order to win the support of the New South Wales and Queensland colonial parliaments, the premiers made some further changes to the draft constitution. Among these was the decision to establish the Australian national capital within New South Wales at least 100 miles (160.9 km) from Sydney.
They also agreed the federal Parliament would only be required to return customs and excise tariffs to the states for the first 10 years of federation.
Between April and July 1899 referendums were again held in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. All 4 colonies agreed to the proposed constitution. Western Australia still refused to take part.
In September, Queenslanders agreed to the constitution by a narrow margin—just over 54 per cent of Queenslanders voted 'yes'. Queensland had waited to see whether New South Wales would federate before it held its referendum. The Brisbane Courier welcomed the result and urged all Queenslanders to now unite under 'The Coming Commonwealth':
In order to win the support of the New South Wales and Queensland colonial parliaments, the premiers made some further changes to the draft constitution. Among these was the decision to establish the Australian national capital within New South Wales at least 100 miles (160.9 km) from Sydney.
They also agreed the federal Parliament would only be required to return customs and excise tariffs to the states for the first 10 years of federation.
Between April and July 1899 referendums were again held in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. All 4 colonies agreed to the proposed constitution. Western Australia still refused to take part.
In September, Queenslanders agreed to the constitution by a narrow margin—just over 54 per cent of Queenslanders voted 'yes'. Queensland had waited to see whether New South Wales would federate before it held its referendum. The Brisbane Courier welcomed the result and urged all Queenslanders to now unite under 'The Coming Commonwealth':
The constitution had to be agreed to by the British Parliament before federation could proceed. In March 1900 a delegation—which included an observer from Western Australia and a representative from each of the other 5 colonies—travelled to London to present the constitution to the British Parliament.
The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 was passed by the British Parliament on 5 July 1900. Queen Victoria signed the Act on 9 July 1900.
Western Australia joins the federation
Three weeks after the Australian Constitution became law in Britain, a referendum was finally held in Western Australia.
Once it realised the other colonies would go ahead without it, the Western Australian colonial parliament reversed its opposition to federation. Public opinion in Western Australia had also shifted. By 1900 there was widespread support for federation, particularly among the large number of new settlers from the eastern Australian colonies who had moved to Western Australia as a result of the gold rush.
An overwhelming majority of voters agreed to federate, with double the number of 'yes' votes than 'no' votes.
The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 was passed by the British Parliament on 5 July 1900. Queen Victoria signed the Act on 9 July 1900.
Western Australia joins the federation
Three weeks after the Australian Constitution became law in Britain, a referendum was finally held in Western Australia.
Once it realised the other colonies would go ahead without it, the Western Australian colonial parliament reversed its opposition to federation. Public opinion in Western Australia had also shifted. By 1900 there was widespread support for federation, particularly among the large number of new settlers from the eastern Australian colonies who had moved to Western Australia as a result of the gold rush.
An overwhelming majority of voters agreed to federate, with double the number of 'yes' votes than 'no' votes.
In the Letters section of the Western Herald, just after news of the war in South Africa and the start of what became known of the Boxer Rebellion in China, is a letter from Herbert Wyatt on 'The Western Problem'
STATION & RUN OWNERS. ( Wise: Post Office Commercial Directory for 1900 ) shows Herbert Wyatt of Acton Hill, Louth, Wanaaring as carrying 6,000 sheep and Dalgety operating the nearby Tinapagee station with 73,796 sheep.
Source: https://www.terrycallaghan.com/resources-pastoral-holdings-1900/
Death of Martin Dillon - see fanning family history
An indication of the size of the holding is that on his death, dying intestate, there were 1,127 acres. 685 acres were subsequently bought from the estate by his sons Martin & William with the balance sold to provide for their sister.
In September 1900, Queen Victoria royally proclaimed that on January 1, 1901, a new nation as well as a new century would be born. The table at which she signed this proclamation was the shipped from London to Sydney to be used a few months later on New Years Day.
The arrival of Old World diseases were a catastrophe for the Aboriginal Australians. Between first European contact and the early years of the 20th century, the Aboriginal population dropped from an estimated 500,000 to about one tenth of that number (50,000). Smallpox, measles and influenza were major killers, many others added their toll; for a people without the thousands of years of genetically evolved resistance to diseases that Europeans had, even chickenpox was deadly.
The arrival of Old World diseases were a catastrophe for the Aboriginal Australians. Between first European contact and the early years of the 20th century, the Aboriginal population dropped from an estimated 500,000 to about one tenth of that number (50,000). Smallpox, measles and influenza were major killers, many others added their toll; for a people without the thousands of years of genetically evolved resistance to diseases that Europeans had, even chickenpox was deadly.
Who better to give an entertaining introduction to Australian history than the National Museum of Australia's series of Defining Moments? This episode explains the complex and torturous journey to Australian Federation. Thanks as always to the National Museum of Australia's series of 'Defining Moments' by historian David Hunt and illustrator Lucinda Gifford from Melbourne's Sketch Group:
Birth of a Nation - Australia
The first day of the twentieth century, 1 January 1901, dawned bright and clear in Sydney and the nation of Australia came into being as the 6 British colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania—united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. This was no revolt against the old Gods, Royalty or country of a distant culture. It was more appropriately a dutiful coming of age of colonies that were 'young, white, happy and wholesome' but also rather nervous.
The colonies prior to Federation were essentially 6 separate countries; each had its own government and laws, its own defence force, issued its own stamps and collected tariffs and taxes, squabbled with each other, built and operated railways using different gauges (which hardly surprisingly complicated the transport of people and goods across the continent). By the 1880s the inefficiency of this system, a growing unity among colonists and a belief that a national government was needed to deal with issues such as trade, defence (concern that both the Russian and Japanese navies were now prowling the Pacific) and immigration saw popular support for federation grow. There was still some concern that coming out from behind Mother England's protective skirts was such a good idea. Sir Robert Garran, who was active in the federation movement, later reflected that the colonies were united by a combination of 'fear, national sentiment and self-interest'.
Trade restrictions also made travelling between colonies difficult; the train journey between Melbourne and Sydney was delayed at the border in Albury while customs officials searched passengers' luggage. Free traders were among the most vocal supporters of federation. They argued abolishing tariffs and creating a single market would strengthen the economy of each colony.
Fear was another factor. Prior to federation, individual colonies were ill-equipped to defend themselves let alone assist their neighbours. Each colony had its own militia consisting of a small permanent force and volunteers, but they all relied on the British navy to periodically patrol the Australian coastline. People feared the colonies could be vulnerable to attack from other nations with larger populations and military forces. On this, all the colonies agreed that the best option to better protect the continent would be a united defence force.
Racial fear also motivated both residents and legislators. Concerns existed that 'cheap' non-white labour would compete with colonists for jobs, leading to lower wages and a reduced standard of living. These anxieties stemmed partly from anti-Chinese sentiment dating back to the gold-fields of the 1850s but this also reflected resentment towards Pacific Islanders who worked in Queensland's sugar industry. At the time, racial conflict was seen as an inevitable consequence of a multicultural society. It was felt a national government would be in a better position than the colonies to control immigration.
Colonists mostly shared a common language, culture and heritage, and increasingly began to identify as Australian rather than British. New South Wales Premier, Sir Henry Parkes, referred to this as 'the crimson thread of kinship that runs through us all'.
By 1901, over 75% of the population were Australian-born. Many people moved between the colonies to find work and sporting teams had begun to represent 'Australia'. In 1899 soldiers from the colonies who went to the Boer War in South Africa served together as Australians. Contemporary songs and poems began to celebrate Australia and Australians.
Not wishing to step out too far, too soon, Australia's new constitution was somewhat reserved. Whichever of their Majesties was on the throne in London was also the head of state, retaining power over all aspects of foreign affairs. The royal representative in Australia was to be the Governor-General. British Parliamentary legislation could supersede any laws passed by Australia and any legal appeals would be ultimately settled in London. There was hardly a murmur about this as all of the colonies were initially more comfortable in dealings with the motherland than with it's siblings on the continent. Britain also expected and got continuing support from Australia in military involvements and ample returns on substantial investments.
The first day of the twentieth century, 1 January 1901, dawned bright and clear in Sydney and the nation of Australia came into being as the 6 British colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania—united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. This was no revolt against the old Gods, Royalty or country of a distant culture. It was more appropriately a dutiful coming of age of colonies that were 'young, white, happy and wholesome' but also rather nervous.
The colonies prior to Federation were essentially 6 separate countries; each had its own government and laws, its own defence force, issued its own stamps and collected tariffs and taxes, squabbled with each other, built and operated railways using different gauges (which hardly surprisingly complicated the transport of people and goods across the continent). By the 1880s the inefficiency of this system, a growing unity among colonists and a belief that a national government was needed to deal with issues such as trade, defence (concern that both the Russian and Japanese navies were now prowling the Pacific) and immigration saw popular support for federation grow. There was still some concern that coming out from behind Mother England's protective skirts was such a good idea. Sir Robert Garran, who was active in the federation movement, later reflected that the colonies were united by a combination of 'fear, national sentiment and self-interest'.
Trade restrictions also made travelling between colonies difficult; the train journey between Melbourne and Sydney was delayed at the border in Albury while customs officials searched passengers' luggage. Free traders were among the most vocal supporters of federation. They argued abolishing tariffs and creating a single market would strengthen the economy of each colony.
Fear was another factor. Prior to federation, individual colonies were ill-equipped to defend themselves let alone assist their neighbours. Each colony had its own militia consisting of a small permanent force and volunteers, but they all relied on the British navy to periodically patrol the Australian coastline. People feared the colonies could be vulnerable to attack from other nations with larger populations and military forces. On this, all the colonies agreed that the best option to better protect the continent would be a united defence force.
Racial fear also motivated both residents and legislators. Concerns existed that 'cheap' non-white labour would compete with colonists for jobs, leading to lower wages and a reduced standard of living. These anxieties stemmed partly from anti-Chinese sentiment dating back to the gold-fields of the 1850s but this also reflected resentment towards Pacific Islanders who worked in Queensland's sugar industry. At the time, racial conflict was seen as an inevitable consequence of a multicultural society. It was felt a national government would be in a better position than the colonies to control immigration.
Colonists mostly shared a common language, culture and heritage, and increasingly began to identify as Australian rather than British. New South Wales Premier, Sir Henry Parkes, referred to this as 'the crimson thread of kinship that runs through us all'.
By 1901, over 75% of the population were Australian-born. Many people moved between the colonies to find work and sporting teams had begun to represent 'Australia'. In 1899 soldiers from the colonies who went to the Boer War in South Africa served together as Australians. Contemporary songs and poems began to celebrate Australia and Australians.
Not wishing to step out too far, too soon, Australia's new constitution was somewhat reserved. Whichever of their Majesties was on the throne in London was also the head of state, retaining power over all aspects of foreign affairs. The royal representative in Australia was to be the Governor-General. British Parliamentary legislation could supersede any laws passed by Australia and any legal appeals would be ultimately settled in London. There was hardly a murmur about this as all of the colonies were initially more comfortable in dealings with the motherland than with it's siblings on the continent. Britain also expected and got continuing support from Australia in military involvements and ample returns on substantial investments.
Rainfall reports from around NSW:
The first federal elections for the new Australian Parliament were held on 29 and 30 March 1901. Eighty-seven of the 111 newly elected parliamentarians had been members of colonial parliaments, including 14 who had been colonial premiers. Several had also participated in the drafting of the Constitution and were active in the push for federation—10 had been at the 1891 National Australasian Convention and 25 attended the second National Australasian Convention.
The first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia was opened at noon on 9 May 1901 by the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V). The lavish ceremony took place in the Exhibition Building, Melbourne, and was attended by over 12 000 guests.
In his address, the Duke told the gathering:
It is His Majesty's [King Edward VII] earnest prayer that this union so happily achieved may, under God's blessing, prove an instrument for still further promoting the welfare and advancement of his subjects in Australia and for the strengthening and consolidation of his Empire.
Members of parliament were sworn-in by the Governor-General and then travelled by foot and horse-drawn carriage to Victoria's Parliament House. The Senate then met at 1.10pm in the Legislative Council and the House of Representatives met at 2.30pm in the Legislative Assembly for the first session of federal Parliament. The Victorian Parliament House remained the temporary home of federal Parliament until 1927, when a new Parliament House was opened in Canberra. During this time, the Victorian Parliament met in the Exhibition Building.
In Melbourne the opening of Parliament was marked by 2 weeks of celebrations. The enthusiasm with which Australians greeted federation and the first federal Parliament demonstrated the nation was eager to unite as 'one people'.
One of the first acts passed by the new Parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act, which effectively ended all non-European immigration by providing for entrance examinations in European languages. The essential clause of the act, rather than naming particular races or groups for exclusion, provided for a dictation test in a European language to be administered to prospective immigrants. A person coming from Asia with a knowledge of English could be given a test in French, German, or, if need be, Lithuanian. The act practically excluded all “coloured” people and cemented the 'White Australia' policy.
The first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia was opened at noon on 9 May 1901 by the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V). The lavish ceremony took place in the Exhibition Building, Melbourne, and was attended by over 12 000 guests.
In his address, the Duke told the gathering:
It is His Majesty's [King Edward VII] earnest prayer that this union so happily achieved may, under God's blessing, prove an instrument for still further promoting the welfare and advancement of his subjects in Australia and for the strengthening and consolidation of his Empire.
Members of parliament were sworn-in by the Governor-General and then travelled by foot and horse-drawn carriage to Victoria's Parliament House. The Senate then met at 1.10pm in the Legislative Council and the House of Representatives met at 2.30pm in the Legislative Assembly for the first session of federal Parliament. The Victorian Parliament House remained the temporary home of federal Parliament until 1927, when a new Parliament House was opened in Canberra. During this time, the Victorian Parliament met in the Exhibition Building.
In Melbourne the opening of Parliament was marked by 2 weeks of celebrations. The enthusiasm with which Australians greeted federation and the first federal Parliament demonstrated the nation was eager to unite as 'one people'.
One of the first acts passed by the new Parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act, which effectively ended all non-European immigration by providing for entrance examinations in European languages. The essential clause of the act, rather than naming particular races or groups for exclusion, provided for a dictation test in a European language to be administered to prospective immigrants. A person coming from Asia with a knowledge of English could be given a test in French, German, or, if need be, Lithuanian. The act practically excluded all “coloured” people and cemented the 'White Australia' policy.
The Acton Hill Station records ( Homestead Lease HL 335) show that the rent was paid on time by June 30th annually with individual entries for 1903, 1904, 1905 & 1906.
Long overdue legislative changes in the distribution of land leases had been under discussion in the New South Wales Parliament in Sydney during 1900 and early 1901 and was anticipated to be legislated by the end of the year. In this large scale revision of State land distribution, a proposed Western Lands Act would established a Western Lands Board, composed of three commissioners to issue new leases in the Western Division. This would effectively result in all holders of Homestead Leases, Pastoral Leases and other forms of land tenure within the Western Division of New South Wales to converted their holdings into Western Lands Leases (WLLs) which mainly offered greater security of tenure to the leaseholder.
In early May, 1901, Herbert was seriously injured on his station, Acton Hill, following a fall from a horse while mustering sheep. For the next few months, he was nursed by his family at the homestead.
With time to consider pressing matters as he recovered, Wyatt, in a letter to the Editor of the Western Herald Newspaper in Bourke, outlined issues relating to proposed Western Leases in a letter titled 'The Western Problem':
Long overdue legislative changes in the distribution of land leases had been under discussion in the New South Wales Parliament in Sydney during 1900 and early 1901 and was anticipated to be legislated by the end of the year. In this large scale revision of State land distribution, a proposed Western Lands Act would established a Western Lands Board, composed of three commissioners to issue new leases in the Western Division. This would effectively result in all holders of Homestead Leases, Pastoral Leases and other forms of land tenure within the Western Division of New South Wales to converted their holdings into Western Lands Leases (WLLs) which mainly offered greater security of tenure to the leaseholder.
In early May, 1901, Herbert was seriously injured on his station, Acton Hill, following a fall from a horse while mustering sheep. For the next few months, he was nursed by his family at the homestead.
With time to consider pressing matters as he recovered, Wyatt, in a letter to the Editor of the Western Herald Newspaper in Bourke, outlined issues relating to proposed Western Leases in a letter titled 'The Western Problem':
THE WESTERN PROBLEM
To the Editor of the WESTERN HERALD. Sir, in view of there being a meeting called to consider a programme to put before the Western Lands Commission, may I, through your paper, bring forward some views I consider worthy f consideration. I think we shall do wrong if we ask for a long extension of tenure over the whole of the Western Division without respect to the different classes of country and proximity to market, and I would suggest something like the following would be more likely of acceptance by Parliament and the country. FIRST make three classes of country with different tenures,thus: Class 1: Country classed by Land Board as capable of carrying a sheep to four acres of under, and within say, 50 miles of railway or navigable river, the present tenure to be accepted as sufficient. Class 2: Country classed between four and under six acres to a sheep and within 50 miles of railway or river, and country under six acres capacity between 50 and 100 miles distant, 30 years tenure. Class 3: All country over six acres to a sheep, and all country over 100 miles from railway or navigable river, 40 years tenure. SECOND. All country to be re-appraised and rents fixed for 15 years. THIRD. Tenant right in improvements, such as tanks, dams, bores etc. FOURTH. Light railways should be advocated, so as to lessen loss of stock in droughts. I look upon some suggestions as to water conservation, as on a par with Mr. O'Sullivan's suggestion to put artillery on Mount Oxley. Several writers have claimed that the seasons can be improved, but when you consider the millions of acres of dry country and what even an inch of rain means over the whole of it, I cannot believe that the evaporation from any water that can be conserved at any expenses, likely yo be expended, would influence the climate. Irrigation where feasible may help a few but cannot help the mass of the people of the West. There is another cancer eating us up, and that is high interest, how that is to be combated I leave to abler pens, but if the Commission can solve it, they will deserve high praise. Yours faithfully Herbert Wyatt. P.S. - Stations within the above radius and having different classes of country could be leased by their blocks as formerly. |
By early August 1901, Herbert's condition deteriorated and was now considered serious enough for him to be brought 170 kilometers over a dust track in a horse and buggy to Bourke for treatment. This journey would have taken the best part of 24 hours to complete, perhaps made somewhat easier by being late winter in New South Wales.
Wyatt was taken to Gale's Central Australian Hotel in Bourke where he was attended to by one of the town's doctors, Dr. Scott "and where also he received the best possible nursing and attention"
Wyatt was taken to Gale's Central Australian Hotel in Bourke where he was attended to by one of the town's doctors, Dr. Scott "and where also he received the best possible nursing and attention"
However, as his physician pointed out, Wyatt's prognosis was poor and recovery considered unlikely.
Days later, on Saturday, 17 August, Herbert Wyatt, aged 47 died in the early morning from 'a severe stroke of paralysis'.
Herbert Wyatt was buried later that afternoon in Bourke cemetery "being followed to the grave by a large concourse of people. The Ven. Archdeacon Geer officiated."
(Sources: Death certificate - source: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages: 8664/1901 & press reports below)
Transcript:
Death of Mr. H.H. Wyatt
In the last issue we announced that Mr. Herbert Henry Wyatt, of Acton Hill, was very ill. In fact that his condition was most serious, and now we are extremely sorry to be compelled to announce his death. As was generally known, Mr Wyatt was stricken with paralysis, which no doubt resulted from an accident he had received months before.
After her husband was seized with the illness, Mrs Wyatt, accompanied by her son and some friends, brought him to Bourke, to Mr. W. Gale’s Central Australian Hotel, where Dr. Scott attended him, and where also he received the best possible nursing and attention. His medical advisor, however, held out no hop of recovery from the first, on Saturday.
Mr Wyatt, who was the son of the Rev. A.H.Wyatt, Corse Vicarage, Gloucester, England was born in 1854, and consequently 47 years of age when he died. He came out to the colonies over 20 years ago, landing first in Victoria. He gained his colonial experience with the Hon. W. Cambell of Clare Station, on the Lachlan. He then came into the Wanaaring District, and worked for the Messrs. Hebden Bros. for some years. On the 1st of July, 1887, he took up 10,240 acres on the Darling, the homestead being known as Acton Hill, and there Mr. Wyatt and his family had lived ever since. The deceased gentleman was exceedingly well known throughout the whole of the Western district, and for years has been an appraiser of leases, in which avocation he had displayed considerable ability. Mr Wyatt was universally esteemed and respected for his invariable geniality and many high qualities, and his sadly bereaved wife and young son and daughter are accorded the sincerest sympathy of an extremely wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Mr. Wyatt’s remains were buried in the Bourke cemetery on Saturday afternoon, being followed to the grave by a large concourse of people. The Ven. Archdeacon Geer officiated.
Published articles referring to Herbert's death are noticeable in the writer's regard for the Lease Appraiser and owner of Acton Hill Station:
"Mr Wyatt was universally esteemed and respected for his invariable geniality and many high qualities,"
"The deceased was a white man to the very core, beloved and respected by all with whom he came in contact.."
Western Herald & Darling River Advocate. 21 August 1901.
"It mattered not to poor Herb. Wyatt whether you carried your swag or drove a buggy and pair, you were treated with the same kindness and generosity"
The Western Herald & Darling River Advocate. Wednesday 31 August 1901.
Herbert Wyatt was buried in what is today known as 'The Old Cemetery' in Bourke. It has been the scene for two of Australia's most famous funerals in two centuries. September 1892 saw the young writer, Henry Lawson join in the procession following the coffin of an unknown young stockman, who had drowned in a billabong near Bourke. His union papers identified him as 'James Tyson'. Later it was discovered that his name was John Hallahan. The melancholy event was captured by Lawson in what became his best story - The Union Buries It's Dead - a classic tale from the Western frontier.
A century later, in 1993 Professor Fred Hollows, the eye surgeon known worldwide for his passion to restore sight, was buried in Bourke. His motto 'that all the world may see', echoes the Australian ethic of mateship celebrated by Lawson. Many of the epitaphs in the cemetery tell of the tragedy that constantly stalked the Western Plains. Bourke cemetery.
Probate of Herbert Wyatt's will was made on August 31, 1901 by Mary Louisa Wyatt through Phillip James Biddulph, Proctor of Bourke and as reported in the notices section of the Western Herald Newspaper, Bourke. Probate was granted on October 4, 1901.
The proposed Western Lands Act 1901 established a Western Lands Board, composed of three commissioners, to issue leases in the Western Division.
Under the Western Lands Act of December 1901, the Homestead Leases, Pastoral Leases and some other forms of land tenure in the Western Division of New South Wales could be converted into Western Lands Leases [WLLs] that offered greater security of tenure.
Under the Western Lands Act of December 1901, the Homestead Leases, Pastoral Leases and some other forms of land tenure in the Western Division of New South Wales could be converted into Western Lands Leases [WLLs] that offered greater security of tenure.
While it is known that Louisa Wyatt and family left their Acton Hill Station home and Australia and returned to Ireland at some time c. 1903-07, it is unknown precisely when and in what circumstances. Research to date through available (but scant) records has established that Louisa Wyatt (or agents acting on her behalf) continued to run Acton Hill Station for a number of years until c. 1907. Both Alice and Edgar are recorded as completing their secondary education in Ireland and Alice enrolling in St Mary’s Teacher Training College in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, probably in 1907, the year of its foundation by the Sacred Heart Order.
2020: Attempts to locate & photograph the grave and headstone for Herbert Wyatt have proven difficult. Richie Wright, a resident of Bourke, NSW and a contributor to the worldwide 'Find a Grave' database, kindly offered to locate the site. Howver, while the gravesite location is known and recorded in the 'old cemetery' in Bourke, Richie reports that the headstone has been lost over the years. Herbert is believed to be buried next to his infant son who died in 1892.
The Acton Hill Station records (Homestead Lease HL 335) show that the annual rent was paid on time by June 30th with individual entries for 1903, 1904, 1905 & 1906 and ownership by Louisa Wyatt.
The lands held by Wyatt adjoining the home holding of Acton Hill Station (Lease HL 790) records show that the rent for this area was paid to 7 January 1903. No further records are available to show what took place with this homestead lease between 1903-1907 although a later record (1906) shows this lease holding (HL790) still connected to the Acton Hill Station holding (HL355)
However, sheep farming in this part of New South Wales became increasingly difficult in the early years of the new century. Climate and finance being the chief issues affecting all stationholders. This part of Australia continued to see increasingly fierce summer temperatures that dramatically reduced forage and devastated flock populations. On 4 January 1903, Bourke recorded a maximum temperature of 49.7 °C (121.5 °F), one of the highest temperature recorded anywhere in Australia. (The current record is just one degree higher of 50.7c at Oodnadatta Airport, South Australia, 2 January 1960.)
The second last record available for the Acton Hill Homestead Lease (HL355) is in 1906 when an application (06/10444) for inclusion in the Western Land Lease (probably by Louisa Wyatt or her agents) was refused. Under the Western Lands Act of December 1901, the Homestead Leases, Pastoral Leases and some other forms of land tenure in the Western Division of New South Wales such as the Acton Hill Station lease could be converted into Western Lands Leases [WLLs]. These leases primarily offered greater security of tenure.
While the Acton Hill Homestead Lease was refused, a similar application for inclusion of the adjoining lands Homestead Lease understood to be still owned by Louisa Wyatt at this stage (HL 790) was, unusually, granted and gazetted in November 1907. This refusal to convert the Acton Hill Homestead Lease into a Western Land Lease may have been the catalyst for Louisa Wyatt to either leave Acton Hill Station and return to Ireland or, if already resident in Ireland and employing an agent, to put the lease up for sale.
Sale of Acton Hill Homestead and Station - 1908
In 1908, the lease & outstanding mortgage for Acton Hill (HL355 & HL790) was bought out by Sir Sam McCaughey who was also registered as doing the same with the adjacent Feehan property at Tinpagee (with the same transfer of mortgage folio no 07/11338.) Acton Hill Station & adjoining holdings were now amalgamated into one large holding owned by McCaughey.
What was once the Wyatt family home was left to deteriorate and become little more than a livestock watering hole and station yard. Despite the enlarged holdings and economy of scale of the McCaughey holdings in the region, climatic conditions and markets deteriorated even further during 1908 & 1909 with even large stations making substantial financial losses and low stocking levels.
In 1910 a “white knight” rode up in the shape of Sidney Kidman and purchased Tinapagee and the McCaughey holdings in the region. The resulting vast land holding was finally able to trade somewhat economically. The advent of the World War in 1914 resulted in a boom time for the Kidman holdings as wool and meat was in high demand for the British & Australian war effort coinciding with more benign weather conditions.
The lands which were formerly Acton Hill and Tinapagee stations (which continued to be known as Tinapagee) were held among others by the Kidmans until the 1930s when the Tinapagee holding was bought out by a neighbouring land holder, Ernest Harrod. The rambling 12 room homestead built by Feehan burned down in the 1940s leaving little of the original settlement today. The land holding was passed on to Ernest's son, Barry Harrod in the 50's, then sold to Donald and Colin Sampson in the 70's until acquired by Stuart Forysthe in 2004.
Today, other well-known stations of the boom times in the 1880s immediately adjoining Tinapagee included “Brindingabba”, “Talyealye”, “Waverley Downs”, “Berawinnia Downs”, “Elsinora”, and “Wanaaring” – are today much reduced, or obliterated, by closer settlement and amalgamation. Nothing remains of Acton Hill homsestead & Station and little of Tinapagee station other than ragged galvinised steel of the original woolshed, where 40 blade shearers once peeled the wool from 120,000 sheep, and next to it, the station wool scour. Across the Paroo River from the old woolshed and scour – on a small block called “Old Tinapagee” owned by a Victorian syndicate – are the remains of the original homestead and its once-extensive outbuildings.
As to large landholders and ownership in Australia today? You’d be surprised to learn that the billion dollar barons of Aussie farmland are a Canadian government worker super fund, a New York teacher insurance fund and an Australian pastoral giant backed by a Dutch pension fund. These three groups, the Canadian PSP Investments, the New York Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America and Macquarie Agriculture own a total of 6.3 million hectares of prime agricultural land, The Australia equivalent of the Irish Farmer's Journal, AgJournal revealed in May 2020.
While the largest owner of Australian land by size is Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting – with 9.7 million hectares – the hectares owned by the top three are worth more than $7.4 billion.
Country by country, the UK is the biggest foreign investor in Australian farmland, owning 10.2 million hectares, followed by China with 9.2 million and then, each owning two or more million hectares, the US, the Netherlands, the Bahamas and Canada.This means that 52.6 million hectares out of Australia’s 385 million of agricultural land is foreign-owned, representing 13.6 per cent.
The Wyatts: 1907-1968
The earliest print reference to the Wyatt family in Ireland is that for Edgar Wyatt in Dublin, in January 1908. He is listed in a newspaper report as attending the funeral in the Pro-Cathedral of a distant relative, Thomas Patrick Kennedy (1864- 1908) who had been in business in London. Kennedy’s obituary described him as an ardent Nationalist and a member of the National Liberal Club (source: Freeman’s Journal, 9 January 1908)
Alice completed her secondary education at Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham and Edgar at Belvedere College. Alice was subsequently enrolled in St Mary’s Teacher Training College in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, possibly in 1907, the year of its foundation by the Sacred Heart Order.
The next definitive record for the Wyatts is in the 1911 British Census. This records Alice (aged 23) and her widowed mother Mary Louisa (aged 62) as residents of a house in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in South Manchester, where Alice was employed as an assistant teacher in government service.
Alice’s brother, Edgar Arthur (aged 21) was then located in Dublin and described in the 1911 census as an ‘Assistant of Customs and Excise’. He had joined the service that year and was believed to have initially worked in Dublin before moving to Liverpool.
Mary Louisa returned to Ireland c. 1913 to a newly built house, 4 St. Mary's Terrace, Rathfarnham which she occupied until 1924. Alice returned to Ireland possibly shortly afterwards.
Alice became engaged to the Distillery Manager, Denis Lynch in 1913, married in 1914 (details here) and lived at the Dublin Whiskey Distillers complex in Dublin. There, during the War of Independence (1919-21) they provided safe haven and refuge for the leaders of the proscribed Irish revolutionary government, including 'The Most Wanted Man in the British Empire", Michael Collins and future Taoiseach and President of Ireland, Eamon de Valera. Their home also provided the venue for the 3rd meeting of the banned & hunted members of the First Dail Eireann in April, 1919.
2020: Attempts to locate & photograph the grave and headstone for Herbert Wyatt have proven difficult. Richie Wright, a resident of Bourke, NSW and a contributor to the worldwide 'Find a Grave' database, kindly offered to locate the site. Howver, while the gravesite location is known and recorded in the 'old cemetery' in Bourke, Richie reports that the headstone has been lost over the years. Herbert is believed to be buried next to his infant son who died in 1892.
The Acton Hill Station records (Homestead Lease HL 335) show that the annual rent was paid on time by June 30th with individual entries for 1903, 1904, 1905 & 1906 and ownership by Louisa Wyatt.
The lands held by Wyatt adjoining the home holding of Acton Hill Station (Lease HL 790) records show that the rent for this area was paid to 7 January 1903. No further records are available to show what took place with this homestead lease between 1903-1907 although a later record (1906) shows this lease holding (HL790) still connected to the Acton Hill Station holding (HL355)
However, sheep farming in this part of New South Wales became increasingly difficult in the early years of the new century. Climate and finance being the chief issues affecting all stationholders. This part of Australia continued to see increasingly fierce summer temperatures that dramatically reduced forage and devastated flock populations. On 4 January 1903, Bourke recorded a maximum temperature of 49.7 °C (121.5 °F), one of the highest temperature recorded anywhere in Australia. (The current record is just one degree higher of 50.7c at Oodnadatta Airport, South Australia, 2 January 1960.)
The second last record available for the Acton Hill Homestead Lease (HL355) is in 1906 when an application (06/10444) for inclusion in the Western Land Lease (probably by Louisa Wyatt or her agents) was refused. Under the Western Lands Act of December 1901, the Homestead Leases, Pastoral Leases and some other forms of land tenure in the Western Division of New South Wales such as the Acton Hill Station lease could be converted into Western Lands Leases [WLLs]. These leases primarily offered greater security of tenure.
While the Acton Hill Homestead Lease was refused, a similar application for inclusion of the adjoining lands Homestead Lease understood to be still owned by Louisa Wyatt at this stage (HL 790) was, unusually, granted and gazetted in November 1907. This refusal to convert the Acton Hill Homestead Lease into a Western Land Lease may have been the catalyst for Louisa Wyatt to either leave Acton Hill Station and return to Ireland or, if already resident in Ireland and employing an agent, to put the lease up for sale.
Sale of Acton Hill Homestead and Station - 1908
In 1908, the lease & outstanding mortgage for Acton Hill (HL355 & HL790) was bought out by Sir Sam McCaughey who was also registered as doing the same with the adjacent Feehan property at Tinpagee (with the same transfer of mortgage folio no 07/11338.) Acton Hill Station & adjoining holdings were now amalgamated into one large holding owned by McCaughey.
What was once the Wyatt family home was left to deteriorate and become little more than a livestock watering hole and station yard. Despite the enlarged holdings and economy of scale of the McCaughey holdings in the region, climatic conditions and markets deteriorated even further during 1908 & 1909 with even large stations making substantial financial losses and low stocking levels.
In 1910 a “white knight” rode up in the shape of Sidney Kidman and purchased Tinapagee and the McCaughey holdings in the region. The resulting vast land holding was finally able to trade somewhat economically. The advent of the World War in 1914 resulted in a boom time for the Kidman holdings as wool and meat was in high demand for the British & Australian war effort coinciding with more benign weather conditions.
The lands which were formerly Acton Hill and Tinapagee stations (which continued to be known as Tinapagee) were held among others by the Kidmans until the 1930s when the Tinapagee holding was bought out by a neighbouring land holder, Ernest Harrod. The rambling 12 room homestead built by Feehan burned down in the 1940s leaving little of the original settlement today. The land holding was passed on to Ernest's son, Barry Harrod in the 50's, then sold to Donald and Colin Sampson in the 70's until acquired by Stuart Forysthe in 2004.
Today, other well-known stations of the boom times in the 1880s immediately adjoining Tinapagee included “Brindingabba”, “Talyealye”, “Waverley Downs”, “Berawinnia Downs”, “Elsinora”, and “Wanaaring” – are today much reduced, or obliterated, by closer settlement and amalgamation. Nothing remains of Acton Hill homsestead & Station and little of Tinapagee station other than ragged galvinised steel of the original woolshed, where 40 blade shearers once peeled the wool from 120,000 sheep, and next to it, the station wool scour. Across the Paroo River from the old woolshed and scour – on a small block called “Old Tinapagee” owned by a Victorian syndicate – are the remains of the original homestead and its once-extensive outbuildings.
As to large landholders and ownership in Australia today? You’d be surprised to learn that the billion dollar barons of Aussie farmland are a Canadian government worker super fund, a New York teacher insurance fund and an Australian pastoral giant backed by a Dutch pension fund. These three groups, the Canadian PSP Investments, the New York Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America and Macquarie Agriculture own a total of 6.3 million hectares of prime agricultural land, The Australia equivalent of the Irish Farmer's Journal, AgJournal revealed in May 2020.
While the largest owner of Australian land by size is Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting – with 9.7 million hectares – the hectares owned by the top three are worth more than $7.4 billion.
Country by country, the UK is the biggest foreign investor in Australian farmland, owning 10.2 million hectares, followed by China with 9.2 million and then, each owning two or more million hectares, the US, the Netherlands, the Bahamas and Canada.This means that 52.6 million hectares out of Australia’s 385 million of agricultural land is foreign-owned, representing 13.6 per cent.
The Wyatts: 1907-1968
The earliest print reference to the Wyatt family in Ireland is that for Edgar Wyatt in Dublin, in January 1908. He is listed in a newspaper report as attending the funeral in the Pro-Cathedral of a distant relative, Thomas Patrick Kennedy (1864- 1908) who had been in business in London. Kennedy’s obituary described him as an ardent Nationalist and a member of the National Liberal Club (source: Freeman’s Journal, 9 January 1908)
Alice completed her secondary education at Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham and Edgar at Belvedere College. Alice was subsequently enrolled in St Mary’s Teacher Training College in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, possibly in 1907, the year of its foundation by the Sacred Heart Order.
The next definitive record for the Wyatts is in the 1911 British Census. This records Alice (aged 23) and her widowed mother Mary Louisa (aged 62) as residents of a house in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in South Manchester, where Alice was employed as an assistant teacher in government service.
Alice’s brother, Edgar Arthur (aged 21) was then located in Dublin and described in the 1911 census as an ‘Assistant of Customs and Excise’. He had joined the service that year and was believed to have initially worked in Dublin before moving to Liverpool.
Mary Louisa returned to Ireland c. 1913 to a newly built house, 4 St. Mary's Terrace, Rathfarnham which she occupied until 1924. Alice returned to Ireland possibly shortly afterwards.
Alice became engaged to the Distillery Manager, Denis Lynch in 1913, married in 1914 (details here) and lived at the Dublin Whiskey Distillers complex in Dublin. There, during the War of Independence (1919-21) they provided safe haven and refuge for the leaders of the proscribed Irish revolutionary government, including 'The Most Wanted Man in the British Empire", Michael Collins and future Taoiseach and President of Ireland, Eamon de Valera. Their home also provided the venue for the 3rd meeting of the banned & hunted members of the First Dail Eireann in April, 1919.
In 1924, Denis and Alice moved to Bandon, Co. Cork where Denis was Chief Distiller and Manager of Allmans Distillery, Bandon. (details here)
Bridget (Dillon) Feehan died in Melbourne on 27 November, 1924. She had lived almost 75 years in Australia.
Mary Louisa died in Glandore, Co Cork on 20 June 1937, at the age of eighty-seven, and was buried in Kilfeacle Cemetery Co Tipperary
Edgar Arthur Wyatt died in 1965 aged 76.
Alice Wyatt Lynch died in 1968, aged 80.
Bridget (Dillon) Feehan died in Melbourne on 27 November, 1924. She had lived almost 75 years in Australia.
Mary Louisa died in Glandore, Co Cork on 20 June 1937, at the age of eighty-seven, and was buried in Kilfeacle Cemetery Co Tipperary
Edgar Arthur Wyatt died in 1965 aged 76.
Alice Wyatt Lynch died in 1968, aged 80.
Thanks to the following:
If you, the reader are able to add to the story, then do get in touch. Email links are on the top right of every page or here
Australian National and NSW State Archives Links - click below.
- Fanning Family History website https://fanningfamilyhistory.com/index.php/category/australian-families/dillon/ provided much of the family data from a family history work written by Vic Feehan. Also: https://fanningfamilyhistory.com/index.php/2010/02/02/dillon-family-victoria/
- https://rusheenweb.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/homestead-leases-v4-3.pdf An invaluable record of North-Western NSW homestead holdings, explains the terminology fully and simplifies what is complex interconnected documentation.
- The National Library of Australia through on-line contemporary newspapers provided a record of the Wyatt family in Bourke, NSW and for illustrations and the superb 'Defining Moments' animation series.
- The State Library of New South Wales for births, marriages and deaths documentation & research information.
- Freddie O'Dwyer for his original work on the Wyatts,
- Wikipedia for some background information, for helping to put some aspects of the era in context and for information links for anybody interested in the background stories.
- The Chiltern Athenaeum Trust, Victoria.
- The Land Newspaper, Australia (on sale of Tinapagee in 2014)
- Parkinson, Michael & Lennon, Jane., Pastoral Australia. Fortunes, Failures and Hard Yakka. A historical overview 1788-1967. CSIRO Publishing. Commonwealth of Australia 2010
- Roberts, Stephen H., History of Australian Land Settlement, 1788-1920, Macmillan / Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1924.
- Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 07 November 2019), memorial page for Walter Herbert Wyatt (unknown–1 Nov 1892), Find A Grave Memorial no. 184957245, citing Bourke Cemetery, Bourke, Bourke Shire, New South Wales, Australia ; Maintained by Richie Wright (contributor 48346415) .
If you, the reader are able to add to the story, then do get in touch. Email links are on the top right of every page or here
Australian National and NSW State Archives Links - click below.
Letter (transcript) Bridget Dillon to her sister, Hanora. September 1, 1850
Letter from Alice (Wyatt) Lynch to Vic Feehan. December 1965