Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:51:15.110Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shepherding in Colonial Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

JOHN PICKARD
JOHN PICKARD*
Affiliation:
Department of Physical Geography, Macquarie UniversityNSW 2109Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Shepherds were a critical component of the early wool industry in colonial Australia and persisted even after fencing was adopted and rapidly spread in the later nineteenth century. Initially shepherds were convicts, but after transportation ceased in the late 1840s, emancipists and free men were employed. Their duty was the same as in England: look after the flock during the day, and pen them nightly in folds made of hurdles. Analysis of wages and flock sizes indicates that pastoralists achieved good productivity gains with larger flocks but inflation of wages reduced the gains to modest levels. The gold rushes and labour shortages of the 1850s played a minor role in increasing both wages and flock sizes. Living conditions in huts were primitive, and the diet monotonous. Shepherds were exposed to a range of diseases, especially in Queensland. Flock-masters employed non-whites, usually at lower wages, and women and children. Fences only replaced shepherds when pastoralists realised that the new technology of fences, combined with other changes, would give them higher profits. The sheep were left to fend for themselves in the open paddocks, a system used to this day.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , April 2008 , pp. 55 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, G.J. 1971. The Pastoral Age: A Re-Examination (South Melbourne).Google Scholar
Anon. 1838. ‘Disadvantages of a Sheep Station Out of the Boundaries of the Colony of New South Wales in a North-West Direction, in 1837’, The Australian Magazine, 1st February, 135–45.Google Scholar
Anon. 1853. Australia: Its Scenery, Natural History, Resources, and Settlements. With a Glance at its Gold Fields (London).Google Scholar
Anon. 1878. ‘Wanted Good Shepherds’, Border Post Stanthorpe.Google Scholar
Anon. Anthrax, National Animal Health Information System. http://www.aahc.com.au/nahis/disease/ATX.htm accessed 13th December 2003.Google Scholar
‘A Pioneer’ [John Phillips]. 1893. Reminiscences of Australian Early Life (London).Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics. 6401.0 Consumer Price Index, Table 1A: All Groups, Index Numbers Australia http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@archive.nsf/0/A7072FC3AD27C787CA25715A001C952B/File/640101.xls#A2325846C verified 24th May 2006.Google Scholar
Barnard, Alan. 1958.The Australian Wool Market 1840–1900 (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Black, John Richard. 1988. Bover Wallangra: The Life and Times of an Australian Pastoral Family, 1839–1921 (Inverell).Google Scholar
Blainey, Geoffrey. 1982. A Land Half Won (South Melbourne).Google Scholar
Boldrewood, Rolf. 1969. Old Melbourne Memories (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Bonwick, James. 1887. Romance of the Wool Trade (London).Google Scholar
Booth, E.C.. 1873. Australia (London).Google Scholar
Bowes, K.R. 1963. ‘Land Settlement in South Australia 1857–1890’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Department of History, Australian National University, Canberra).Google Scholar
Boyd, Benjamin. 1843. ‘Evidence before the Select Committee on Immigration, 27 September 1843’, Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, pp. 41–5.Google Scholar
Bride, T.F. 1969. Letters from Victorian Pioneers being a Series of Papers on the Early Occupation of the Colony, the Aborigines, etc., addressed by Victorian Pioneers to His Excellency Charles Joseph La Trobe, Esq. Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Victoria. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by C.E. Sayers from the Original Edition edited for the Trustees of the Public Library (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Brodribb, W.A. 1976. Recollections of an Australian Squatter. Recollections of an Australian Squatter by William Adams Brodribb & Account of a Journey to Gipps Land by Lavinia Hasell Bennett (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Broome, Richard. 1984. The Victorians, Arriving (Sydney).Google Scholar
Brown, Mark Herbert and Felton, W. R.. 1956. Before Barbed Wire. L.A. Huffman, Photographer on Horseback (New York).Google Scholar
Brown, Phillip Lawrence. ed. 1963. Clyde Company Papers. Vol. 5 1851–3. (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Burgmann, V. and Lee, J.. 1988. Introduction. A Most Valuable Acquisition: a People's History of Australia since 1788 (Fitzroy).Google Scholar
Cannon, Michael. 1973. Life in the Country. Australia in the Victorian Age: 2 (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Carrier, E.H. 1936. The Pastoral Heritage of Britain: a Geographical Study (London).Google Scholar
Carter, Thomas. 1987. No Sundays in the Bush. An English Jackeroo in Western Australia 1887–1889. From the Diaries of Tom Carter (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Chambers, Alf. 1998. Battlers of the Barkly: the Family Saga of Eva Downs 1936–1960 (Rockhampton).Google Scholar
Chikritzhs, Tanya, Catalano, Paul, Stockwell, Tim, Donath, Susan, Ngo, Hanh, Young, Diedra, and Matthews, Sharan. 2003. Australian Alcohol Indicators, 1990–2001. Patterns of Alcohol Use and Related Harms in Australian States and Territories (Perth).Google Scholar
Clark, C.M.H. 1955. Select Documents in Australian History 1851–1900 (Sydney).Google Scholar
Coghlan, Timothy A. 1918. Labour and Industry in Australia from the First Settlement in 1788 to the Establishment of the Commonwealth in 1901 (London).Google Scholar
Committee on Immigration. 1843. ‘Report from the Committee on Immigration with the appendix and minutes of evidence’, Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council of New South Wales 1843, 307–429.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Peter. 1827. Two Years in New South Wales: A Series of Letters, Comprising Sketches of the Actual State of Society in that Colony; of its Peculiar Advantages to Emigrants; of its Topography, Natural History &c. &c. (London).Google Scholar
Curr, Edward Micklethwaite. 1824. An Account of the Colony of Van Diemen's Land, principally designed for the Use of Emigrants (London).Google Scholar
Curr, Edward Micklethwaite. 1883. Recollections of Squatting in Victoria then called the Port Phillip District (from 1841 to 1851) (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Dawson, John. 2004. Washout. On the Academic Response to the Fabrication of Aboriginal History (Sydney).Google Scholar
Diamond, M. 1988. The Sea Horse and the Wanderer. Ben Boyd in Australia (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Douglas, R. 1988. ‘The North Queensland Fevers’ in J. Pearn, ed., Outback Medicine: Some Vignettes of Pioneering Medicine (Brisbane), pp. 93–114.Google Scholar
Fabian, Sue and Loh, Morag. 1980. Children in Australia: an Outline History (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Farwell, G. 1974. Squatter's Castle. The Story of a Pastoral Dynasty. Life and Times of Edward David Stewart Ogilvie 1814–96 (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Fitzherbert, John. 1534. The Book of Husbandry (London).Google Scholar
Ford, M. 1966. Beyond the Furthest Fences (London).Google Scholar
French, M. 1994. Travellers in a Landscape. Visitors’ Impressions of the Darling Downs 1827–1954 (Toowoomba).Google Scholar
Gennys, R. 1925. ‘Shepherds and Shepherding in Australia’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 2, 281–8.Google Scholar
Gibson, H. 1893. The History and Present State of the Sheep-breeding Industry in the Argentine Republic (Buenos Aires).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golding, D.J. ed. 1973. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia in the Eighteen Fifties (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Goldsmid, J.M. 1988. The Deadly Legacy: Australian History and Transmissible Disease (Kensington).Google Scholar
Goldwater, Leonard John. 1972. Mercury; a History of Quicksilver (Baltimore).Google Scholar
Gordon, Patrick R. 1867. Fencing as a Means of improving our Pasture Lands and its Advantages to the Stock-owners and the Colony, with Suggestions for a Fencing Bill, and the Improvement of Pasture by Means of Sapping (Sydney).Google Scholar
Gosset, A.L.J. 1911. Shepherds of Britain; Scenes from Shepherd Life Past and Present, from the Best Authorities (New York).Google Scholar
Hamilton, James Charles. 1923. Pioneering Days in Western Victoria: a Narrative of Early Station Life (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Hansford-Miller, F. 1990. The Grim Reality of Life for the Early English Settlers of Western Australia 1829–1850 (Willeton).Google Scholar
Hart, E. 1977. The Hill Shepherd (Newton Abbot).Google Scholar
Hawker, F. and Linn, R.. 1992. Bungaree. Land, Stock and People (Adelaide).Google Scholar
Haygarth, H.W. 1848. Recollections of Bush Life in Australia, during a Residence of Eight Years in the Interior (London).Google Scholar
Hayman, J. 1992. ‘Beyond the Barcoo–Probable Human Tropical Poisoning in Outback Australia’, Medical Journal of Australia 157, 794–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henderson, J. 1851. Excursions and Adventures in New South Wales; with Pictures of Squatting and Life in the Bush; an Account of the Climate, Productions, and Natural History of the Colony, and of the Manners and Customs of the Natives; with Advice to Emigrants, &c. (London).Google Scholar
Henning, Rachel. 1966. The Letters of Rachel Henning (Sydney).Google Scholar
Hodgson, Arthur. 1849. Emigration to the Australian Settlements; being the Substance of Lectures delivered in the Spring of 1849 at Walsall, Staffordshire; Witwick, Ashby de la Zouch, and Leicester, Leicestershire; Ware, Herts; Biggleswade, Beds; and St. Neot's, Hunts. (London).Google Scholar
Howitt, William. 1855. Land, Labour, and Gold or, Two Years in Victoria with Visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land (London).Google Scholar
Hudson, W.H. 1954. A Shepherd's Life (London).Google Scholar
Lancelott, F. 1852. Australia as it is: its Settlements, Farms and Gold Fields (London).Google Scholar
Landor, Edward Wilson. 1847. The Bushman. Life in a New Country. Project Gutenberg of Australia. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/author?name=Landor%2c%20Edward%20Wilson verified 24th May 2006.Google Scholar
Lang, John Dunmore. 1852. An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales: Including a Visit to the Gold Regions, and a Description of the Mines; with an Estimate of the Probable Results of the Great Discovery (London).Google Scholar
Lang, John Dunmore. 1861. Queensland, Australia; A Highly Eligible Field for Emigration, and the Future Cotton-field of Great Britain: with a Disquisition on the Origins, Manners, and Customs of the Aborigines (London).Google Scholar
Lehmann, Val W. 1969. Forgotten Legions. Sheep in the Rio Grande Plain of Texas (El Paso).Google Scholar
Lewis, M.J. 1998. Thorns on the Rose: the History of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Australia in International Perspective (Canberra).Google Scholar
Linn, R. 1982. ‘Scenes of early South Australia, the letters of Joseph Keynes of Keyneton, 1839–1843’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia 10, 44–59.Google Scholar
Loder, Robert. 1620. Robert Loder's Farm Accounts, 1610–1620 ed. Fussell, G.E. (London).Google Scholar
Marjoribanks, Alexander. 1851. Travels in New South Wales (London).Google Scholar
McGregor, G.B. and Fabbro, L. D.. 2000. ‘Dominance of Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii (Nostocales, Cyanoprokaryota) in Queensland Tropical and Subtropical Reservoirs: Implications for Monitoring and Management’, Lakes and Reservoirs: Research and Management 5, 195–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKay, A. ed. 1962. Journals of the Land Commissioners for Van Diemen's Land, 1826–28 (Hobart).Google Scholar
Millett, Mrs Eduard. 1872. An Australian Parsonage. Or, the Settler and the Savage in Western Australia (Charing Cross).Google Scholar
Mundy, Godfrey C. 1852. Our Antipodes: or, Residence and Rambles in the Australasian Colonies with a Glimpse of the Gold Fields (London).Google Scholar
Nance, B. 1981. ‘The Level of Violence: Europeans and Aborigines in Port Phillip, 1835–1850’, Historical Studies 19, 532–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New South Wales Government, 1850–1873. New South Wales Statistical Register (Sydney).Google Scholar
Palmer, J. 1972. William Moodie–a Pioneer of Western Victoria (Mortlake).Google Scholar
Parr, T.E. 1977. Reminiscences of a N.S.W. South West Settler (New York).Google Scholar
Peel, Lynette J. 1974. Rural Industry in the Port Phillip District 1835–1880 (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Perkins, John and Thompson, Jack. 1998. ‘The Stockman, the Shepherd and the Creation of an Australian Identity in the 19th century’, in Day, D., ed. Australian Identities (Melbourne), pp. 15–25.Google Scholar
Pickard, John. 2007. ‘The Transition from Shepherding to Fencing in Colonial Australia’, Rural History 18, 143–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, Henry. 1990. With the White People: the Crucial Role of Aborigines in the Exploration and Development of Australia (Ringwood).Google Scholar
Richardson, N.A. 1925. The Pioneers of the north-west of South Australia 1856 to 1914 (Adelaide).Google Scholar
Robson, M.J.H. 1977. ‘History and Traditions of Sheep-farming in the Scottish Border Hills: A Study of Customary Life and Practices among the Sheep-farming Community of the Central Hill Areas before 1900’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Edinburgh).Google Scholar
Rusden, G.W. 1897. History of Australia (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Schedvin, M.B. and Schedvin, C. B.. 1978. ‘The Nomadic Tribes of Urban Britain: A Prelude to Botany Bay’, Historical Studies 18, 254–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schedvin, M.B. and Schedvin, C. B.. 1992. ‘The Nomadic Tribes of Urban Britain: A Prelude to Botany Bay’ in Carroll, J., ed. Intruders in the Bush (Melbourne), pp. 82–108.Google Scholar
Select Committee on Immigration. 1843. ‘Report from the Select Committee on Immigration with Appendix and Minutes of Evidence’, Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, 795–856.Google Scholar
Select Committee on Immigration. 1852. Report of the Select Committee on Immigration (Sydney).Google Scholar
Shumack, Samuel. ed. 1967. An Autobiography, or Tales and Legends of Canberra Pioneers (Canberra).Google Scholar
Snooks, Graeme Donald. 1994. Portrait of the Family within the Total Economy: A Study in Longrun Dynamics, Australia 1788–1990 (Melbourne).Google Scholar
Stephens, J. 1839. The Land of Promise: Being an Authentic and Impartial History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia; including Particulars Descriptive of its Soil, Climate, Natural Productions, &c., and Proofs of its Superiority to all Other British colonies, embracing also a Full Account of the South Australian Company with Hints to Various Classes of Emigrants and Numerous Letters from Settlers concerning Wages, Provisions, their Satisfaction with the Colony, &c / by One who is going (London).Google Scholar
Suttor, William Henry. 1887. Australian Stories Retold, and Sketches of Country Life (Bathurst).Google Scholar
Therry, R. 1863. Reminiscences of Thirty Years’ Residence in New South Wales and Victoria. With a Supplementary Chapter on Transportation and the Ticket-of-Leave System (London).Google Scholar
Thompson, J.W. 1942. History of Livestock Raising in the United States, 1607–1860 (Washington).Google Scholar
Varro, Marcus Terentius. 36BC. Rerum Rusticarum [On Agriculture]. Marcus Porcius Cato “On Agriculture” and Marcus Terentius Varro “On Agriculture”.Google Scholar
Virgil. 1966. The Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid of Virgil (London).Google Scholar
Stieglitz, K.R. von. 1964. Emma von Stieglitz: Her Port Phillip and Victorian Album (Hobart).Google Scholar
Walker, R.B. 1957. ‘Squatter and Selector in New England, 1862–95’, Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand 8, 66–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Russell. 1978. The Australian Legend (Melbourne)Google Scholar
Waterson, D.B. 1968. Squatter, Selector and Storekeeper: A History of the Darling Downs 1859–93 (Sydney).Google Scholar
Wentworth, William Charles. 1819. A Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales, and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land: with a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages which these Colonies offer for Emigration, and their Superiority in Many Respects over those Possessed by the United States of America (London).Google Scholar
Widowson, H. 1829. Present State of Van Diemen's Land; Comprising an Account of its Agricultural Capabilities, with Observation in the Present State of Farming, &c. &c. Pursued in that Colony: and Other Important Matters connected with Emigration (London).Google Scholar
Wilkinson, George Blakiston. 1849. The Working Man's Handbook to South Australia, with Advice to the Farmer, and Detailed Information for the Several Classes of Labourers and Artizans (London).Google Scholar
Winslade, S. 1994. ‘Wire-Fencing Investment in Eastern Australia: 1858–1914’, Australian Economic History Review 34, 22–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, R. 1983. ‘Ophthalmia in Nineteenth Century Australia’, in Pearn, J. and O'Carrigan, C., eds. Australia's Quest for Colonial Health (Brisbane), 245–55.Google Scholar
Wright, Judith. 1959. The Generations of Men (Sydney).Google Scholar
Wymer, N. 1946. English Country Crafts. A Survey of their Development from Early Times to the Present Day (London).Google Scholar
Young, Charles D. & Co. post-1851. Description (with Illustrations) of Iron and Wire Fences, Gates, etc. etc. adapted specially for Australia. Invented and manufactured by Charles D. Young & Company (London).Google Scholar