Boolcoomatta Reserve CLICK WENT THE SHEARS A social history of Boolcoomatta Station, 1857 to 2020 Judy D. Johnson Editor: Eva Finzel Collated and written by Judy Johnson 2019 Edited version by Eva Finzel 2021 We acknowledge the Adnyamathanha People and Wilyakali People as the Traditional Owners of what we know as Boolcoomatta. We recognise and respect the enduring relationship they have with their lands and waters, and we pay our respects to Elders past, present and future. Front page map based on Pastoral Run Sheet 5, 1936-1964, (163-0031) Courtesy of the State Library of South Australia Bush Heritage Australia Level 1, 395 Collins Street | PO Box 329 Flinders Lane Melbourne, VIC 8009 T: (03) 8610 9100 T: 1300 628 873 (1300 NATURE) F: (03) 8610 9199 E: [email protected] W: www.bushheritage.org.au Content Author’s note and acknowledgements viii Editor’s note ix Timeline, 1830 to 2020 x Conversions xiv Abbreviations xiv An introduction to Boolcoomatta 1 The Adnyamathanha People and Wilyakali People 4 The European history of Boolcoomatta 6 European settlement 6 From sheep station to a place of conservation 8 Notes 9 Early explorers, surveyors and settlers, 1830 to 1859 10 Early European exploration and settlement 10 Goyder’s discoveries and Line 11 Settlement during the 1800s 13 The shepherd and the top hats The Tapley family, 1857 to 1858 14 The shepherds 15 The top hats 16 The Tapleys’ short lease of Boolcoomatta 16 Thomas and John E Tapley's life after the sale of Boolcoomatta 17 Boolcoomatta’s neighbours in 1857 18 The timber cutter and the stone mason, Stanway and Frith, 1858 to 20 1859 The timber cutter 20 The stonemason 21 The wool industry in the late 1850s 21 Notes 23 A surgeon goes bush, 1859 to 1866 25 Hall, Beck, Levi and Watts 25 Isaac Palmer Hall (1813 - 1867) 25 John Beck (1825 - 1903) 27 Philip Levi (1822 – 1898) 28 Adolphus Alfred Shaw Watts (1814 – 1884) 29 Life at Boolcoomatta 29 The long drought 31 Trying to cope 33 Daily life and working at Boolcoomatta 37 Notes 41 The optimist, 1866 to 1874 43 John Beck (1825 - 1903) 43 Managers of Boolcoomatta Station under John Beck 45 Working on Boolcoomatta Station 47 People in the Outback 51 Aboriginal people on Boolcoomatta. 55 Links to the outside world 57 An influx of people 59 Listed for sale 60 Notes 62 Wool and the tartan empire, 1874 to 1890 65 Alexander McCulloch (1809 – 1890) 65 Life and work at Boolcoomatta 69 Ward’s Folly: The Mannahill experimental farm 80 From pets to pests—coping with feral animals 81 Mining on and around Boolcoomatta 86 Keeping it in the family 88 Notes 89 Sketches of Boolcoomatta in 1885 92 The Scot, the Irishman and the sheep, 1890 to 1953 118 Duncan McCulloch, Tyndall and Co 118 Partners and managers 118 Changes in Boolcoomatta leases 122 Life and work on Boolcoomatta Station 126 Workers on Boolcoomatta 133 Neighbours and townships around Boolcoomatta 149 Mining on and around Boolcoomatta 153 Changes on Boolcoomatta 156 Notes 159 The last 53 years as a sheep station, 1953 to 2006 163 Percival Puckridge 163 Life and work on Boolcoomatta Station 165 Mining 171 Workers on Boolcoomatta 172 Kalkaroo and Boolcoomatta, Genevieve Badger, 1986 to 2006 178 The Lord family 178 Life and work at Boolcoomatta 181 Sale of Boolcoomatta to Bush Heritage Australia 185 Notes 189 Bush Heritage Australia, since 2006 191 Bush Heritage Australia 191 The acquisition of Boolcoomatta 192 Life and work at Boolcoomatta 194 Scientists at Boolcoomatta 207 Volunteers—essential for success 210 Visitors on the reserve 213 Conclusion 214 Notes 217 Index 220 Author’s note and acknowledgements Click Went The Shears was intended as a chronicle of happenings on and around Boolcoomatta Station from 1857 to 2018. Due to the loss of Boolcoomatta Station records in the 1970s, it was a self-challenge to re-create the history as a volunteer with Bush Heritage Australia since 2006. This research covered a complex range of topics. One thing that never changed was the unpredictable drops of rain and the fear of drought. The two most exciting primary resources found were Dr. Isaac Hall’s letters to England, describing life on Boolcoomatta Station 1859-1866 during a harsh drought, and the field notes and sketches created by surveyor George Woodroofe Goyder in 1885. Newspaper articles, mapping and a great deal of further research occupied five years of work on this project which I donate to Bush Heritage Australia, for a better understanding of the past and our part in Australia’s heritage. Judith D Johnson, Mannum, South Australia, June 2021. Acknowledgements Special thanks to the National Library of Australia for digitising old newspapers. Janet Fuller and Bradley Slape, in Land Services, Adelaide, helped generously with archival maps. Posthumous thanks to GW Goyder's detailed Assessment Sketches of 1885. The State Library of South Australia and State Records, where Dr Hall's diaries and letters were found, thanks. On the eastern research, appreciation goes to the helpful people at the Broken Hill Library and History section. To Genny and Langdon Badger, a sincere thanks for all your help, also to the Noonan family, who have allowed us to include the diary stories of Mr Con Noonan with his life as a young lad, working on Boolcoomatta in the early 1900s, and the descendants of the Meehan family. To Max Thompson, Rosemary and Matthew Roberts and the Port Lincoln Library, thank you for your contributions to the Puckridge era on Boolcoomatta. Of the many journalists who have covered stories of the North-East Pastoral area, few managed to get to the human stories like the pseudonymous Vox who wrote a column Out Among the People. Special thank you to Eva Finzel for taking on the task of editing this work from the original. If you the reader find a better understanding of a small part of the rural past within this story, I thank you for taking the time to read it. There may be a whole lot more to come from others who read these pages and have themselves spent time and life experiences on Boolcoomatta. Your additional notes will be most welcome. Aiming for accuracy can still result in mistakes, for which I apologise in advance. Judith D Johnson, Mannum, South Australia. 2019. viii Editor’s note The aim of this comprehensively edited version of Click Went The Shears is to bring Judy Johnson’s chronological collation of resources with interspersed text into a format that complies with Bush Heritage standards. I have nearly always retained her division into chapters of one per leaseholder and re-ordered her document into themes. I have fully researched and written the final section of chapter 8, Sale of Boolcoomatta to Bush Heritage Australia, and chapter 9, From sheep graziers to nature farmers. Boolcoomatta, and some other places, have been spelled differently at times, and some had different names. I have used the current spelling and names as far as possible to avoid confusion. In old documents the terms ‘run’ and ‘station’ were applied interchangeably for lease holdings. It appears that ‘run’ applied to larger properties without adequate buildings and infrastructure. When John Beck took over the leasehold of Boolcoomatta, various buildings, including a shearing shed, had been erected, and the term ‘station’ was used. In most instances I have converted the original measurements to current ones. I thank Judy for allowing me to make substantial changes to her work, for being such a diligent keeper of records and references which made it easy for me to find the original sources and add the current website reference where needed, for so patiently answering all my questions if something was unclear to me, and for checking my final edited version for accuracy. Above all I thank her for doing all the hard research work and filling this gap in our knowledge about the social history of Boolcoomatta Reserve. I thank Michelle Stook, Bush Heritage Volunteer Coordinator, for asking me to do this for me interesting work, and Glen Norris, Healthy Landscape Manager, and Kurt Tschirner, Reserve Manager, for supervising it. I take full responsibility for any mistakes I made in this edited version. Eva Finzel, Melbourne, July 2021 ix Timeline, 1830 to 2020 Prior to The Wilyakali People were custodians of the land and country on 1830 which Boolcoomatta sits, and its landscape, flora and fauna. 1830 Charles Sturt travelled through the region to the south of what became Boolcoomatta. 1836 South Australia was proclaimed a colony and the first European settlers arrived. 1851 Pastoral Leases were introduced in South Australia, replacing the Occupational Licence system from the 1840s. 1853 Almost half of the able-bodied men left South Australia to work on the Victorian goldfields. 1857 Thomas and John Tapley took up Lease 572, the earliest section of Boolcoomatta, which was 16,317 hectares (63 square miles). There had been no significant rain since 1856. Jan 1858 The Tapley family registered their Pastoral Lease. Mar 1858 Boolcoomatta Lease 572 and 603 sold to John Stanway and Moses Frith. It was 17,094 hectares (66 square miles) in size and included 2500 sheep. Nov 1859 Boolcoomatta was sold to Dr Isaac Palmer Hall, John Beck, Philip Levi and Alfred Watts. Hall became resident manager. The ongoing devastating and long drought was widespread. 1863 The size of the station increased to 207,199 hectares, with new land leased in the hope to keep the sheep alive during the drought. 1864 to Sheep numbers fluctuated throughout the drought, and the size of the 1866 property was reduced to 194,249 hectares.