| Historical notes: | Pre and Contact Aboriginal Custodianship
The land on which the huge former AAC pastoral station, Warrah Station was established was part of the traditional lands of the Kamilaroi people who cared for the land and sustained themselves hunting the birds, insects and animals of the plains and gathering and processing vegetables. There were strong trade and ceremonial ties with the Wonnarua Aboriginal people whose main country lay in the inland regions of the Hunter and Upper Hunter Valley.(Murrurundi www.smh.com.au/news 17/2/2005)
The Kamilaroi were a large nation of Aboriginal people extending from the Upper Hunter through to the Warrumbungle Mountains in the west and to the lower reaches of south west Queensland. This nation was made up of many smaller family groups who shared the gamilaraay language. (Kamilaroi Highway Project http://kamilaroihighway.com.au/history 15/9/14)
The Kamilaroi had a reputation as fierce warriors who defended their familial hunting grounds from other intruding bands and who also actively resisted European settlement for many years. One source noted that more than 500 Aboriginal and 15 Europeans were killed between 1832 and 1838 as European fortune hunters flooded into the Upper Hunter and Liverpool Plains area to settle (Broome 1988:101 cited in Fuller R.S, Norris R.P and Trudgetti M. The Astronomy of the Kamilaroi People and their Neighbours).
Exploration and settlement
The opening up of the Upper Hunter and Liverpool Plains area was facilitated in the first instance by explorers Benjamin Singleton and John Howe in 1818 and again in 1821. In this later journey Howe reached as far as the current location of Maitland which he appraised as being good sheep country. In 1824 it was Henry Dangar who reached land to the west of Murrurundi in search of new grazing land. The next ten years saw an influx of hundreds of settlers to take up Crown lands grants in the Valley and Plains beyond (First Contact in the Upper Hunter Valley www.working with atsi.info/content/reading 11B).
Despite the Aboriginal resistance to this invasion, sometimes characterised as 'a state of warfare', pressure from Europeans settling on and restricting access to land and its resources and the appalling effects of western disease on the indigenous peoples, resulted in their complete dispossession from their traditional land. By the mid to late 19th Century many Aboriginal people in the area had either accepted European life and settled in villages and towns or, perhaps more commonly, found residence on government reserves in the area such as Caroona near Quirindi or at St Clair reserve (later, 1905 St Clair Mission) between Singleton and Carrowbrook. The reserves allowed Aboriginal people to survive by farming and also using traditional hunting and gathering skills. (The Impact of Dispossession, Caroona and St Heliers, St Clair, Caroona and the Aborigines Inland Mission www.working with atsi.info/content/reading 11B, 11D and 11F)
The Australian Agricultural Company
The AACo was formed under an act of British Parliament in 1824 as a result of the recommendations of Commissioner Bigge. Bigge recommended that private investment and enterprise, possibly in the growing of fine wool, was a crucial measure in the viable future of the Colony of NSW. Working capital of a million pounds was recommended to be granted as was the promise of a Crown Grant of one million acres. (Gregson 1907 1-18)
A group of potential investors headed by John Macarthur (son of John Macarthur of the notorious NSW Corps) soon formed and in June 1824 the Australian Agricultural Company was enacted in Parliament. By November 1824, a Royal Charter was issued and agents appointed in the colony to act on behalf of the Company. These were James Macarthur, H.H. Macarthur and James Bowman, later husband to Miss Macarthur. Survey General John Oxley was consulted on the possible location of land suitable for growing fine wool. After rejecting his suggestions of land in the Liverpool Plains, Upper Hunter, Bathurst and Upper Hastings River on the grounds these areas were either too far from the coast and transportation, or too densely settled, land at Port Stephens was chosen and the company began to establish itself there by 1826. (Gregson 1907 22-30)
In the first years of its operation the Australian Agricultural Company struggled to establish its ambitious enterprise and this was not helped by the fact that the land at Port Stephens was not particularly suitable for raising sheep. It was not until after 1829 when Sir Edward Parry was appointed commissioner of the company that the search for suitable fine wool growing land began in earnest and Parry proposed a swap of land at Port Stephens for another more appropriate tract of land. In 1831 on the advice of surveyor Henry Dangar, Parry made the decision to select two large runs at Warrah Creek and Goonoo Goonoo which were considered favourable for raising fine-wool sheep. Finally in 1833, after the initial rejection of the scheme by Governor Bourke and then the insistence of the Colonial Office in London, two grants of 240,00 (Warrah) and 360 acres (Goonoo Goonoo) were made to the AAC.(Gregson 1907 52 - 59).
East Warrah Station
Development of the pastoral lands at Warrah was slow due to the shortage of available water on the run and the downturn in the demand for wool during the 1840s. In fact the company's aim to establish a leading fine wool growing enterprise in the colony was sidelined by the fact that the AACo put most of its energy and resources into its profitable coal mining enterprises. It was not until the company came under the management of a new commissioner, Mr Hodgson, that it refocused on developing its fine wool growing enterprise and in 1862 received an allocation of 30,000 pounds to develop sheep breeding and shearing facilities at Warrah which had been chosen for development as the AACo's head station for its wool production enterprise in the colony.
The Stock Superintendent, Samual Craik designed the new woolshed to be constructed at East Warrah in 1863. It was completed in time for shearing the property's new flock of 13,799 sheep in 1864 (Gregson 1907 242). In that year also further investments were made in increasing the flock. The new sheep were pastured at West Warrah and an overseer was stationed at Windy Point (The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News 21 October 1865). The flock size continued to increase with a total of 84,719 sheep shorn at Warrah in 1870. (Gregson 1907 256-259).This number steadily increased through the 1870s and in 1875 there were a total flock of 110,000 sheep on the whole run , 92 413 of which were shorn in the Warrah woolshed in 1875.(Gregson 1907 294-295).
Warrah woolshed began as a blade shearing shed. During the 1880s the race to develop a successful mechanised shearing system was reaching a peak. At this time the Australian Agricultural Company bought into the debate, offering both Frederick Wolseley and rival inventor, John Suckling the opportunity to install 25 machines each. As Wolseley declined the offer, the shed was fitted with 50 of John Suckling's air compression driven shears which in the course of time failed and the shed returned to blade shearing. Never the less the experiment marked Warrah Woolshed as one of the first mechanised sheds in NSW and Australia (Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate 9 June 1888).Wolseley's successful shears were first installed at Dunlop Station on the Darling River and at 'Toganmain' on the Murrumbidgee near Hay. (Powerhouse Catalogue of Items www.powerhousemuseum.com)
Warrah Station continued to increase its productivity in the 1890s with 159,000 sheep shorn at Warrah in 1896.The woolshed had expanded to include 64 stands and had been fitted out with an hydraulic dump and press capable of baling 60 bales of wool per day. The extended woolshed could now hold 6000 sheep.
Associated with the woolshed from soon after its construction in 1863 is the bake house which still stands and adjacent barrack accommodation for shearers which no longer exists. The core of the station's earliest homestead and associated buildings lies in ruins on the adjacent property - Warrah Ridge which was subdivided and sold off early in the 20th century. In the 1890s a new homestead and associated buildings was established around the East Warrah woolshed. These buildings included a school house (1889), a meat house and store, stables and cart shed (1891) several staff cottages and the new Warrah homestead (1896).
The focus of activity on the large Warrah station began to change at the turn of the 20th century when work began on the design and construction of a large and handsome woolshed at Windy Station in 1901.
The pressure for closer settlement brought to bear on Warrah Station at the turn of the20th century and the eastern part of the run around Willow Tree was subdivided in 1908. A further government resumption of 45,000 acres occurred and was sold in 1911 and still further subdivision and sales of east Warrah occurred in 1914, 1935 and 1967 resulting in the gradual withdrawal of the company from Warrah station to other properties. In 1969 the Warrah homestead was sold and the company interests in the area comprised about 33,000 acres on Windy Station in the north west corner of the original grant. (Warrah Station - UNE Archives). Romani Pastoral Company purchased East Warrah Station in 1999. Cattle are currently run on Warrah Station. |