Alfred John Cotton (1861–1941) was born in the Channel Islands. At 22, he came to Australia, initially working as a jackaroo and bookkeeper on Yallaroi station, near Warialda. He became a boss drover and employed many men to move mobs between north Queensland and New South Wales.¹

Cotton took over part of Bromby Park in 1893, exporting hides and tallow directly to London. In 1900, he purchased Jost Vale near Grandchester, renaming it Hidden Vale and becoming the first to take up residence in the valley below the old homestead.² In 1913, Cotton went into partnership to acquire Brunette Downs station on the Barkly Tableland. Issues over the government’s terms for renewal of the lease meant Cotton became involved in the debate over land tenure in northern Australia.

1. ‘AJ Cotton’, The Capricornian, 21 June 1928, p.34.
2. Michael J Richards, 'Cotton, Alfred John (1861–1941)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online May 2015.

John Gardiner (1798–1878) was born in Dublin.¹ He arrived in Hobart Town in May 1823 and, a month later, was granted 800 acres of land near Ross. He sold his properties in 1835 and sailed for Sydney. In 1836, he went back to Van Diemen’s Land, where he was so impressed with the Port Phillip Bay pastures he immediately moved his herd there.² Gardiner bought 300 cattle from Joseph Hawdon and, with Hawdon and John Hepburn, droved overland to Gardiners Creek, near Melbourne, with a further 100 beasts belonging to Hawdon. Gardiner is often called ‘the Overlander’ and is credited with initiating droving. Leaving his cattle and men at Gardiners Creek he returned to Sydney to send another 200 cattle to Port Phillip. In 1837, he took his wife and daughter to Port Phillip Bay aboard the Regia and built a house at Gardiners Creek. In Melbourne’s first land sale he bought a property on the corner of Elizabeth and Little Collins Street for £22. Gardiner established a cattle station of 15000 acres at Moroolbark.³

1. Leslie J Wilmoth, 'Gardiner, John (1798–1878)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed May 2015.
2. AS Kenyon, ‘The Overlanders: Part 1: New South Wales (The Middle District) to Port Phillip’, Victorian Historical Magazine, vol. 3, June 1925, p.144.
3. Wilmoth, ‘Gardiner, John’.

Charles (1851–1903) and William (1860–1910) were the younger sons of Donald MacDonald (No. 2305). Charles and William MacDonald left their property near Tuena, New South Wales, in 1883 to establish a new pastoral lease. Taking 700 head of cattle and 60 horses they travelled through Queensland in drought conditions. The journey took three years; they arrived at Fossil Downs station in the Kimberley, Western Australia — some 5600km (3480 miles) — in June 1886 with 327 cattle and 13 horses.¹ Fossil Downs, with over a million acres, became the largest privately owned cattle station in Australia. William married Ida Oliver in 1902; they named their first son Kimberley.²

1. Government of Western Australia, Heritage Council, State Heritage Office, Fossil Downs Homestead Group, accessed July 2015.
2. Wendy Birman, 'Macdonald, Charles (1851–1903)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online July 2015.
    

Bruce Forbes Simpson (1923–2019) was raised on a small selection cut off from the Old Pinnacle station west of Mackay. His father, Donald Forbes Simpson, grew sugar cane. In 1944, Simpson took a train north where he was employed by the Australia Pastoral Company at Alexandria station on the Barkly Tableland in the Northern Territory.¹ Here he worked under Clammy Cleary, Doug Harris and Jack Britt, leaving in 1946 for work at Vestey’s Nutwood. He became a boss drover in 1951 and later opened a saddler's shop in Winton, after road transport took over droving in the 1960s.

Simpson was a poet, publishing under the pseudonym ‘Lancewood'.² He wrote several books about his experiences as a drover. Simpson worked with historian Bill Gammage on the Drovers Oral History Project, interviewing retired drovers, graziers, station managers, stockmen, ringers, shearers, horse breakers and bush showmen.³

1. Bruce Simpson, Packhorse Drover, ABC Books, Sydney, 2001, pp.9–13.
2. ‘VIDEO: Vale — Bruce Forbes Simpson: Drover, bushman, author’, ABC News, accessed October 2023.
3. National Library of Australia, Drovers Oral History Collection, accessed April 2015.

Brothers Ralph and John Milner, hearing the South Australian Government was offering 2000 pounds to the first people to drive 1000 sheep or 100 cattle overland to Darwin, started out in 1863 with several thousand sheep. Impeded by the Great Drought of the 1860s, they stayed in South Australia until 1868 when the drought eased, then headed for the Birdsville Track. They spent Christmas Day 1870 at Bulldog Creek, between William Creek and Oodnadatta.¹ Near Tennant Creek a poisonous plant killed 1500 sheep.² The Milner brothers succeeded in reaching the Top End towards the end of 1871, but the reward never materialised.

1. Evan McHugh, The Drovers: Stories Behind the Heroes of our Stock Routes. Penguin Group, Australia, 2010, pp. 98.
2. ‘Mr Milner’s Trip across the Continent’, Empire, 25 July 1873, p.3, viewed July 2015.

Nehemiah Bartley (1830–94) was born in London. Arriving in Australia in 1849, he lived in Hobart where an aunt was married to Edwin Tooth, the brewer. Bartley worked in a variety of jobs in Melbourne and Geelong before setting up a bakery in Bathurst. Later, following an unsuccessful mining venture, Bartley became a teller for the Bank of New South Wales. In 1853, he joined a party taking 10 000 sheep from Dubbo to the explorer William Wentworth's Paika station.

By 1854, Bartley was in Brisbane acting as agent for several Sydney businesses. He married Sarah Barton, the sister of William and Edmund Barton. A legacy enabled Bartley to buy property all over Queensland and he built a house at Hamilton, overlooking the Brisbane River, which became known as ‘Bartley’s Folly’. Bartley travelled in Australia, New Guinea and New Caledonia, hunting for semi-precious stones and gold ore. Bartley published his reminiscences in 1892: Opals and Agates: or, Scenes under the Southern Cross and the Magelhans: Being Memories of Fifty Years of Australia and Polynesia.¹

1. RHW Reece, 'Bartley, Nehemiah (1830–1894)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1969, accessed online June 2015.

William Henry Corfield (1843–1927) was born in Somerset, England. Inspired by his uncle’s accounts of Australian life, Corfield sailed from England on the City of Brisbane in February 1862. For the next six years, he worked for his uncle, overlanding sheep and managing Clifton station. In 1868, Corfield left his uncle’s employment for a period at the goldfields on the Cape River, but he was unsuccessful. Ten years later, Corfield had three bullock teams and was based at Pelican Waterhole (Winton), where he expanded his business to include a general store and hotel (the North Gregory). Corfield stood for the seat of Gregory and, in 1888, he was returned unopposed to the Legislative Assembly. Corfield wrote Reminiscences of Queensland 1862–1899, which he dedicated ‘to the men and women of the north and west. To those who blazed the trail and who followed’.¹

1. RB Joyce, 'Corfield, William Henry (1843–1927)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1969, accessed online May 2015.

Jack Riley (1841–1914) was born in Ireland, arriving in Sydney in 1854 aboard the Rodney. In 1884, Riley was employed as a stockman, working at stations on the Monaro Plains and across the Australian Alps. A fearless and dashing horseman in his younger days, a first-class hand among the stock, open-hearted and generous, he was the inspiration for ‘The Man from Snowy River’.¹ ‘Banjo’ Paterson visited Riley’s remote bark hut at the foot of Mt Kosciuszko, spending the night listening to tales of Riley’s adventures in the mountains and going with Riley up the stock route to the main range. ‘The Man from Snowy River’ was first published in April 1890 in The Bulletin and quickly became an iconic poem.²

1. ‘Man from Snowy River, Death of the Original, Last Mountain Trip’, The Argus, July 17, 1914, p.9.
2. Evan McHugh, The Stockmen: The Making of an Australian Legend, Penguin, Melbourne, 2013.

Bob Button (1853–1911) was born in Wedderburn, Victoria. His father worked for Francis Tozer, a prominent western district pastoralist and stud breeder who was also involved in horse racing. Button became an outstanding steeplechaser, developing skills he used as a boss drover.

In the early 1870s, Button travelled to the Barcoo country in Central Queensland, in search of adventure. He worked on properties near Blackall, before joining Nat Buchanan for the first cattle drive to the Ord in the east Kimberley in 1883. A noted roughrider, brilliant horseman and a great natural bushman, one of his eccentricities was never to take his nine-inch Colt (revolver) off his belt.¹ Button became the first manager of the Ord River station, once Australia’s largest grazing property.

1. Bobbie Buchanan, In the Tracks of Old Bluey: The Life Story of Nat Buchanan, Central Queensland University Press, p.96.

William Butler Tooth (1823–76) was born in England. He followed his brother Atticus to Sydney in the Lalla Rookh, arriving in 1841. After working and buying properties together, the brothers parted ways in 1856 with William Tooth remaining in Sydney as a representative in the Legislative Assembly. Tooth was on the committee of the Sydney Club, the Society for the Suppression of Cattle Stealing and the Agricultural Society of New South Wales.¹

1. Noeline V Hall, 'Tooth, William Butler (1823–1876)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1976, accessed online April 2015.

William Frederick Buchanan (1824–1911) was born in Dublin. Buchanan arrived in Sydney on the Statesman in January 1837, with his parents and four brothers, including Nat ‘Bluey’ Buchanan (No. 2363).

In 1849, Buchanan went gold prospecting in Gippsland with little success. He noticed similar geological formations in the New England District and was instrumental in the gold rush at Rocky River, Uralla. In 1857 he married Laura Eliza Connell in Sydney.

Buchanan was a pioneer of the Australian pastoral industry and an excellent horseman and bushman, who overlanded his own cattle. He improved his sheep by purchasing high-class Spanish merinos, winning a gold medal for wool at the Calcutta Exhibition 1883–84. Buchanan bought Killarney Station in the Narrabri district, and also took over pastoral leases adjoining Wave Hill station in the Northern Territory.¹

1. Marjorie Lenehan, 'Buchanan, William Frederick (1824–1911)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1969, accessed online April 2015.

Vincent James Dowling (1835–1903) was born at Flinton, near Sydney. Educated in London he returned to New South Wales in 1851 where, after working at Pomeroy, near Goulburn, he held a New England run for about three years. Dowling droved mobs of sheep and cattle from the Richmond and Clarence Rivers, overlanding them to Victorian markets. In 1859, he droved 1200 Hereford heifers to establish a station on the Darling, which became known as Fort Bourke.¹ He later explored north and west of the Darling River with an Aboriginal guide, tracing the Paroo and Bullo rivers to their source and establishing Caiwarro and Eulo stations on the Paroo in 1861. He married Frances Emily Breillat in 1866 and she became the first white woman in the Thargomindah area. In partnership with George Cox, Dowling leased over 3400 square kilometres (1300 square miles) in the Warrego district in Queensland. Dowling acquired a reputation for the wool from his merino stud and in 1878 a bale of Lue wool was highly commended at the Paris Exhibition.²

1. Martha Rutledge, 'Dowling, Vincent James (1835–1903)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed May 2015.
2. ‘Our Studmasters’, The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 29 November 1884, p.1087, accessed May 2015.

Patrick (Patsy) Durack became head of a large Irish family when his father Michael died suddenly.¹ Striking it rich on the Victorian goldfields, Durack settled the family in Goulburn, NSW. In 1863, Durack, his brother Michael ‘Stumpy Michael’ and brother-in-law John Costello made an unsuccessful attempt to run cattle in western Queensland, later establishing a property at Coopers Creek.

Setting off from Coopers Creek in 1883, the brothers overlanded 7000 head of cattle and 200 horses 4828km (3000 miles) to the Ord River in Western Australia. Beset by shortages of supplies and water, the deaths of three of their company and the loss of half the stock, the drove took two and a half years.² Patsy went on to build a pastoral empire, his land holdings eventually including Ivanhoe, Argyle, Newry, Auvergne and Bullita, which were passed on to his four sons.³

1. Kununurra Visitor Centre, The Durack Family, accessed July 2015. 
2. ‘Death of Mr Michael Durack’, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 1 September 1894, p.5, accessed July 2015.
3. Kununurra Visitor Centre.

John Skuthorpe was also known as ‘Little Jack Dick’ and ‘Old Relics’, the latter nickname probably a reference to his unproven claim to have found the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt’s remains. This achievement is disputed in a classically pedantic ‘Letter to the Editor’ published in the Singleton Argus in 1905, as is Skuthorpe’s ‘record droving feat’: bringing 3000 head of cattle from Killarney station in north Queensland to Narrabri NSW.¹

1. 'Mr Skuthorpe's Droving Feat', Singleton Argus, 18 February 1905, p.4, viewed January 2015.

‘Greenhide’ Sam Croker (1852–92), also known as Sam Johnson, was an experienced bushman who, with Nat Buchanan (No. 2363), crossed the Barkly Tableland in 1877. Croker recorded the expedition in his diary and his account was published in The Queenslander in June 1878, where he was tagged as ‘Green Hide Sam’, a reference to his whip-making skill.

In 1878–79, he joined Nat Buchanan again to drive cattle from Queensland to Glencoe station.¹ The Murranji track had only recently been traversed by GR Hedley (No. 2212). The Murranji was known as ‘one of the most hazardous and treacherous stock routes in Australia’, and old drovers referred to it as the ‘suicide track’.² There was no access to permanent water, but Croker went ahead to the Murranji Waterhole, 80km (50 miles) west of Newcastle Waters, with Mudbarra Aborigines as guides. Nat Buchanan and the rest of the team then led the mob to the Waterhole where they camped before being led to the Yellow Waterholes, another 80km down the track.³ Eventually, the government made plans for wells along the route; however, at least 11 drovers died attempting the route.⁴

1. Daryl Lewis, The Murranji Track: Ghost Road of the Drovers, Boolarong Press, Brisbane, 2011.
2. Ernestine Hill, ‘Suicide Track of the Continent’, The Advertiser, 23 April 1936.
3. Lewis, 2011.
4. ‘Newcastle Waters’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February 2004.

James McLaurin (1821–91), together with 27 family members, arrived in Sydney in 1838 aboard the Brilliant. McLaurin's father managed a station in Singleton¹ and, in 1839, McLaurin and his brother Alexander overlanded cattle to Adelaide for Edward (No. 117) and George (No. 615) Howe. Overlanding again the next year, James McLaurin named the Edward River.

With his brother Alexander and John Webster (No. 650), McLaurin formed Allanvale station in the Westernport district. McLaurin continued to work for the Howes until they went bankrupt. With his father and three brothers as partners, McLaurin acquired more land around Deniliquin.

Daniel Morgan, the bushranger, threatened McLaurin’s Yarra Yarra property, sending his best wishes to McLaurin, who then led a group of men to the outlaw’s camp. When McLaurin’s men reached the bushrangers' camp, it was deserted. Morgan was ransacking McLaurin’s unprotected homestead of its valuables.²

1. Ruth Teale, 'McLaurin, James (1821–1891)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online May 2015.
2. ‘McLaurin Family: Bushranger’s Trick Succeeds’, The Argus, 13 September 1934, p.3.

D’Arcy Uhr (1845–1907) was born in Queensland at Wivenhoe station, Moreton Bay. Uhr was first a policeman in Queensland, leaving the force in 1869. In 1872, Uhr became the first to find gold at Pine Creek.

In 1872, Uhr was given charge of 400 head of cattle for M Dillon and J Cox, taking them from Charters Towers in Queensland across to the Northern Territory — said to be the first drove on that track. D’Arcy Uhr's approach to the drove was to arm and train men in a military fashion, the consequences of which began the frontier wars of the late 19th century, devastating the Aboriginal population of the north-eastern part of the Northern Territory.¹

Uhr also drove cattle with Nat Buchanan (No. 2363) in the early 1880s and found himself at the Halls Creek gold rush in Western Australia in 1886. Having run hotels at Yam Creek and the Exchange Hotel in Darwin, Uhr eventually settled in Coolgardie in 1894.²

1. Nicolas Rothwell, ‘White Elephant Territory’, The Australian, April 9, 2011.
2. FH Bauer, 'Uhr, Wentworth D'Arcy (1845–1907)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1976, accessed online July 2015.

Gregory Blaxland (1778–1853) married Elizabeth (nee Spurdon) in England and with their five children they emigrated to Australia as Free Settlers in 1805. On arrival, Blaxland began developing his land. He met D’Arcy Wentworth, whose son William, along with William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth, would be part of the Blue Mountains expedition in 1813. During the 1820s, Blaxland produced wine and, for the benefit of his pastoral land, bought two species of grass back from the Cape of Good Hope. Blaxland travelled to England several times in pursuit of more land and to further his economic interests. Blaxland presented to the House of Commons a demand from the colony for the right to trial by jury and for representative government. Blaxland ended up being neither well liked nor highly regarded and took his own life in 1853.¹

1. Jill Conway, 'Blaxland, Gregory (1778–1853)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1966, accessed online June 2015.

Charles Frederick (Fred) Maynard (1879–1946) was born in Hinton, New South Wales. His father, William Maynard, was English; his mother’s mother, Mary, was a Wonnarua woman from the Hunter Valley who married an emigrant from Mauritius.

Maynard travelled to the Kimberleys, working as a bullock-driver, drover and photographer. Working on the Sydney wharves from 1914, where union membership was obligatory, Maynard became politically active, participating in public protests and lobbying in support of Aboriginal people’s rights. He supported a refuge for Aboriginal ‘apprentices’ and helped Aboriginal families with the release of their children from custody.¹

Influenced by black activists in the USA, Maynard launched the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association (AAPA) in 1925. The AAPA called for the right of Aboriginals to determine their own lives, to regain control of their land and to end the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families.²

1. Heather Goodall, 'Maynard, Charles Frederick (Fred) (1879–1946)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 2000, accessed online April 2015.
2. Zoe Pollock, Australian Aborigines Progressive Association, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, viewed 23 June 2015.

Bill Gwydir (unknown – c.1988) began droving when he was 15, starting out as a horsetailer. Gwydir became a boss drover at 18, taking a mob of store cattle from Marion Downs to New South Wales. He then worked as head stockman on Glengyle station before taking a job at the Homebush cattle sale yards. This town job didn’t last long — he yearned for the bush, saying, ‘City life, that’s enough to kill a man. By hell, I went for my life back to the Mulga. Out here a man’s free as a frog from feathers’.¹

Gwydir is best known for his epic journeys with big mobs across the flooded Coopers Creek in 1949 and 1950. His toughest trip was in 1943, driving 700 bullocks across Kallakoopah Creek and up the Diamantina River. Travelling through quicksand and endless sand hills, he lost only three cattle. During the 1945 drought Gwydir brought 600 head, including cows and calves, from the western side of the Simpson Desert to Mungerannie station on the Birdsville Track, with no losses.²

1. Evan McHugh, The Drovers: Stories behind the Heroes of Our Stock Routes (2nd ed.), Penguin, Camberwell, Vic, 2010, p.158.
2. McHugh, p. 159.

Charlie Rayment (1925–2013) was born in Windorah. His parents, Charles and Marion, worked their property Mt Collins, but the Depression forced his father to find work fencing and sinking dams. When Rayment was 11, attending Enoggera State School, his father sent for him to come and help out at Quilpie. Rayment’s first droving trip was at 14, travelling from Brighton Downs to Winton over three weeks.¹

Rayment joined the navy in World War II, serving on the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia. After the war, he worked for several boss drovers until 1950 when he got his own packhorse plant. He did trips from the Georgina country to railheads at Quilpie, Yaraka and Winton. Rayment’s longest trip was over 26 weeks, taking 1500 Territory store bullocks down to Trangie in NSW. Regarded as a gentleman, quietly spoken and highly articulate, Rayment still competed in bronco branding in his eighties.²

1. North Queensland Register, General, A Sailor, a Stockman and a Gentleman, 27 August 2013, accessed May 2015.
2. Evan McHugh, The Drovers: Stories Behind the Heroes of our Stock Routes, Penguin Group, Australia, 2010, pp. 234–35.

Patrick Leslie (1815–81) was born in Scotland, the son of Scottish Laird William Leslie. Leslie sailed from London in 1834 on the Emma Eugenia, arriving in Sydney in May. At Camden, Leslie learnt flock management and agriculture with the Macarthurs, then managed a property at Collaroi. Seeking new land beyond that already settled, Leslie set out for the Clarence River area and the Darling Downs, which he ‘crossed and recrossed’ before deciding on the area for his first station. Patrick Leslie and his brothers Walter (No. 1060) and George (No. 1417) became prominent pastoralists and took an active interest in political issues. Leslie selected the site for the town of Warwick and bought the first lot in the land sale. Leslie acquired 34 acres of land on the Brisbane River opposite Bulimba, where he established a small farm and built the house now known as Newstead House.¹

1. KGT Waller, 'Leslie, Patrick (1815–1881)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1967, accessed online May 2015.

Ernest Henry (1837–1919) was born in England, the son of Captain James Henry and his wife Mary. Henry made his first trip to Australia at 16 as a junior officer on the Victoria, travelling back to Melbourne again in February 1858 with his brothers Arthur and Alfred. In 1859, Henry travelled overland to Brisbane, exploring the Bowen and Burdekin Rivers, then taking up a sheep and cattle run, Baroondah, on the Dawson River. Henry and his brother Arthur took the first herd of cattle from Rockhamption to the Upper Burdekin, where he leased Mount McConnell. Henry sold his pastoral investments and became involved with mineral prospecting.

Henry was a great horseman who survived many adventures — it is claimed he walked across rough ground for 12 hours, swam the flooded Suttor River and walked barefoot over burnt grass for ten miles (16km) to the Mount McConnell station, after leaving his exhausted horse. In January 1884, he was saddling a horse when a disgruntled Aboriginal person drove a spear into his back. Eventually he was able to struggle onto his horse and ride to Cloncurry.¹ His papers are held in the John Oxley library.

1. Clem Lack, 'Henry, Ernest (1837–1919)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online May 2015.

Charles (1851–1903) and William (1860–1910) were the younger sons of Donald MacDonald (No. 653). Charles and William MacDonald left their property near Tuena, New South Wales, in 1883 to establish a new pastoral lease. Taking 700 head of cattle and 60 horses they travelled through Queensland in drought conditions. The journey took three years; they arrived at Fossil Downs station in the Kimberley, Western Australia — some 5600km (3480 miles) — in June 1886 with 327 cattle and 13 horses.¹ Fossil Downs, with over a million acres, became the largest privately owned cattle station in Australia. William married Ida Oliver in 1902; they named their first son Kimberley.²

1. Government of Western Australia, Heritage Council, State Heritage Office, Fossil Downs Homestead Group, accessed July 2015.
2. Wendy Birman, 'Macdonald, Charles (1851–1903)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online July 2015.

Charles Joseph Scrutton (1838–1930) was a member of the Jardine Expedition which took cattle from Rockhampton to Cape York in 1864. Scrutton was also associated with the first overlanders to take cattle to the Northern Territory. He held the pastoral lease at Bauhinia Downs in the early 1900s.¹

With drovers William Hann (No. 1499) and D’Arcy Uhr (No. 1018), Scrutton brought cattle from Ravenswood, Mt McConnel, Havilah and Salisbury Plains to the gold rush. Cattle were also driven from Maryvale and properties along the Clarke River to the north of Charters Towers.² Considered a prolific reader, Scrutton’s obituary says he claimed to have read the Borroloola library through six times.³

1. Obituary, Charles Joseph Scutton. Townsville Daily Bulletin, 29 January 1930, p.7, viewed January 2015.
2. Lennie Wallace, Cape York Peninsula: A History of Unlauded Heroes 1845–2003, (2nd ed.) Brisbane, Boolarong Press, 2012, p21.
3. Townsville Daily Bulletin, p.7

John Jardine (1807–74) was born in Scotland, the son of Sir Alexander Jardine and Jane (nee Maule). John Jardine and his wife Elizabeth sailed to Sydney in the Dryade, arriving in 1840. The Jardines settled near Wellington in NSW and after financial difficulties on the land, he was appointed commissioner for crown lands in the Bligh district. Retrenched by the government and with ten dependents, Jardine moved to Queensland in 1861, becoming police magistrate for Somerset at Cape York. John Jardine’s sons, Frank (No. 673) and Alexander (No. 94), overlanded stock from Rockhampton to Cape York, a journey taking ten months.¹

1. Clem Lack, 'Jardine, John (1807–1874)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online April 2015.

Leonard (Bomber) Stacy (1942–2009) was born in a white duck tent under a Bauhinia tree at Newcastle Waters. It was 19 February, the day that Darwin was bombed, earning him his nickname ‘Bomber’. Stacy started work at 13, helping his brothers, Johnny (No. 1163) and Kelly (No. 1954), run a droving plant which their father had left them. Bomber Stacy worked six years droving cattle through the Murranji and Barkly Tableland. He took 1500 bullocks from Victoria River Downs to Walgra station in Queensland (Urandangi), a distance of 800 miles (1287km) taking 14 weeks. For many years he was based at Katherine, driving road trains.¹

1. The Drover’s Camp Camooweal, Cattle Pads, ‘Vale Bomber Stacy’, August 2009, viewed May 2015.

Robert Christison (1837–1915) and three of his brothers emigrated from Scotland in 1852. Christison travelled to southern Queensland, moving to Bowen in 1863, before going west, where he set up his first property Lammermoor. Christison was well known for establishing friendly relations with the Indigenous Dalleburra people of the region.

In the early 1870s, Christison overlanded 7000 sheep from Queensland to Adelaide.¹ A founder of the Queensland Meat Export Co., he also took a leading role in the scientific treatment of cattle diseases and helped found the Anglican See of North Queensland.

By 1900, Christison had 40 000 cattle and 500 thoroughbred horses on several properties, including Oakley and Waggadoona. Christison’s first wife Mary Lovey, whom he met in Bristol around 1877, died soon after arriving in Australia; his second wife, Mary Godsall who he married in London in 1880, was unhappy in Australia. She returned to England with their three children. In 1910, Christison sold all of his Australian assets and returned to England to be with his family.

1. Sheena Coupe, (ed.), Frontier Country: Australia’s Outback Heritage, vol. I, Weldon Russell, Willoughby, NSW, 1989.

Hazel (nee Wharton) McKellar was born in Cunnamulla in 1930, during the Depression years. McKellar was 11 years old when she went to work as a housemaid at Woodvale station. She missed her family, but was well treated by the Camerons. McKellar married at 17, after World War II, and with her husband Herbert, called Bert or Buchaa (No. 1051), began her droving life. Her father was strongly opposed to women droving, knowing it to be a hard life. McKellar was often pregnant while droving sheep and she raised a family as they travelled. In 1949, Bert bought their first transport, a reliable horse and sulky to carry McKellar and the children. They couldn’t carry much food in the sulky and had to rely on the mailman to deliver bread, sugar and flour. Her book Woman from No Where has many stories of her camp life with kids and droving stories of hardship and companionship.¹

1. Hazel Mckellar, Woman from No Where, Magabala, Broome, 2000.

Bill Hann (unknown – 1889) arrived with his family in Australia during the 1850s. In 1872 Hann led an expedition for the Queensland Government into the north.¹ The party included Jerry, a young Aboriginal boy; Norman Taylor, a geologist; Dr Thomas Tate, a botanist; and Frederick Warner, a surveyor. The expedition followed the rivers north from the Mitchell, north-west of the Palmer where they found gold and east to the Stewart. Mistaking the Annan River for the Endeavour, named by Captain Cook, Hann attempted to explore the area further, but found the terrain impossible to traverse, let alone map.

The party met friendly Aboriginal people who offered to assist them, but who left when Hann insisted on travelling in a direction they knew led to disaster. Hann was forced to re-trace his steps, eventually emerging at the Normanby River. The party followed the Hearn (Laura), Mossman and Little Laura Rivers, to the little Kennedy River where they trekked through the Conglomerate Ranges to the Palmer River, reaching their starting point at Fossil Brook on 10 November. Hann was drowned in 1889.²

1. ‘The Hann Expedition, 1872’, Brisbane Courier, Oct 8, 1921, accessed January 2015.
2. ‘William Hann’, Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Observer, NSW. 14 June 1916, accessed July 2015.