Darling Downs Pastoral District

Map showing key features of the Darling Downs Pastoral District.

By Lynley A. Wallis and Heather Burke

The Darling Downs pastoral district is located adjacent to the Moreton Bay pastoral district in southeast Queensland, extending west from the Great Dividing Range and broadly encompassing the Condamine River Basin. It is bounded to the north by the Bunya Mountains and to the south by ranges in the northern extent of NSW. To the north are the Burnett and Leichhardt districts, to the west the Maranoa. Beyond the Condamine, other key rivers include the Dumaresq and Macintyre Rivers, and this southern portion historically was initially part of the Liverpool Plains district. With rich basaltic black soils and a reasonable average rainfall, the district is ideally suited to agriculture.

The Darling Downs was officially opened for settlement in 1843, second only to Moreton, but squatters had been taking up land here for several years prior to this. According to the census, in March 1841 there were but 55 White men in the Darling Downs, but by September 1843 this number had increased to 300, including a reasonable number of women (French 1993:12).

While one of the smaller pastoral districts (covering 8,031,241 hectares), its proximity to the seat of power, coupled with the incredible richness of its land, meant the Darling Down quickly became the focus of attention. The main towns today are Toowoomba (incorporating Drayton) in the east and Condamine in the northwest.

White Exploration

In 1827 explorer and botanist Allan Cunningham explored the Darling Downs region from the south, naming the Gwydir and Dumaresq Rivers, and passing near the current sites of Ingelwood, Warialda and Warwick. Highly impressed by the extensive grasslands supported by the cracking black soils of the downs country he observed during his journey, Cunningham named the district after Sir Ralph Darling, Governor of New South Wales, and reported favourably back to authorities about the area’s agricultural potential:

The lower grounds … furnish an almost inexhaustible range of cattle pasture at all seasons of the year — the grasses and herbage generally exhibiting, in the depth of winter, an extraordinary luxuriance of growth. From these central grounds, rise downs of a rich, black, and dry soil, and very ample surface; and as they furnish an abundance of grass, and are conveniently watered, yet perfectly beyond the reach of those floods, which take place on the flats in a season of rains, they constitute a valuable and sound sheep pasture. (Cunningham 1832:112)

Cunningham was also responsible for identifying a gap in the Great Dividing Range, allowing for travel and transport between Brisbane and Moreton Bay with the Darling Downs.

It was the rich grasslands that attracted the intense attention of the squattocracy – early settler Patrick Leslie “mentioned in one of his letters that as a horseman could only in some places see the head and shoulders of the rider in front” Fox 1923, Vol 2:159). These grasslands were vital to local Aboriginal people, which were carefully managed by annual cultural burning regimes (Archibald Meston as cited in Walker 1988:22).

Walker (1988:8) attributed the delay between Cunningham’s initial excitement over the region and the influx of squatters to a cluster of factors: Governor Gipps’ 1829 limit of settlement to within 150 miles of Sydney and the passing of the 1833 “Act for protecting the Crown Lands of this Colony from Encroachment, Intrusion and Trespass: and the introduction in 1836 of a £10 annual licence fee for all runs regardless of their size.

Ludwig Leichhardt passed through several times, having used Cecil Plains as the base for his 1844 and 1847 expeditions (Leichhardt 1847), who described it in March 1844 as:

Ranges of middling height, now a chain of cones, now flat-topped mountains covered with brush … accompany on each side the plains two to three miles broad, and many miles long. The soil is black … the vegetation is quite different from … the other side of the coast range; the grasses more various … The creeks are deeply cut, with steep covered with reeds.

NMP Presence

There had been nearly a decade of open hostilities between White settlers and Aboriginal people in the Darling Downs District before Commandant Frederick Walker arrived there in May 1849 to establish the first NMP camp in what was to later become Queensland. His chosen base of operations was Callandoon, a pastoral run on what was to become the southern Qld border with NSW. Callandoon was owned by Augustus Morris, a close friend of Walker’s[1], and thus the decision by Walker to base his Force there was no accident. Walker had with him the initial 14 troopers he had recruited from the Murrumbidgee and Murray River areas of southern NSW and northern Victoria, and would occasionally leave them in charge of Morris when he himself was required to be elsewhere.

The NMP camp on Callandoon was probably established relatively close to the head station, reportedly located where the township of Goondiwindi currently stands (Queenslander, 31 August 1895, p.407). Because it was the first camp, the detachment from Callandoon patrolled a large area with no distinct borders, ranging as far as the Condamine, Wide Bay and Burnett regions. In addition to Commandant Walker, other officers stationed here included James Dolan, Richard Dempster, Richard Marshall and George Fulford.

The effects on Aboriginal resistance following the arrival of the NMP at Callandoon were swift and marked. When testifying before a NSW Select Committee in 1858, squatter William Tooth claimed that,

The blacks before that had been so very troublesome that he could not get a purchaser for it [a station therein he owned], and he had to sell it at a sacrifice, in fact you could scarcely get a man to go into that district for double the wages paid anywhere else, and no woman would go near it at all. The hut-keepers would not venture to go down to the water-hole without being armed with gun or pistol. But in less than three months after the Native Police came up, that district was so quiet that a man could walk about anywhere. Mr Walker met the blacks killing cattle close to my camp, and they had a stand up fight for it. The blacks were so completely put down on that occasion, and terrified at the power of the police, that they never committed any more depredations near there. The place was quiet at once, and property became fifty per cent more valuable. (NSW Legislative Assembly 1858:26).

After several years of operation, and finding itself further and further from the action, Callandoon NMP camp was eventually closed in mid-1854 when Walker was dismissed[2], and the headquarters moved to Port Curtis.

As the voracious squatters continued their push outwards and Aboriginal defiance was worn down in the southern Darling Downs, another NMP camp was subsequently established in 1851 at Wandai Gumbal in the northwest of the district (near the border with the Maranoa). The Wandai Gumbal detachment there expected to patrol as far east as Drayton and as far as was considered necessary to the west.

Located at a confluence of Tchanning and Barracks Creek (near the present-day town of Condamine) Wandai Gumbal was formed in direct response to requests from the occupants of Mt Abundance Station (in the Maranoa district) for assistance to counter Aboriginal attacks. In responding to the squatters’ requests, Commandant Walker noted that “it would be of great service to the force if, in each district over which the Police have to do duty, they had a station to which they could look as a home; especially this would be of advantage in case of sickness, and when any of the horses were not fit for work. Should the Settlers subscribe £30, I will point out a place at once, and find the remaining £20 required” (Moreton Bay Courier, 14 June 1851, p2). Within two months of Walker’s proposal the Wandai Gumbal barracks were henceforth built by local squatters at their own expense. They were described as being 40 feet in length by 20 feet in width, nine feet slabs, with a bark roof and slab floor.

Multiple historical sources indicate the Wandai Gumbal camp as being in a constant state of disarray, occasioning many complaints about the conduct of the NMP stationed there. Notable stories of the camp include one published in the Queenslander alleging the Wandai Gumbal NMP camp to be the birthplace of the invasive prickly pear, and the recollections of Thomas Davis (the father of the author Arthur Hoey Davis, who wrote under the pen name Steele Rudd), who claimed that the camp was a ‘perfect harem’ awash with Aboriginal girls and women.

Other accounts of the camp point to straightened circumstances because of poor resourcing and ongoing Government neglect:

… prior to Mr. Nichol’s departure from his barracks, he and his troopers were without flour, meat, and sugar for nine days; and he was obliged to billet some of his men on the neighbouring stations, actually leaving six troopers nearly in a state of nudity, without a single round of ammunition to protect the barracks. Instead of having two second-lieutenants and two camp sergeants, he was alone, and, of course, unsupported. It appears he had also sent his best horses to the Dawson some months since, and he could not, under any emergency, effectually mount above five troopers; for it has been satisfactorily proved that two horses are indispensable to enable each man satisfactorily to perform his duty. Then, with regard to the clothing for the force, it appears that although it was due in June, 1656, it was not furnished until yesterday … Like Mr Ross, this officer we believe, have, for some time past, expended all the troopers pay, and a great portion of his own, in clothing the men under his command” (North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser, 8 September 1857, p2).

Francis Nicoll played up this version of events by claiming,

When I assure you, Sir, that I myself had nothing eat but one egg for thirty six hours, you may form some idea of the state of the Native Police station at Wandai Gumbal. Mr Kennedy has kindly sold us a few sheep, and I have left Mr Smith in charge until I return with supplies. … My troopers have, I think, about five serviceable boots (single) amongst them. I have been so fortunate as to succeed in procuring a few blankets and blue shirts for them otherwise they must have been actually naked. (QSA17616 1857 Letter from Francis Nicoll to John Wickham 3 July, Letters addressed to the Government Resident by the Colonial Secretary, Sydney, on the Native Police, Mfilm 1494).

Edric Morisset, the then Commandant (he succeeded Walker), however, completely denied Nicoll’s claims, noting that when he inspected Wandai Gumbal in 1858 the camp was,

… in a complete state of disorganization, the Troopers absent and living with the local Aborigines and joining with them in all their Corobborees [sic] and marauding expeditions. In fact, the Division was utterly broken up, and I am convinced that it was simply the presence of 2nd Lieut Morehead that prevented serious disturbances and offences which would otherwise have been the result of Mr Nicols [sic] culpable neglect, particularly at the time the perpetrators of the offences on the Dawson came down on the Condamine waters – and were only dispersed through the energy of 2nd Lieut Morehead. I beg further to state that his absence at the time of my first visit was caused through his lending the Flour belonging to the Corps to a neighbouring squatter “Mr Leslie” of Terriboo and who at that time had not returned it. Relative to Mr Nicolls statement of the expenditure of his own salary upon the Troopers I find it was the only way in which he could even maintain a slight show of discipline, the Troopers refusing to obey his orders unless receiving a gratuity on each particular occasion for so doing and treating him generally with the greatest contempt. (QSA282454 1858 Letter from Edric Morisset to Government Resident 30 April, Letterbook NP 1857–1859, Mfilm 2437).

Known conflict events responded to by the Wandai Gumbal detachment are limited to the first four years of the camp’s records and include abundant attacks on property, stock and Europeans, as well as three documented attacks on Aboriginal people. In early 1859 the detachment from Wandai Gumbal was transferred to Bungil Creek and the building materials sold to defray the costs of forming a new station.

Conflict Events

The expanse of the Darling Downs district took in the earliest pastoral runs the Macintyre River, as well as the region immediately west of Moreton Bay, both hotspots for violence from the 1840s. Although the Darling Downs was first visited by Cunningham in 1827, he himself saw few Aboriginal people during that initial foray.[3] It was not until pastoralists pushed into the region that violence erupted, with the period from 1840 until the end of the 1850s being one of almost continuous conflict. From a total of 92 conflict events in the district, the highest number of events took place in 1848 (n=16, or 17%), when 27 people (20 Aboriginal people and 7 Europeans) were killed, with by far the most conflict taking place on pastoral runs (90% of the total).

Graph showing conflict events in the Darling Downs Pastoral District by year.

Based on Commissioner of Crown Lands Christopher Rolleston’s reckoning of the state of the district on his arrival in November 1843, at least 13 shepherds had been killed from January 1842 to that date, and thousands of sheep killed or driven off (French 1993:13). Adding to the general financial woes of the depressed economy in the early 1840s, the ongoing violence with the Aboriginal occupiers of the land “was not only costly in terms of human lives and stock lost, but … also forced up the cost of wages” (Walker 1988:20), hitting hard for most of the Darling Downs squatters.

In 1840 one the men working for the Leslie brothers on Toolburra was speared, albeit not fatally, and though the first half of 1841 was relatively quiet, they suffered repeated attacks on their sheep later in the year.  Eventually the Leslies retaliated in force: as reported to his parents, William and Jane, in a letter dated 17 November 1841, George noted “they killed & carried away about 60 maiden ewes but for that we gave them what they will not forget in a hurry”, suggesting a major attack against those who had been troubling their stock. This led to relative quiet for a couple of years, but through the latter half of 1843 attacks on the Leslie’s stock were again causing havoc (Letter from George Leslie to William Leslie, 1 January 1844; see the Leslie letter collection here). The Leslies adopted a vicious approach: “We never allow them to come about the station or hold any communication with them, except it be with a gun or sword” (Letter from George Leslie to William and Jane Leslie, 24 June 1841).

By 1843/1844 there was essentially a state of open warfare across the Downs, which included a strategy on the part of the Aboriginal people to deliberately target rations and supplies (Walker 1998:24–25). George Leslie again wrote to his parents, this time on 1 January 1844, describing the situation thus:

The Blacks have been annoying us greatly within the last ten months. We have lost through them about one hundred head of cattle, and they attacked them again the day before yesterday. Walter being down the country I can’t leave home but Ernest Dalrymple and a party are out hunting the niggers. They have killed a great many white men in this part of the country and not many days pass at a time, without our hearing of some man being killed.

Thomas Domville-Taylor drew several sketches of events during this time, portraying various attacks on Aboriginal people by the squatters on the Downs (Roberts 2021). One such sortie, albeit unsuccessful, was described by John Sullivan some 25 years later:

I arrived in New South Wales in the year 1818 being then thirteen years old. I was entrusted to the care of Captain Reed of the “Asia” by my friends and was apprenticed on my arrival in Sydney to Richard Jones, Merchant, for five years. After having served my time I came to Brisbane in the year 1844 and was employed by the same gentleman. The natives at that time were very troublesome. On one occasion when they had been more than usually outrageous a party of seventeen men was fitted out to punish them and protect the lives of the settlers of which party I was one. In an engagement my gun bursted and shattered my right hand and arm to pieces. The Whites being defeated, retreated, and left me lying helpless and at the mercy of the Blacks who drove my skull in with a waddy, speared me in the leg and left me for dead. Being found in this condition I was brought into Ipswich and was attended by Dr Dorsey. This occurred about four and twenty years ago. I struggled on for twenty years without asking for any relief until my eyesight failed through the fracture of the skull. I then applied to the Queensland Government for any aid they could afford me and they promised to give me employment in which I could earn a living suitable to my crippled condition. All they have done for me was to send me to Dunwich. I did not think that was suitable for me, as I could do many a light thing such as watchman or gateman on the Railway line. (QSA846884 1871 Petition from John Sullivan undated, Colonial Secretary’s Office In Letters, In Letter 21/860)

Sullivan was in the employ of Gideon Scott, who had taken up Mt Esk by 1847, placing this event in this area in that year (Moreton Bay Courier 4 September 1847, p2). Not long after, on late November or early December, a shepherd named Patrick was killed on David Perrier’s run Wyaga (aka Wondul), along with three horses speared and a fourth driven off, 104 ewes in lamb killed and hundreds of others driven off (all later recovered by Thomas Moffatt, a neighbouring squatter), and a tarpaulin, two guns and ammunition boxes stolen, as well as a variety of ‘slop’ clothing (Moreton Bay Courier, 5 February 1848, p2; Sydney Morning Herald, 22 February 1848, p2; see also French 1993:20).

Relations deteriorated throughout 1848 in the west and north of the District. Two stations were abandoned and 11 men murdered in that year (Walker 1988:32), the Rosewood scrub being a stronghold from which Aboriginal people were able to launch attacks on travellers and drays. That the Europeans responded in kind is not in doubt, although the authorities’ attempts to intervene were unsuccessful. Commissioner Rolleston was frustrated in his attempts to track down Whites responsible for the killing of three Aboriginal women and a child at Canning Creek on 26 October 1848, despite the presence of four eyewitnesses, all of whom claimed not to be able to “identify the perpetrators”, and advising the Colonial Secretary, “A dastardly attack of this nature calls for prompt punishment—but all the exertions I have made to trace the parties have been unsuccessful.”

Violence was still occurring in September 1853, albeit sporadically, as, by this time, the initially fierce resistance had been thoroughly ‘subdued’ (Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 16 November 1853, p4) by more than a decade of NMP presence.

Key Pastoralists and Stations

From the earliest decades of settlement, the White community of the Darling Downs were tight-knit (often intermarrying), arguably displaying “a homogeneity of social origin not to be found in other areas” (Walker 1988:13). With their immense flocks of sheep, and becoming both wealthy and powerful, many were referred to disparagingly as the “Shepherd Kings” and “Grass Dukes” (State Library of Queensland 2024), and became fundamental to the Separation movement that ultimately saw the establishment of Queensland as a colony separate to NSW. The earliest licenced runs in the district were to Henry Hughes and Frederick Isaacs (Gowrie, 1841), Arthur Hodgson and Gilbert Elliott (Eton Vale, 1841), and James Wingate (Tummaville, 1841) (NSW Depasturing licenses index 1837–1851).

In 1840–1841 Richard and Sampson Marshall squatted on the Goondiwindi run in the south of the district. Richard subsequently joined the NMP, although he continued as a partner in the run (Skinner 1975:399). Probably around the same time Augustus Morris took up Callandoon, near Goondiwindi, where Walker established the first NMP camp in what ultimately became Queensland. Other early run holders in the district included John and James Howe, George Dight, Jacob Lowe, James Marks, William Russell and J.K. Wilson.

In the east of the district, Scottish colonist Patrick Leslie, with his younger brothers George and Walter, from 23 March 1840 onwards took up vast holdings, including Toolburra (their head station), Canning Downs (near present-day Warwick), Gledfield and Allora Downs (the name deriving from the Aboriginal word “gnallorah” meaning ‘swampy place’) in the southeast of the District. Though the Leslies were nearly financially ruined by the 1840s global depression, they persisted and built great wealth, a fact that gave them, especially Patrick, a great deal of political sway. Given their prominence as the first White settlers in the region and the large parcels of land they controlled, and the myriad of men employed by them to shepherd their vast herds, the Leslies were at the core of a lot of the conflict that took place in the District, especially in the first decade of their tenure. Both George and Patrick were members of the NSW Parliament, Patrick on the Legislative Assembly for Wide Bay, Burnett and Maranoa in 1857 and George on the Legislative Council for Clarence and Darling Downs between 1851 and 1855.

Gledfield later passed to Neil Ross, and then to Frederick Bracker, who had married one of Ross’ daughters. In about 1852 Arold Wienholt purchased the property, joining it to Maryvale. The latter had been originally taken up in the 1840s by John Cameron and Robert Coulson, before then passing to James “Bush” Hay, before becoming part of the Wienholt holdings (Hall 1925:39).

James Blyth also took up Undulla in January 1851, which then passed to John Cameron.

Glenlyon was first taken up by Scotsman Archibald Garden, a friend of Patrick Leslie’s, in 1840, when it was part of the New England district of NSW. The northern property boundary of Glenlyon in 1843 became the southern boundary of the Darling Downs District. Archibald named the station after his father’s ancestral home in Scotland, Glenlyon.

Wiliam Francis Kennedy took up Tieryboo in 1841, later to become the township of Condamine. His manager was James M. Gilmour, who later became a sub-inspector in the NMP (McManus 1913:online).

Goodar, on the Weir River, was taken up by James Marks in the 1840s. In September 1847 James’ young son, John, was killed by Aboriginal people and Marks subsequently killed many Aboriginal people in retaliation, both on his own account and as part of vigilante parties. One of the few European women in the district, Margaret Young, described Marks’ relations with the Bigambul people: “Old Mr Marks was a hater of all aboriginals and would shoot any seen approaching his property.”’ (Copland 1999:4). Copland estimated that up to 47 Aboriginal people were killed during Marks’ sprees. The Goodar property was transferred to Edward G. Cory in August 1849 (NSW Government Gazette, 7 August 1849).

Ballandean was taken up in 1840 by Robert Ramsay Mackenzie, who later became the Premier of Queensland (albeit only for a short period, from 15 August 1967 until 25 November 1868). By 1844 Mackenzie was forced to file for bankruptcy and the lease passed to the then station manager, Henry Hayor Nicol.

Arthur Hodgson took up Eton Vale (later known as Cambooya, an Aboriginal word meaning “many winds”), the second run occupied in the District, in 1840 with his partner Gilbert Elliott, persuaded by Patrick Leslie as to its possibilities. The Commissioner for the Darling Downs used this station as his base in the 1840s, and Hodgson himself was appointed the district Magistrate in June 1841. Like the Leslies, Hodgson found the first decade hard going, the combined effects of a global depression and continued Aboriginal resistance and other issues beset his endeavours (Waterson 1972). Though not greatly successful, like most wealthy squatters he turned his hand to politics, becoming,

… the prime mover of the Moreton Bay and Northern Districts Separation Association … Despite defeat by John Dunmore Lang in a twice-disputed election for Stanley County in 1854, Hodgson won the Clarence and Darling Downs seat in the New South Wales parliament in 1858 and Newcastle in 1859. In 1868-69 he represented Warrego in the Queensland Legislative Assembly and served in (Sir) Robert Mackenzie’s ministry as secretary for public works and goldfields in September-November 1868 and as colonial secretary in the Lilley ministry from January to November 1869 when Hodgson left the colony. As a politician he was not a success. Though an excellent lecturer his attitudes were too obsolete and inflexible for a developing colony, and despite his straightforward character he was intolerant in debate. (Waterson 1972)

John (“Tinker”) Campbell, who had come from the McIntyre, was another of the earliest squatters on the Darling Downs after Patrick Leslie, taking up Kittah Kittah (later Beebo), Westbrook and Glengallan near Warwick in 1841. According to his ADB entry, he “treated the Aboriginals considerately, swapping names with one, Multugerrah, also known as Moppy. He never showed firearms, and his home and cattle were not molested even in his frequent absences” (Iltis 1966). Multuggerah led a sustained resistance against European incursion in his traditional lands (French 1993:13).

Cecil Plains was taken by Henry Stuart Russell (and his brother Sydenham) in 1841–42 (Austin and Lack 1967; Walker 1988:12). Russell was a second cousin to Arthur Hodgson, and his taking up of Cecil Plains was preceded by a stint at Eton Vale in 1840. The property was later sold to James Taylor (and a partner) who held it from 1859–1863, who become the lands minister. Russell’s advice to his neighbour Charles Coxen at Jondaryon was to “keep them at a distance” (as cited in Walker 1988:24). St Ruth was separated from Cecil Plains in 1842 by Richard Jones, probably for the Aberdeen Company.

John and George Gammie acquired the Talgai (previously known as Stornaway and then Tarrayarra – possibly meaning ‘flood river gums [French 1993:19]) run in March 1841. Two of their workers on Stornaway, John McGaffie and Edward Miller, were killed by Aboriginal people in January 1842, subject to magisterial enquiry by Arthur Hodgson. [Note that other accounts suggest the Old Talgai run was taken up by George Dalrymple in 1840, along with Goomburra and part of Clifton, e.g. Hall 1925.]

Ellengowan was taken up by John Thane, who arrived on the Darling Downs in the 1840s. His premature death by drowning while crossing a flooded river saw the property taken up by Henry Hughes (Hay 1925:48).

The above group of men were considered by Walker (1988:12) to have been the first wave, and between them occupied more than 4 million acres. According to Walker (1988:16) this first wave tended “to live and work on their runs” while those who came after were often absentee owners, sending their employees instead to stock and superintend their runs. This second wave of White settlers in the Darling Downs included:

  • Henry Dennis, employed by Richard Todd Scougall, who took up Jimbour (an Aboriginal word meaning ‘bush grass’) in 1842 for his employer, along with Jondaryan (the Aboriginal name of a large lagoon on Oakey Creek) for himself, and Warra Warra station for a Mr Irving (presumably Clark) (Walker 1988:13). However, the first record of a registered run for Jondaryon was held by Charles Coxen and his uncle, Henry William Coxen, who also took up Bendemere on the eastern edge of the Maranoa (Chisholm 1969). Flourishing amidst the violence of the Downs, Henry Coxen became the owner of numerous other stations and thus an important player in Queensland affairs. His wife was Margaret Moorhead, daughter of NMP officer William Moorhead. Henry Coxen also took up Dalby in the early 1840s. Coxen had a very progressive approach to Aboriginal people (Walker 1988:24). Charles was declared insolvent in 1845, a victim of the depression, not having family funds back in England that he could call upon, unlike the Leslies (Walker 1988:26), and Jondaryon was purchased by James Macabrieu Andrew on 25 January 1845 (Walker 1988:26).
  • John Perrell Wilkie took up Daandine in 1844, which he afterwards rented to Charles Coxen.
  • In 1848 Jimbour was sold to Thomas Bell (Sydney Morning Herald 4 August 1848, p3), the father of Joshua Peter Bell who ran the station along with his brother Alexander. Eventually Joshua took on the sole responsibility. Joshua later became the Qld Treasurer (in the 1860s), president of the Legislative Council and later the Minister for Lands.]
  • Robert Tertius Campbell – wrote of £10,000 of debt to liquidators in 1844, went on to become owner (or part thereof) of 17 pastoral leases, including Jondaryan in which he partnered with Andrew (Walker 1988:27).
  • David Perrier had Wyaga (Wondul) station in 1847, also acquiring Beauraba from Joshua J. Whitting in 1848 (Sydney Morning Herald 18 October 1848, p2) and disposing of Wyaga/Wondul to Whitting in 1849 (Moreton Bay Courier18 August 1849, p4).
  • Frederick Bracker was the manager of Rosenthal (near Warwick) in the early 1840s, before taking up the Waroo and Gledfield runs in 1848 (Sydney Morning Herald, 18 October 1848, p2). Rosenthal was another of the Leslie’s runs in the District, before they sold it to Messrs Beattie and Bettington of the ‘Aberdeen Company’, later the north British Australian Company) (Hall 1925:35). John Deuchar subsequently took over management of Rosenthal, with overseer William Anderson. Deuchar then purchased Canal Creek, to which Anderson followed him as the manager.
  • Herbert Evans, who originally came to the Darling Downs with the Forbes family, and then took up Stonehenge station in the late 1840s.
  • Matthew Buscall Goggs took up Chinchilla, Thomas Collins took up Coolmunda (aka Cobramatta), Robert Logan took up Dunmore, Ross Finlay took up Greenbank , William Dumaresque took up Whetstone, brothers John and Alfred Crowder took up Weranga, John Browne took up Tingun, all in 1848.
  • Terrica (aka Terrea, Terren or Terrin) and Pike’s Creek were taken up by Adolphus Trevethan in 1847 and transferred to Captain John Pike in 1852. Treventhen went further north to the Burnett District, and was killed by Aboriginal man (‘Davy’) on Rawbell Station on 19 March 1852.
  • John McDougall later acquired the Rosalie Plains station, and was a member of the Queensland Legislative Council from 1860-1895.
  • Amongst other runs in the Condamine, Maranoa, Darling Downs, Wide Bay and Burnett and Leichhardt districts, by 1848 Joseph King had also taken up Jingi Jingi and Kogan (Moreton Bay Courier 1 September 1849, p4), which was then transferred to James Ivory in 1851 (Sydney Morning Herald 15 July 1851, p3),

Arnold Wienholt settled at Maryvale, purchased in the late 1840s using family wealth back in England (Fox 1923, Vol 2:171). He became a member of the Queensland legislature. His son, Edward, was reportedly the “prominent spirit” in the Wienholt family “leading him to make big ventures with a dash and self-reliance which, nevertheless, was tempered by a native shrewdness which caused him seldom to make a mistake” (Fox 1923:172). Amongst others, the family also held Blythedale in the Maranoa district and Jondaryon (Walker 1988:2), the latter with William Kent (Fox 1923:172). In other pastoral districts, Wienholt holdings included Fassifern, Warenda, Hamilton River, and Goodwood, Burke River (near Boulia) by 1886. “By 1877, Edward Wienholt and the trustees of William Kent were the largest owners of freehold land in Queensland and Jondaryon was the largest freehold run” (Walker 1988:2). Edward was the MLA for Western Downs in 1870–73 and Darling Downs in 1873–75.

William Edwards and Alfred Ashby took up Calliguel on the Condamine River in 1851, and James Garnett Ewer took up Wambo Forest, with Thomas Roskelly managing (for Ewer) Wombo, located further south. Through 1848 to 1851 Ewer regularly complained to the Colonial Secretary and NMP of Aboriginal people spearing his cattle.

Bengalla, about 40 km from Goondiwindi along the Dumaresque River (which runs into the McIntyre), was taken up by William Lalor in 1852, at which time it was unstocked and undeveloped. On 5 December 1878, one of William’s sons, James, was elected to the  Legislative Assembly in the Maranoa district, holding the seat until 12 May 1888 when he chose not to stand again.

Frederick Charles Easton and Robertson took up the Billa Billa run.

 In the early 1850s, John Ferrett took up Wallan in the far northwest of the District with John Dangar, as well as the runs of Dogwood and Hookwood (both transferred to C.J. McKenzie by 1852). He also made complaints against Francis Nicoll that were instrumental in Nicoll’s dismissal from the NMP. While he never represented the Downs, Ferrett was the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Maranoa between 1860 and 1863 and for West Moreton between 1870 and 1873. In 1854, Samuel Irving accused several local squatters in the region, including Ferrett, of trying to control the NMP for their own ends: “I am sorry to say that I am beginning to get into hot water with some of the Squatters on a/c of Rations, and because I do not tolerate their arrogance and will not publicly report my proceeding to them[?] and receive instructions, directions and orders from them in fact for refusing to being their Servant. As soon as my present correspondence with Mr Ferrett is closed I will forward it to you.” (QSA86141 1854 Letter from Samuel Irving to Commandant 4 March, Native Police in Darling Downs Lower Condamine Maranoa and Wandai Gumbal 1849–1857).

Frederick Augustus Forbes became the Member for Ipswich from 1860–1863 (agitated for Separation). He began investing in stations, holding at least three runs by 1853, and by 1867 has 36 runs covering 1000 square miles in the Darling Downs, Maranoa, Warrego and South Kennedy. The Forbes brothers (sons of Chief Justice of NSW) had Clifton(which originally included part of Pilton) on the Darling Downs (originally taken up by Joseph King and Charles Sibley). Sir George Richard Gore (son of an aristocratic Irish family) had Yandilla, but after a dispute in 1848 Gore took up the Bodumba run, leaving Yandilla to his brothers William and Ralph and Robert’s mother-in-law, Margaret Baldock.

Another important player in the Darling Downs, both from an administrative sense and also in regards to mediating relationships between black and white, was Christopher Rolleston, appointed as Commissioner for Crown Lands in 1843. The son of a clergyman, he may have been expected to hold some sympathies for Aboriginal people. According to Sheilds (2019:82), though CCL were generally loath to punish acts of violence against Aboriginal people, “Rolleston attempted to befriend the local Indigenous people by distributing blankets, tomahawks and clothes, and encouraging white settlers to employ them” in the Darling Downs district. Such attempts were typically not successful though, Aboriginal people being “loath to trust Europeans, following a spate of incidents in which shepherds and stockmen had assaulted Aboriginal women” (Shields 2019:82).

Political Pepresentation

George Leslie was the first elective member of the NSW Legislative Council to represent the Darling Downs as part of the larger district of Clarence and Darling Downs, incumbent from 1843–1856. Other Members were Clark Irving (1856–1857), Arthur Hodgson (1858–1859), John Douglas (1859), William Handcock (1859–1859) and Thomas Hood (1855–1859).

Post Separation the Darling Downs was divided into Drayton and Toowoomba, Eastern Downs (Dalby, Warwick and south to the border), Western Downs and Northern Downs (Dalby and Condamine). Representatives for each of these electorates were:

  • Northern Downs: Charles Coxen (1860–1867), Henry Thorn (1867–1868 & 1873–1876)
  • Joshua Peter Bell (1868–1873 & 1878–1879), George Thorn Jnr (1879–1883) and Hugh Muir Nelson (1883–1888).
  • Western Downs: Thomas Moffatt (1860–1864), John Watts (1864–1867), Robert Ramsay (1867–1873), James Taylor (1860–1870), and Edward Wienholt (1870–1875).
  • Eastern Downs: Ratcliffe Pring (1860–1862), John McLean (1862–1866), John Douglas (1867–1868), Arthur Macalister (1868–1871), Edmond Thornton (1871–1873)
  • Drayton and Toowoomba: John Watts (1860–1862), William Groom (1862–1873)

References

Austin, C.G. and C. Lack 1967 Russell, Henry Stuart (1818–1889). Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol. 2. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University. Accessed online 10 August 2024 at https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/russell-henry-stuart-2618/text3613

Chisholm, A.H. 1969 Coxen, Henry William (1823–1915). Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol. 3. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University. Accessed online 8 August 2024 at https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/coxen-henry-william-3282

Fox, M.J. 1923 The History of Queensland (3 volumes). Brisbane: States Publishing Company.

French, M. 1993 The great ‘Darkey flat massacre’ mystery. Journal of Australian Studies 17(38):12-24.

Hall, T. 1925 The Early History of Warwick District and Pioneers of the Darling Downs. Toowoomba: Robertson and Provan.

Iltis, J. 1966 Campbell, John (Tinker) (?–1878). Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol. 3. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University. Accessed online 9 August 2024 at https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/campbell-john-tinker-1874

Leichhardt, L. 1847 Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. London: T. and W. Boone.

Leslie, G. 1841 Letter from George Leslie to William and Jane Leslie, 24 June 1841.

NSW Legislative Assembly 1857 Native Police Force. Report from the Select Committee on the Native Police Force; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee and Minutes of Evidence. Sydney: William Hanson, Government Printer.

Perry, T.M. 1966 Cunningham, Allan (1791–1839). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University. Accessed online 8 August 2024 at https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cunningham-allan-1941/text2323

Roberts, T. 2021 Plains of colour: Thomas Domville Taylor, the Darling Downs, and Aboriginal Australia. Queensland History Journal 24(11): 963–76.

Shield, M. 2019 Crown Lands Commissioners–Moreton Bay and Darling Downs, 1842–56. Queensland Review 26(1):71–85.

State Library of Queensland 2024 The ‘Shepherd Kings of the Darling Downs’: Essay. Accessed online 11 August 2024 at https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/discover/exhibitions/grass-dukes-shepherd-kings/shepherd-kings-darling-downs-essay

Turnbull, P. 2022 Thrown into the fossil gap’: Indigenous Australian ancestral bodily remains in the hands of early Darwinian anatomists, c. 1860–1916. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 92: 1-11.

Walker, J.A. 1988 Jondaryan Station: The Relationship Between Pastoral Capital and Pastoral Labour, 1840-1890. St Lucia: UQ Press.

Waterson, D.B. 1972 Hodgson, Sir Arthur (1818–1902). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University. Accessed online 8 August 2024 at https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hodgson-sir-arthur-1155/text5963

Footnotes

[1] Morris wrote Walker on several occasions in 1854 entreating him to control his intemperance and address the charges levelled against him for disorder and financial irregularities in his management of the Force (Morris 1854a, 1854b).

[2] Though Lieutenant Richard Marshall (who shortly served as Commandant after Walker was dismissed) was still listed as serving with the NMP at Callandoon in 1857 in some local newspaper accounts (e.g. Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 7 July 1857, p4), such references are in error and confuse his subsequent judicial roles as a JP and police magistrate roles at Goondiwindi with his earlier paid and voluntary NMP service.

[3] While Coote (1882:23) indicates Cunningham’s 1828 journey included “three collisions with the natives”, they supposedly “resulted in no great damage to the explorers or their assailants” and were more likely to have occurred in the Moreton district.