The raising of sheep for wool, and to a lesser extent for mutton, was Australia’s most important industry during the 20th century
Reproduced from Australian Encyclopaedia, circa 1950
In 1954-5 the value of wool and sheepskins exported from Australia was £369,000,000, representing between 49 and 50 per cent of the country’s total exports (excluding bullion and specie).
At that time the number of sheep in the world was estimated to be 887,000,000; Australia had approximately 131,000,000 sheep, representing about 15 per cent of the total, but her production of wool was about 28 per cent of the world total.
The First Years
The only sheep to reach New South Wales with the First Fleet in January 1788 were those acquired at the Cape of Good Hope. They were all of the Cape breed, bearing hair rather than wool. By 1st May 1788 all that remained of them were a ram and 28 others.
H.M.S. Gorgon landed a small shipment of sheep in September 1791, and these saved the species from extinction, there being by this time no ram remaining in the settlement. The return of public livestock in November 1791 recorded one ram, 50 ewes, and six lambs.
Upon leaving the colony towards the end of 1792 Governor Phillip distributed the sheep at his disposal among the small settlers, most of whom killed them for mutton or sold them. The principal purchaser was Lieutenant Foveaox, who began to breed a flock which grew to more than 1000 before he sold it, in 1801, to John Macarthur. Apart from Foveaox and Macarthur, the only other settler who appears to have devoted special attention to sheep at that period was Edward Elliott, of the Ponds, near Parramatta, who was given by Phillip the one surviving ewe—the Sirius ewe—from the First Fleet importation. From the source of this animal Elliott bred, within six years, a flock of more than a hundred sheep. It seems probable, therefore, that First Fleet blood was infused into Australian sheep.
On 1st July 1794 the livestock census showed 49 rams and wethers and 59 ewes in the possession of the Government and 161 rams and wethers and 257 ewes in the hands of private individuals. Except for odd ration sheep left behind by ships the whole of the colony’s flocks were of the hairy Cape and Bengal breeds. The inhabitants generally gave little attention to sheep, being more concerned with meat than with wool. Their especial attention was devoted to goats, which produced both milk and flesh.
Merinos Arrive - by chance
In 1796 Governor Hunter dispatched Captain Waterhouse, RN., in the Reliance and Lieutenant Kent, R.N., in the Supply to the Cape of Good Hope to buy cattle. There Captain Philip Gidley King, on his way home to England, persuaded them to purchase 26 sheep of Spanish Merino blood, in equal lots, from the widow of Colonel Gordon, the Dutch Commandant, who had recently died. They were large-bodied sheep imported from the Netherlands, and probably Silesian Merinos. On the return journey Kent lost his 13 sheep, but Waterhouse landed in 1797 with —on his recollection of some years later—”more than half”. These were taken to his farm at the Vineyard on the Parramatta River, after Governor Hunter had refused to purchase them. John Macarthur offered to purchase the whole shipment for 15 guineas a head but his offer was refused, and in the ensuing period Waterhouse supplied various persons— Macarthur, William Cox, Captain Rowley (who for some time supervised the Waterhouse lock), the Rev. Samuel Marsden, and others—with Merinos.
In September 1800, Macarthur, who contemplated leaving the country, offered the Government his flocks of 600 head including “several Spanish and the most of the lock of that breed”, for £2 10s. per head. There were at this stage a few Southdown, Teeswater and Irish sheep in the country.
Seeding a Wool Industry
It was a selection of fleeces sent by Governor King, an ardent advocate of development in the wool trade, to further this sale which attracted the attention of British woollen manufacturers and led to their approaching Macarthur on his arrival in England at the end of 1802 and to the institution of a public inquiry by the Committee 0f the Privy Council on Trade and Plantations.
This committee made a favourable report on the prospects of wool-growing in New South Wales, with the consequence that Macarthur and Walter Davidson, who accompanied him on the return trip to Australia as a partner, were granted between them 7000 acres of land in the Cowpastures (q.v.). Macarthur was allowed to take out with him in the Argo, which reached Sydney in June 1805, some stud animals from the Royal Merino stud at Kew. He was accompanied by Edward Wood, an expert in sheep and wool, who examined a number of flocks and endorsed the views of the Privy Council committee as to prospects for sheepbreeding in New South Wales.
During the period 1805-13 the sheep industry made considerable progress in the number of animals and some improvement in the quality of the wool. Progress in the latter aspect was retarded to some extent by local breeders, among whom was Marsden, who believed that the future of the industry Jay in the growing of dual-purpose sheep, that is sheep producing a coarse fleece and a large carcass of good mutton.
Beginnings of Expansion
By 1813, when there were about 65,000 sheep in New South Wales and 19,000 in Tasmania (Van Diemen’s Land), several small shipments of wool had been sent to England. From then on such shipments increased, while Macarthur (in exile in England) studied the demands of the market, and his representatives and an increasing number of other producers, in Australia, developed flocks based on Spanish Merinos.
The crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 and the unlocking of the slopes and the plains to the west opened a new chapter in the sheep industry. By 1819 flocks totaling about 11,000 had crossed the mountains and the suitability of the inland pastures and climates was being proved.
Notable among the pastoralists in this movement were William Cox and William Lawson. The coastal areas were subject to serious disabilities for sheep-raising, and the incidence of scab and footrot was disastrously high.
The success of inland sheep breeding in the 1820s in fact saved the industry from an early death in New South Wales.
