Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows journalist Bill Peach interviewing Barney Murray, the owner of a historical shearing shed on Dunlop Station in New South Wales. Murray describes the heyday of the sheep-grazing district and estimates that in the 1880s some 360,000 sheep were shorn in the shed each year. The clip includes footage of the shearing shed, where the interview takes place, sheep yards, old sheds and rusted farming machines, as well as the site of a wharf. A black-and-white photograph shows a barge laden with bales of wool to be transported downstream.

Educational value points

• Settlement of the inland regions of south-western Queensland, western NSW, northern Victoria and the Murray Valley in South Australia was fostered by the development of the Darling and Murray rivers as a transport route in the 1860s. In the second half of the 19th century paddle-steamers and barges transported wool, passengers and other cargo down the river to ports in SA and Vic, where they were then transferred via rail to Adelaide and Melbourne.

• Paddle-steamers plied the Murray from 1853 and proved the cheapest form of transport for many years, replacing the slow and more expensive bullock- and horse-drawn wagons. After floods they were frequently stranded far from the river’s course when the waters subsided, and during drought they could become stranded as the river dried to a series of waterholes. The extension of the railway inland and the building of good roads put an end to the era of river boats, the last commercial paddle-steamer ceasing operation in 1931.

• By the 1890s about 40,000 bales of wool were shipped down the Darling River each year, and approximately 100 paddle-steamers and barges worked the river. The boats also carried grain and other produce and returned with household and farming supplies for the inland settlers. Paddle-steamers converted into floating general stores travelled the river selling goods such as flour, tea, beer, sugar, dried fruit, cheese, tobacco, stoves, drapery, boots, sewing machines, wire, galvanised iron, kerosene, candles and saddlery. Passenger boats also worked the river.

• Dunlop, a station on the Darling River near Louth, ran approximately 184,000 sheep. The station produced so much wool that it had its own wharf where paddle-steamers loaded up bales of wool to transport down the river. In 1888 the shearing shed at Dunlop was the first large shed to introduce mechanical shearing when 40 shearing machines invented by Frederick Worsley were installed. The machines increased the speed at which a sheep could be shorn, but initially met with some resistance from shearers, who preferred hand clippers.

• The Australian wool industry began in 1797 with the introduction of merino sheep to the NSW colony and within 50 years wool was Australia’s main export. For the next 100 years wool exports were central to Australia’s economic prosperity, leading to the expression that the country 'rode on the sheep’s back’. While Australia is still the world’s largest producer of wool, the industry has been affected by drought, low prices and competition from synthetic fibres. Sheep numbers fell from 170 million in 1990 to 106 million in 2003. In 2003 wool accounted for 2.4 per cent of Australia’s exports.

• By the 1890s western NSW included some of the largest sheep stations in the world, although the 1890s economic depression resulted in bank foreclosures and pastoral companies such as Dalgety and Co taking over the ownership and running of properties. During this decade the number of owner–farmers fell from 2,689 to 719.

• To increase the amount of cargo they could carry the paddle-steamers usually towed a barge such as the one shown in the clip. The barge would be towed either behind or alongside the boat. A badly stacked or overladen barge could easily capsize so they had to be carefully loaded with the cargo no higher than two-thirds of the width of the barge. Wool bales were stacked in a pyramid with a single row of bales at the top. Each layer of bales was secured with wire cables in case the barge hit a sandbank or snag in the river.

• The clip is taken from Peach’s Australia, an Australian Broadcasting Commission series of half-hour programs that aired between 1975 and 1976. In the series television personality Bill Peach sought out 'little known facets of the country’s history and their relation to present-day conditions in the particular areas’ (www.abc.net.au).