AUS-VIC-GIPPSLAND-L Archives

From: Linda Barraclough <>
Subject: [AVG] "GIPPS' LAND", as reported in 1842!
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 22:05:38 +1100

Hi List,

Following on from Geoffrey's earlier post to the list with the same title,
Geoffrey has sent me the file which has been converted to straight text, and
is being reposted to the list.

Thank you Geoffrey for making this available to the list. And thanks to the
Deputy for a bit of manipulation.

The following is a transcription by Geoffrey Woollard, Cambridge from a
nespaper cutting from the The Morning Post (London) of Saturday 27th August
1842, and as mentioned in Geoffrey's earlier post was from a 'scrapbook kept
by Dr. WITT up till the time he left for Australia'.

I suspect it may be by one of the Brodribbs, but do not have my copy of
"Recollections of an Australian Squatter" handy. Anyone any ideas???

Linda

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Geoffrey's comments.

There is little doubt that Dr. George Witt and, most probably, his
brother-in-law, Dr. George Dixon Hedley, would have read and re-read this
report in the (London) Morning Post of Saturday, August 27, 1842. However,
it was not until more than seven years had elapsed that Dr. Witt finally
acted upon its contents. He emigrated to Sydney, New South Wales, in 1849,
and it is evident that Dr. Hedley settled in Gippsland, at about the same
time. Both found prosperity and some degree of fame.

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The newspaper cutting.

Newspaper Cutting (The Morning Post) Saturday, August 27, 1842:

'Australia, And The Comparative Merits Of Some Of Her Provinces.

(From a Correspondent)

We have been favoured with the perusal of a letter written by a gentleman
who has lately traversed some of this now debatable ground, on the various
comparative advantages and demerits of the Sydney, Port Phillip, and Gipps'
Land districts, with a glance at Moreton Bay; and as information, unbiased,
disinterested, and useful on the subject of the Australian colonies is
unfortunately as rare as the converse has been but too overwhelmingly
abundant, we think that we cannot do better than place the following extract
before such of our readers as may find an interest in these modern
leviathans of the antipodes: -

Sydney, March 30, 1842.

The Sydney district, or New South Wales proper, comprises, as is generally
known, but nineteen counties. Viewing it as a grain growing country, I may
safely aver, that, with the exception of Illawarra, and the alluvial soils
of the Hunter and Hawkesbury rivers, there is little land where grain can be
raised with any certainty except that of loss. Owing to the warmth of the
Sydney climate, wheat raised there is coarse, thick-skinned, and deficient
both in quality and quantity; and when the rate of wages is considered, the
great outlay to clear land so heavily timbered, and the frequent and
withering droughts, the produce per acre is far too insignificant to cover
these heavy outgoings. Whether these natural drawbacks are in themselves
sufficient to smamp the energies and exertions of a numerous body of
colonists I will not take upon me to determine; but it can no longer be
disputed that the Hunter's River settlers are now in a state of insolvency
and ruin.

So much for the condition of the agricultural interest in the most favoured
localities of New South Wales. Shall we find, and I beg you mark the term,
the land owning grazier in a better position? Certainly not; he has become a
large purchaser of tracts, which, owing the arid character of the climate,
rather than to any inherent badness of the soil, are absolutely unfitted for
any but pastoral purposes, and this, at an average cost of from twelve to
fifteen shillings per acre. Now, when it is borne in mind that three acres
of such land are required to feed one sheep throughout the year, it seems
tolerably and self-evident, that, at the usual rate of colonial interest
(ten per cent), this unfortunate landowner and flock master is paying,
besides the shepherd's wages and rations, six shillings a-year for what? The
maintenance, the simple "ingesta" of each sheep, from who back he gets a
return, perhaps, three shillings' worth of wool - the thing is monstrous,
but the vanity of being considered a landed proprietor, coupled with the
want of forethought so conspicuous in this class of men, daily proves the
ruin of many, added to which the purchases are mostly effected on the
fearful system of credit.

Last, not least, in the catalogue of these Sydney incurables, we come to the
squatters, or occupiers of Crown land lying beyond the limits of the
nineteen counties. The wise officials at home, struck no doubt by the
quaintness of the name, and ingeniously profiting from their gleanings from
the pages of a Yankee novelist, have compared these gentlemen in a recent
most luminous despatch, to the backwoodsmen of America, styling them
"Pioneers of civilisation," and "these people," as if they were a set of
half savages and woodcutters, whilst, in reality, they are both by birth and
education the real aristocracy of the colony. The only fault of "these
people" is, that they spend too much of their time in Sydney, dine too often
at the club or the mess, ride too many races and steeplechases, drive tandem
too much, drink too much champagne, and consequently neglect their more
important affairs. However, "revenons a nos mondons," a phrase, by-the-bye,
peculiarly apropos in this sheepish country, which might be advantageously
stuck up over every chimney-piece in Sydney - it might strike the conscience
of those who ought to feel that their time should be differently occupied.
Our squatter, then, or settler, as he is here indifferently styled - the
latter term I presume to have been waggishly given him by his Sydney agent,
with whom he makes it a rule to settle as seldom as possible - pays, besides
some trifling headmoney, 10 l. per annum to her Majesty for permission to
range over an extent of country which was originally limited only by the
requirements of his flocks and herds. This squatter is, or rather might have
been, the prosperous man, so long as wool maintained a fair price; the
distance of the port where he was compelled to carry it for shipment, and
from whence he had to draw his supplies, was comparatively nothing. So long
as he could find purchasers for the surplus produce of his stock at a high
price, the enormous wages that he paid to his men was of no importance. He
had then, moreover, plenty of convict labour at almost a nominal cost. This
state of prosperity is now to be numbered with the things that have been.
Champagne corks have ceased to fly - wool has fallen in price - real
capitalists have become alarmed, and buttoned up their pockets - bankers
will no longer discount - the man of straw, the fictitious capitalist, to
whom these vile bankers had been looking only for their own immediate and
enormous profits on discounts, utterly reckless of the ultimate consequences
to the colony, and whom they had most wickedly bolstered up and encouraged
by every means in their power - this man can no longer make his wild
purchases and speculations, and his alarm and exaggerated fears deter the
newly-arrived capitalist from affecting those cheap and really favourable
purchases now to be so advantageously made. Wheel is thus locked between
wheel, and no one can tell where the "Schmeere Gelt" is to come from that
will set them all in motion again.

This is certainly a most deplorable state of affairs; but with respect to
the younger Australian colonies, I think the evil is only temporary; they
have youth and stamina on their side, and when once the present difficulties
are surmounted, it is only fair to expect that will experience the same
current of prosperity as has characterised the older settlements.

With the Sydney district the case is different, there exist two fatal bars
to her future prosperity; one, the abolition of the assignment system,
which, while it lasted, was equivalent to an annual bounty or gift of
600,000 l. in the shape of labour, thus enabling the inferior soil and arid
atmosphere of New South Wales to compete successfully with the richer lands
and moister climate of Van Dieman's Land and Port Phillip; the other, and
the still more fatal, because irremediable, drawback is the fact, that
nearly all the available land of this part of the colony is now taken up and
fully occupied, indeed overstocked, and there are no longer any fresh
stations or grazing grounds which can, as it is here termed, be "given in"
by the would-be disposer of his surplus produce, and without which such
produce is generally quite unsaleable.

So much for New South Wales. Let us next consider that part of Australia
Felix of which Port Phillip may be considered the nucleus. This district has
become pretty extensively known, and is beginning now to as justly
appreciated as it was once overrated; and when we compare its luxuriant,
lightly-timbered, and park-like scenery with the dense monotonous and
worthless forest, the product of the sandy regions around Sydney desolate
and even appalling. In its silence and sterility, we can scarcely wonder
that at first it should, by comparison, have been so over estimated. When
Australia Felix was at length thrown open to the accumulating flocks and
herds of the elder colonist, it proved to him for a time an "El Dorada."
Capitalists from England poured in and bought largely the woolly treasures,
thus realizing the ancient fable of the golden fleece, their fortunate
owners becoming all at once immensely rich.

As a pastoral country this district of Port Phillip can scarcely be
excelled; but as an agricultural and grain growing province, it was soon
found that though immeasurably superior to her elder sister, Port Phillip
had still to contend with two serious evils, which experienced colonists are
alone capable of fully appreciating.

These are, first, the extreme prevalence of the hot winds occurring about
the time the wheat is in blossom, and but too frequently in a day blasting
the hopes, the labour, and the expectations of many months - a serious
liability - which the newly arrived immigrant scarcely deigns to consider;
and, secondly, the physical impossibility that a country so wanting in that
first necessity of life, fresh water, can ever become densely populated, or
eve extensively cultivated. The great deficiency or running, or even
stagnant fresh water, is a peculiar and striking characteristic of the Port
Phillip district, and is a fact very much overlooked or misapprehended at
home. Indeed, few people, once fairly committed to a locality, are willing
to make known its disadvantages; and thus has this very important deficiency
been stifled and concealed. Could fresh water be procured, even at the
expense of sinking wells, the objection would be in some degree removed;
but, as far as experience goes, water, even when obtained, which is rare,
unfortunately is not simply brackish, but as fairly salt as the briny ocean,
and frequently holding alum in solution. These, then are the fatal
objections which, however carefully concealed for a time, must eventually
come to light, and put a check to that marvellous prosperity which has
hitherto so strikingly existed at Port Phillip.

Moreton Bay I have not visited; but from frequent intercourse with many
settlers in that locality, I should say, compared with the old districts, it
appears to offer some inducements at least to those who can bear an all but
tropical sun, 110 degrees in the shade being the average summer heat. There
is rich land near the Bay fitted for the culture of tropical productions,
such as sugar can, yams, bananas, &c.; probably coffee, cotton, and other
valuable plants might be there raised to perfection, if the settlers had but
the one thing needful - cheap labour. There is coal and limestone near the
coast. Sheep do well on the elevated table land of the interior, where the
heat is not so oppressive; but the extent of available grazing land, owing
to the want of water, is extremely limited.

We now arrive at the last, and by far the most important district, which has
yet been discovered in New Holland - I mean Gipps' Land. The only
unfortunate thing about it is its name. This noble territory extends from
Cape Howe to Corner Inlet, and runs back nearly 100 miles to the Australian
Alps. The soil is for the most part a chocolate loam, of an alluvial
character, entirely free from even the smallest stones, gently undulating,
lightly timbered, fertile to excess, yet sound enough for sheep. It is
watered by many large and deep rivers, with numerous smaller streams, which,
having their sources in the lofty Alps, and being fed by the never failing
moisture of dissolving snows, are not, as is the too often the case in other
parts of Australia, mere beds of shingle, showing the occasional rush of
devastating torrents. In the possession of this very important feature, a
central spine, or back-bone, of stupendous elevation, Gipps' Land, it will
be observed, differs most essentially and remarkably from every other known
portion of New Holland, where, in general, nature seems to have stopped
prematurely short in the laborious process of up-heaval, and where the want
of ranges of sufficient elevation to precipitate moisture, has cursed the
country with eternal barrenness.

Count Streleskey's observations make the altitude of Gipps' Land chain vary
between eight and ten thousand feet, snow lying on the summits during
summer, while in no other part of this vast continent is there any known
mountain range of one-half the height. These mountains are also, from their
great elevations, quite near enough the coast to precipitate the moisture
from the ocean, yet sufficiently removed to attract and draw its vapours
over an extensive line of fruitful country. There is yet another, and by no
means the least advantage, which the noble mountain crescent gives to the
fair and wide-spread plains, that lie, as it were, sheltered in its majestic
bosom and half encircled in its stupendous arms, it guards them thoroughly
and effectually from the withering hot winds that, sweeping from the vast
interior wilds, is as baneful as the simoon of the Arabian desert.

The numerous fine rivers from the mountains, after crossing through, and of
course well watering, the extensive alluvial plains before alluded to, empty
themselves into a noble fresh water lake, about thirty miles long by about
ten miles wide. This fine expanse of water, with its many tributary streams,
some of them navigable for miles, is fortunately in the centre of the most
valuable land, and will be a means of conveying produce to within fifteen or
twenty miles of Port Albert, or as it is more often, but erroneously,
called, Corner Inlet, which harbour, though inferior to that of Sydney or
Hobart Town, is second to none other in this part of Australia, Port Phillip
not excepted. Taking into consideration all three elements of future
greatness and prosperity, and speaking in a spirit of the strictest and most
sober truth, I can safely affirm that there has not yet been discovered any
portion of Australia so calculated to ensure a certain and large profit to
the industrious agriculturist of moderate capital as Gipps' Land, and one,
at the same time, so congenial in climate and so peculiarly suited to habits
and feelings of Englishmen.

The plains, by which I mean land naturally clear of timber, are numerous,
yet not too extensive, well sheltered by the many river belts of noble
trees, said by those who are judges of colonial timber, to be of the most
valuable description for splitting and sawing, and to use the words of an
old settler, who has seen all parts of the colony, "there are tens of
thousands of acres in which a ploughshare might be driven for miles through
the finest vegetable mould the world ever saw, without the possibility of
striking against a stick or a stone." Such is Gipps' Land, and what a
country to have lain so long undiscovered, and unproductive to man! This
tardy discovery is the more extraordinary, when we consider its central
position, between the ports of Sydney, Hobart Town, Launceston, and Port
Phillip; and it certainly does not add much to the credit of the late Home
Government, that the interior of this valuable province should have been
first explored by a wandering foreigner, and its harbour discovered and made
available by the enterprise, and at the expense of a few stirring Port
Phillipians, (who, by the bye, as a reward and as an incentive to future
exertion) have since been ousted from the land they honestly bought and paid
for in the neighbourhood of Port Albert.

In a week or two I am off by sea to Port Albert with supplies, to meet the
overland expedition, which I some time ago dispatched with seven thousand
sheep, and when I get settled in this Land of Canaan I will write again.'

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• [AVG] "GIPPS' LAND", as reported in 1842! by Linda Barraclough <>