Figures in the Landscape: The Experience of the Least Visible Workers on a New England Pastoral Station, 1850-1900

Rodwell, Margaret

doi:https://doi.org/10.5263/labourhistory.103.0017

Rodwell, Margaret

Labour History (2012), 103, (1), 17–38.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5263/labourhistory.103.0017
Language: English
Pages: 22

Abstract

Until recent decades, the contribution made by women and children, Chinese males and Indigenous people to the development of rural Australia in the colonial period remained largely unacknowledged. This study contributes to the redress by examining the experiences of members of this hitherto ‘hidden’ workforce who lived and worked on Ollera Station, near Guyra in northern NSW, between 1850 and 1900. Careful analysis of the wages paid to their male ‘breadwinners’ reveals the operation of a flourishing ‘family economy’ system on the station, which permitted the wives and children of European shepherds and labourers to make an important financial contribution to their families’ living standards. Though more fragmentary, the wage records of Chinese and Indigenous employees offer additional evidence, particularly regarding the length, duration and nature of the work undertaken by these workers. This evidence, when combined with the wealth of material contained in the almost complete run of station diaries between 1862 and the 1890s, provides valuable insights into the lives of both ‘masters’ and ‘men’ on the still isolated run. In doing so, it confirms the active and very positive contribution these ‘hidden’ workers made to the station’s economic success.

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Endnotes

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38.‘Took young Short out to Muddle’s lambing place’, 3Oct1880, DJM, OSR, UNERA, A103: V3054/5;‘To Goodwin’s [lambing place] and took young Ramage out there with me’, 24August1884, DJM, OSR, UNERA, A103: V3054/9. Google Scholar

41.Rodwell, Ollera and its People, pp.232-33. Google Scholar

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46.Ibid., A103:V3051/43;V3052/46; V3054/5. Google Scholar

47.Ibid., A103:V3053/46; Diary of Edgar Huntley of Stockbridge, Ollera, 1881, A103b:V5628. Google Scholar

48.Ibid., A103:V3052/43. Google Scholar

49.Ibid., A103:V3054/3; V3052/47; V3054/8. Google Scholar

50.Ibid., A103:V 3054/8. Google Scholar

51.Ibid., A103: V3054/3. Google Scholar

52.Mrs Janet Ryder Avery toMr Tom Everett, 12August, 1946, OSR, UNERA, A103, accession no. pending. Google Scholar

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