FIRST CENTURY OF DAIRYING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Now, if we accept Mr. Archie McGill's statement and there can- 

 not be any reason assigned for doubtinar it i:i any particular there 

 is strong evidence that the two-year-old bull and the cow mentioned 

 in the show reoort of 1860 were no other than Scotch Jock and 

 Queen I. If these were not the identical animals which matters 

 little, as they were in the family they were undoubtedly very near 

 relations of the two animals in question. Further, it goes to >ho\\- 

 that from the herds of Messrs. Henry Osborne, J. Terry Hughes. 

 David Johnston, T. S. Lomax. and W. W. Jenkins, through the pur- 

 chases from Mr. Beatson and Mr. Hockey, Mr. Andrew McGill es- 

 tablished his celebrated dairy herd. 



There is a ;:ame which lias figured largely in the early history ot 

 Illawarra and its development namely, the Brown family. But in 

 writing of the Browns o.t Dapto one might get very easily confuted. 

 In order to explain matters we will take Mr. William Browne, mer- 

 chant, of No. 2 Spring-street, Sydney, who owned the Yallah Estate. 

 He was at one time in his career a great racing man, and kept a 

 stud of blood horses at Yallah, including a few specimens of the 

 Arabian breed. Somewhere in the late thirties he became associated 

 in business with the Imlays, of Bega. Then we have Messrs. George 

 Brown, sen., and his son, John Brown, of Dapto proper, and a Wil- 

 liam Brown, a shipwright, who erected the wind-power flour mills in 

 South Dapto. In the early thirties and forties, therefore, we have 

 the family of Brown, which include the subjects of this review that 

 is, Messrs. George (-father) and John (his son), who had carried on 

 the joint businesses of flour milling, dairying, and hotel keeping suc- 

 cessfully for a number of years. Having migrated from the Liverpool 

 district down the ranges (whence a very large percentage of the 

 early Ilhwarra settlers came) in 1829, they experienced all the ad- 

 vantages together with the disadvantages of the pioneering days. 



Without going into further details, Mr. George Brown in the early 

 forties purchased two cattle stations on Waterloo Plains, Monaro, 

 from Mr. John Hoskins (who was the first Mayor o.f Sydney). These 

 stations were named Kydra and Glenbog. He commenced cattle 

 raising, and a few years later purchased ten young bulls from Mr. 

 Lomax, of the Durham and Red Lincoln breeds, and sent five each 

 to his Monaro stations. Mr. George Brown died in 1851, and his 

 son, Mr. John Brown, of Dapto. commenced selling drafts of heifers 

 in Dapto. A Mr. Collie was the auctioneer. Mr. Brown thus dis- 

 posed of 550 head of cattle in a very short space of time to the dairy- 

 men of the South Coast. Born at Liverpool, New South Wales, in 

 1827, he arrived with his parents at Wollongong in 1829, and has 

 remained in the district ever since. Though not a dairyman in the 

 sense, he has always been associated with dairy cattle. 



After perusing what Mr. Archie McGill, of Greenmount, Albion 

 Park, and Mr. John Brown, of Dapto (both of whose statements are 

 worthy of the highest respect), have had to say on the influence of 

 Messrs. Osborne, Terry Hughes, and Lomax's imported cattle on 

 the early herds of Illawarra, it is well, however, mat we should 

 carefully study what Mr. John Russell, of Croome (of whom it may 

 with all truth be said there is no better authority), has to say of the 

 foundation of Mr. Duncan Beatson's herd, and a host of other herds 

 located between the mountain ranges, the Illawarra Lake, and the 

 Shoalhaven River, which comprised the greatest proportion of the 

 Illawarra district at the time, and since Mr. Russell's arrival in the 

 district, to wit, 1840. 



Prior to Mr. Russell's arrival in Illawarra and location on the 

 Terry Hughes' estate (n-.w Albion Park). Mr. John Terry Hughes 

 had a herd of cattle, principally composed of Durhams and Lon.cr- 

 hornS) which were kept for stud purposes, as lias been stated else- 

 where, at Shancomore. near Bringelly. in the county of Cumberland. 



56. 



