Land settlement in Victoria

From WikiShepp: Documenting the History of the Goulburn Valley

Main Page | Recent changes | View source | Page history | Log in / create account |

Printable version | Disclaimers | Privacy policy

In 1835 European settlement came into being in the Port Phillip district. It had the same laws as those for New South Wales. With the Separation Act in 1851, Victoria became a separate State in its own right with Charles Joseph La Trobe as the first Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, and the first Legislative Council meeting was held in St Patrick’s Hall, Bourke St. West.[1]

By the 1830s and 1840s in Victoria, all land suitable for grazing had been turned into sheep runs by squatters, a term given to those who leased Crown Land. From 1846 squatters were able to take out licenses renewable at yearly intervals but the question of ownership remained unresolved. By the late 1840s, they engaged in a campaign to obtain a greater security of tenure.

In 1855 a Land Act was enacted whereby a squatter could lease a portion of land for up to 14 years. A farm or a ‘run’ as it was called, was surveyed before a squatting permit was issued, and a farmer could buy one square mile of his farm for one pound per acre.[2] Squatters had to make improvements to the land and also had the option of buying the land at the end of the lease.

Squatting was a rich man’s game that required significant capital and involved risks that those without capital could not afford. Most ordinary men were excluded, a fact most immigrants did not fully understand when they arrived.[3] Upon arrival they found land in the hands of wealthy squatters. So, instead of buying land, they were resigned to hiring themselves out for labour, similar to their fate back in England.[4] The Irish and English immigrants, fearing that they would be locked out of land ownership, as was their case back in Britain, formed Land Leagues and agitated for land reform that would open up the squatters’ runs for selection. An alliance of middle-class storekeepers, labourers and ex-gold diggers comprised these land leagues agitating for a say in land purchase, ‘the creation of a yeomanry’ in the countryside.[5] This dream in many guises was to dominate Australian political life until the late 1960s as selection, closer settlement and soldier settlement.[6]

Up until 1860, the Upper House representing the interests of the squatters defeated bills that went before the Lower House. But after a series of meetings that culminated in the Land Convention and a riot on the steps of the Victorian Parliament House the deadlock was broken and a compromise bill was passed, the Nicholson Land Act of 1860. This act enabled land to be bought at either auction, or selection, after the land was surveyed. A limit was put on the number of acres bought in order to prevent people buying large areas of land, as had previously been the case where the best lands had been taken by large landholders. Selecting these best pieces of land was called ‘peacocking’.[7]

The first land opened up was in the western district and was made available for one pound an acre. The western district was the State’s richest grazing land with a high rainfall. Wealthy squatters managed to find a loophole and buy up the land by paying local townspeople to select land that they then transferred to the squatter for a payment. The Government introduced a series of bills to overcome the anomalies exploited by the squatters and the first effective Selection Act was passed in 1868. This allowed 320 acres (130 hectares) selections with stringent residential and development provisions, but less stringent purchase conditions in that the Bill opened up selection to those of little financial means. This ultimately was a main factor in the failure of many farms. Since the best land in the state was in the hands of rich squatters, other areas in the state were looked at.[8]

Selectors

These Selection Acts were designed to create prosperous, stable and productive rural communities. However, it was a precarious existence. A selector’s chance of survival depended upon many factors, such as adequate capital, quality of the land, adequate water, and support of family members who could help farm or work for wages to help capitalise the land. Successful farmers bought out their smaller neighbours and families bought land near each other in order to consolidate holdings. A class of ‘boss cockies’ emerged. Isaac Braund, for example, owned 120 acres at Lancefield in 1861. Nine years later he sold the land and used the capital to select 200 acres at Echuca.[9] The Selection Acts enabled vast tracts of land to be opened for farming in areas such as the Goulburn Valley, Wimmera, Mallee, North East, Gippsland and the Western District.

As Bossence notes,

The 1857 Census gives the number of squatters and selectors as twenty and overseers, stockmen, shepherds, and labourers as one hundred and sixty in the Broken River and Lower Goulburn Squatting District. There were twenty three wives, or widows, sixty-eight children, relatives or visitors, and numerous cattle dealers, bullock drivers, wood splitters, fencemen, bushmen, grubbers, and other individuals.[10]

The Land Act of 1869 saw large areas of virgin land transformed into settled farmlands by hundreds of selectors. Small townships and villages sprang into existence from previous collections of shanty huts.

Again Bossence:

The district most favoured by the selectors of this period was the lower valley of the Goulburn, extending from Seymour down to the Murray, embracing a large part of the counties of Dalhousie, Moira, Rodney and Bendigo. The country as a rule was lightly timbered and though it had not been regarded as first class land for grazing it proved, when cleared, to be wonderfully suitable for wheat, and in some places for most prolific orchards and vineyards.[11]

The first selectors followed the bush tracks that were laid down by the squatters before them. The following is a description written 15 years later of a first settlement, ‘The creek presented the appearance of a selectors camping ground on the road to a new land rush. About twenty large farm wagons, twice as many horses and the ploughman and their friends and attendants ‘squatted’ in a bend in a stream. Early evening everyone was busy looking after animals, cooking tucker, or making ploughs ready for the struggle on the morrow.’[12]

A selector could acquire a maximum of 320 acres of land and apply for a licence to occupy the land. A survey of the land was conducted and if the licence was granted it was subject to a condition that ‘compensation be allowed in the event of part of the land being required for railways or mining purposes.’[13] A selector had to occupy his marked out land and boundaries for his own use within six months of the issued licence. After three years of land occupation at an annual rent of two shillings per acre, of which one shilling was payable in advance, he could obtain a Crown grant for an extra 14 shillings per acre. ‘This was for a period of seven years at a rental of two shillings per acre.[14]

The life of a selector was hard. They lived in tents, or made bark huts, and over time built more substantial dwellings. Chock and log dwellings were erected, roofing was with thatched bull rushes. Large trees were ring-barked, the better trees being used for chock and logged fences, sheds and houses. Wheat was planted on cleared land. The railway from Numurkah to Shepparton was completed in 1879, which enabled easy and safe transport of wheat. By this stage farms were established at Numurkah, Nathalia, Picola, Tocumwal, Shepparton and Yarrawonga. Kangaroo was eaten and fried with bacon to compensate for the lack of fat on the animal. Tensions arose between the settlers and squatters in these early years since the squatters regarded the lands as their own. They still grazed their sheep on open unfenced lands and their stock got into the selectors’ lands if fences were not secure. Squatters’ huts were a collection of tents made from flattened kerosene tins and packing cases and bark.’[15] Squatting and run leases were finally abolished by the Land Act 1884. With this act the State took over ownership of water, whereas previously people ‘owned’ the water that flowed in rivers or creeks through or near their properties.

Water and irrigation

Tatura in the Shire of Rodney saw the arrival of many selectors in the 1870s. As Bossence states, ‘the transformation of the valley into a populous district of farms and villages was accomplished in a very short space of time.’[16] As with all the runs, the selectors viewed their environment through their British lens. The terrain, topography and climate were unfamiliar to their experience, but they could only apply their British farming know-how to this new environment, which for many who had runs in dry, poor soiled areas proved a disaster. Around Echuca only half stayed long enough to get their leases.[17] Some resorted to explosives to clear land as was the case of a prospective orchardist who used explosives to loosen the hard subsoil that formed a barrier to the root growth of fruit trees. This left a layer of heavy surface clay that disrupted water drainage.[18] The population and economic growth of rural areas was rapid and overall many selectors experienced success at farming especially since those early years saw wet years, but this would not last.

The Goulburn Valley was settled in the early 1870s. The early 1870s saw high rainfall, but the latter part of the decade saw continuous drought.[19] The selectors had no prior experience with this climate and were unprepared. The 230 acre limit was too small for the drier northern plains to be adequately farmed and was no buffer for drought. Some got out while others amalgamated properties. The pressure to irrigate became more important if farms were to survive. Selectors viewed their farms as investments and farming itself as a payable concern that could reap financial benefits to their families, particularly in the export markets. However, water for stock, people and farms was the overarching concern and was vital if farms and people were to survive.

A Scotsman, Benjamin Dodds, a hydraulic engineer, presented to the Government a scheme to turn the waters of the Goulburn River westwards in a series of canals to irrigate vast areas of the northern plains.[20] ‘He founded the grandiosely titled Grand Victorian North West Canal, Irrigation Traffic and Motive Power Company Ltd. His plan was to construct a canal from Murchison to run westward for 200 miles to the Wimmera, before turning south and reaching the sea near Portland.’[21] His plan was to irrigate 15 million acres of country in summer, drain it during winter, and transport produce to the coast.[22] The Victorian government rejected the scheme.

Hugh McColl, who had been to California and was inspired by their irrigation projects won support from farmers in the Goulburn Valley who were battling drought. They joined forces and formed the Central Irrigation League to lobby government. The Government bowed to pressure and appointed engineer George Gordon and surveyor Alexander Black, as a Water Conservancy Board to inquire.[23] The Board rejected Government involvement in irrigation as uneconomic, as unlike California that had snowfields to feed the catchments, the Goulburn Valley did not, and the cost of building a network was immense.

‘In 1884 Gordon and Black produced an irrigation report in which they supported a ‘modest’ irrigation scheme to supply water to the Waranga and Rodney area.’[24] They also proposed a timber weir 40 feet high on the Goulburn River.[25] The proposals did not gain the farmers’ support so they lobbied politician Alfred Deakin[26] who had visited California and was converted to the irrigation cause. Deakin chaired the Royal Commission on Water Supply in 1881, and concluded, ‘if Victoria was to utilise her abundant natural advantages, bring her productiveness to the highest point, and secure to the agricultural population of her and districts a permanent prosperity, it must be by means of irrigation.’[27] ‘From 1883 to 1885 legislation was passed to set up 23 water trusts empowered to carry out local works with government aid.’[28] The Irrigation Act 1886 permitted local irrigation trusts to ‘borrow funds from the government to finance their works while the government built major storages to be used by more than one trust. Each trust set its own water rates to cover the interest owing on loans as well as the operating costs.’[29] In another important component of the Act, the Government nationalised water.

Trusts quickly formed (26 in less than a decade), the government then began work on the Goulburn Weir in 1886 and, in 1891 it delivered water. As Barr and Cary state, ‘the rush to irrigate rivalled the frenzy of the land speculators.’[30] From 1882 to 1892, Shepparton, Numurkah, Yarrawonga, Tungamah all set up water trusts. Each district trust was only concerned with water specific to its area, and often in opposition to each other as well as the State Government. For instance, the Shepparton Shire Waterworks Trust set up in 1882 faced constant disagreements with the Government’s location of the Pine Lodge Weir scheme built in 1883. When the scheme collapsed there were ‘thirteen years of enquiries, reports, and arguments.’[31] Another weir was built at Gowangardie in 1897, the site originally sought by the Shepparton Shire. Numurkah eventually solved its water issue by negotiating with the Yarrawonga Water Trust, and accepted a tender to build a weir at Dunbulbalane.[32]

The trusts faced numerous problems, such as evaporation and water seepage. The channels were poorly maintained and filled with silt they overflowed.[33] The Echuca and Waranga Trust levied a water rate in 1890 but selectors who had not been supplied with water refused to pay, an opinion upheld by the courts. During the wet seasons from 1887 to 1892 many farmers did not want water and so did not make a contribution.[34] Trusts debts mounted, arrangements were not evenly shared, and the trusts were in debt. The Rodney Shire borrowed over a third of a million pounds and farmers could not afford to service this debt.[35]

The Water Act 1905 abolished the water trusts, which numbered 90 by this time. The State Rivers and Water Supply Commission, a centrally controlled body under the chairmanship of American Elwood Mead, an irrigation expert was established.[36] This body bought suitable land for irrigation, while the Department of Agriculture offered scientific advice to farmers on packaging and marketing fruit in the Goulburn Valley, for example.[37] In 1908 the Commission established an experimental farm at Tatura advising on irrigation and the growing and harvesting of lucerne.[38] Tatura supported a vigorous closer settlement in the shire.

It was government policy to settle people on land outside the urban areas and the Closer Settlement Acts (Land Acts) were designed specifically for this reason. The decade ending in 1890 saw a flood of people settling on newly opened up lands. This was particularly so in the Murray Goulburn areas. By 1879, 4000 people attended the Shepparton Agricultural show with the Numurkah show being considered outstanding.[39] Those towns with the best water supply grew rapidly. For example, Cobram by 1898 had grown to 500 people, and by 1908 to 700. In 1904 Numurkah was the centre of a large and populous Shire with 7959 people.[40]

The ideas behind the Closer Settlement Acts of 1904 and 1912 were to ‘enable a thrifty settler under average conditions to meet his payments, effect his improvements and maintain his family in reasonable comfort. The 1915 Royal Commission reported that ‘over 450 have failed and another 400 are liable to fail.’[41] Some of these were wheat farms and when the price of wheat fell, the farmers were faced with financial burdens. In irrigation areas, farms fared better because they were not dependent on the grain market.

A vital component of life in the rural areas that determined a successful farming practice or not was the proximity of the railroad. The 1880 Railway Act saw railways springing up all over the state. Prior to this, Cobb and Co. coaches provided much needed road transport along with the riverboat services on the Goulburn and Murray. The Railway Act authorised the construction of 475 miles of track.[42] All this coincided with an economic boom time, and tracks were laid in all directions of the State. Many a Member of Parliament promised a railway line in his electorate. As Bossence states, ‘fantastic sums of money were borrowed and spent on extending the railway network; and when the rails reached any particular point it was often found that syndicates of MPs and their associates had bought up the land in advance for subdivision and re-sale.’[43]

However being close to a railway meant the difference between building up a successful farming practice or not, and selectors lobbied the government for this. They formed Railway Leagues to campaign for local rail lines. Local businesses also joined forces in recognizing that a rail link to other centres was vital for the town economy, and would draw people to settle in an area that had a rail line. Naturally Governments supported these ventures as a way of opening up these areas to attract populations. The Railway Construction Acts of 1880-1884 saw a rapid growth in rail. In 1884, a railway to Echuca opened up trade on the Murray River.[44] In grain growing areas silos were put at the end of railway tracks.[45] On 1 October 1888, the Numurkah to Cobram, Numurkah and Nathalia, Shepparton and Dookie railways were opened on a single day. An important railway development was the introduction of refrigerated carriages used to transport produce. These were introduced on the Northeast, Goulburn Valley, Yarrawonga lines in 1891.[46] An important link to help support the canning and fruit industries, which would become a vital source of work and wealth in the post World War 2 soldier settlement schemes in the Goulburn and Murray Valley.


By Cecile Trioli.

Notes

  1. ↑ Susan Priestley, The Victorians. Making their Mark, p. 350.
  2. ↑ Land Acts of Victoria, People and Parliament. PROV.
  3. ↑ Barr, Neil and Cary, John, Greening a Brown Land, p. 207.
  4. ↑ Ibid., p. 207.
  5. ↑ Ibid., p. 208.
  6. ↑ Ibid., p. 208.
  7. ↑ Land Acts of Victoria, 1860, PROV.
  8. ↑ Barr, Neil and Cary, John, Greening a Brown Land, p. 210.
  9. ↑ Dingle, Tony, The Victorians, Settling, p. 73.
  10. ↑ Bossence, William Henry, Numurkah, p. 38.
  11. ↑ Ibid., p. 45.
  12. ↑ Ibid., p. 46.
  13. ↑ Ibid., p. 48.
  14. ↑ Ibid., p. 50.
  15. ↑ Ibid., p. 70.
  16. ↑ Bossence, William Henry, Tatura, p. 109.
  17. ↑ Dingle, Tony, The Victorians, Settling, p. 71.
  18. ↑ Bossence, William Henry, Tatura, p. 110.
  19. ↑ Barr, Neil and Cary, John, Greening a Brown Land, p. 210.
  20. ↑ Barr, Neil and Cary, John, Greening a Brown Land, p. 211 and Dingle, T., The Victorians, Settling, p. 119.
  21. ↑ Dingle, T., The Victorians, Settling, p. 119.
  22. ↑ Ibid., p. 119.
  23. ↑ Barr, Neil and Cary, John, Greening a Brown Land, p. 211.
  24. ↑ Ibid., p. 212.
  25. ↑ Ibid., p. 112.
  26. ↑ Norris, R., Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1856-1919, vol. 8, MUP, 1981, pp. 248-256.
  27. ↑ Dingle, Tony, The Victorians, Settling, p. 121.
  28. ↑ Dunlop, Alan, Wide Horizons, The Story of Yarrawonga, Tunganah, and Cobram Shires, p. 121.
  29. ↑ Dingle, Tony, The Victorians, Settling, p. 121. See Also, Barr, Neil and Cary, John, Greening a Brown Land, p. 213.
  30. ↑ Barr, Neil and Cary, John, Greening a Brown Land, p. 213.
  31. ↑ Bossence, William Henry, Numurkah, p. 125.
  32. ↑ Ibid., p. 125.
  33. ↑ Dingle, Tony, The Victorians, Settling, p. 123.
  34. ↑ Ibid., p. 122.
  35. ↑ Ibid., p. 123.
  36. ↑ Powell, J. M., Mead, Elwood (1858-1936), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol, 10, MUP, 1886, pp. 467-468. See also, Dunlop, Alan, Wide Horizons, p. 121.
  37. ↑ Dingle, Tony, The Victorians, Settling, p. 126.
  38. ↑ Bossence, William Henry, Tatura, p. 116.
  39. ↑ Dunlop, Alan, Wide Horizons, p. 134.
  40. ↑ Ibid., p. 134.
  41. ↑ Ibid., p. 116.
  42. ↑ Bossence, William Henry, Numurkah, p. 85.
  43. ↑ Ibid.
  44. ↑ Dunlop, Alan, Wide Horizons, p. 42.
  45. ↑ Dingle, Tony, The Victorians, Settling, p. 108.
  46. ↑ Dunlop, Alan, Wide Horizons, pp. 61, 64.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.gvrlc.vic.gov.au/index.php/Land_settlement_in_Victoria"

This page has been accessed 675 times. This page was last modified on 29 July 2010, at 02:10.