Belele Station is a

pastoral lease A pastoral lease, sometimes called a pastoral run, is an arrangement used in both Australia and New Zealand where government-owned Crown land is leased out to graziers for the purpose of livestock grazing on rangelands. Australia Pastoral lease ...

in Western Australia that operates as a

cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stati ...

and as a

sheep station A sheep station is a large property ( station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or sout ...

for the production of

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. As ...

Description

The station is located in the Murchison region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

; the nearest town is Meekatharra, approximately to the south east. Occupying an area of the property contains of nature reserves and vacant

crown land Crown land (sometimes spelled crownland), also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it. ...

. The soil has a low level of

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...

with 95% of the land being described as nil or minor. The perennial vegetation condition is described as fair with 40% of vegetation cover being described as poor or very poor. It is estimated that the property is able to carry 16,500 sheep in summer conditions.

History

The station was initially established by Frank Wittenoom in the early 1880s after he had established both Nookawarra and Mileura stations further west of Belele. Wittenoom sold the property to Ernest Augustus Lee Steere and his partners in 1888, after Lee Steere had been working in the Murchison on various

stations Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

during the 1880s. The area was largely undeveloped at the time and over the course of several years he was able to bring it to full production. Belele occupied an area of at this stage, stocked with both cattle and sheep. The area was struck by

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

shortly afterwards so Lee Steere invested in mail transport between Nannine and Peak Hill, in a butchers, and in the Nannine general store to provide an income. Seven Aboriginal men were arrested and charged with murder and

cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...

at Belele in 1895. The victim was another Aborigine, named Callynognoo, who came from the north west. The men, and the

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...

of the victim, were taken to

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

for trial after two of the group had decided to turn Queen's evidence. The area was flooded in 1900 when over of rain fell over two weeks, causing the Murchison River to rise causing a flood described as "probably the heaviest seen by whites". Lee-Steere, as the sole owner, expanded the Belele Pastoral Company to a size of , and also acquired nearby Annean Station. The area experienced dry conditions for some time prior to 1913 when better conditions prevailed and the property was described as "the feed was very high, but the owner was suffering from the general complaint along the Murchison – too much feed for the stock to eat, the previous bad seasons having reduced numbers considerably". In about 1917, bush poet Alf "The Axeman" Wallace wrote a poem "The Soldier from Belele" about a friend of his from Belele. In 1923 the station book keeper, John Kennedy, drowned at the No. 3

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

on the property. The property was isolated in flood waters in 1926 resulting in the loss of over 500 sheep. The area was struck by drought in 1949, with very little rainfall recorded for 18 months. In 1950, sheep from Belele were sent to other family properties near Toodyay for

agistment Agistment originally referred specifically to the proceeds of pasturage in the king's forests. To agist is, in English law, to take cattle to graze, in exchange for payment (derived from the Old English ''giste'', ''gite'', a "lying place"). H ...

. An elderly Irishman, Mr. R. B. Dobbin, who lived on the station in a shack some distance from the

homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses *Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres *Homestead principle, a legal concept th ...

, went missing on the property in 1951. A search was conducted for about two weeks, including the use of a

Royal Flying Doctor Service The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), commonly known as the Flying Doctor, is an air medical service in Australia. It is a non-profit organisation that provides emergency and primary health care services for those living in rural, remote an ...

plane, but was unable to find the man. Dobbin had come to the property in the 1880s and was given a block of land by the Lee Steeres when he asked to remain after he stopped working for the family in the 1940s.

References

{{Stations of the Mid West Western Australia Mid West (Western Australia) Pastoral leases in Western Australia Stations (Australian agriculture)

Description

History

See also

References