De Grey Station is a pastoral lease, formerly 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 ...

and now 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 stat ...

, approximately east of

Port Hedland A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...

on the mouth of the

De Grey River The De Grey River is a river located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It was named on 16 August 1861 by the explorer and surveyor Francis Gregory after Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey, who was at the time the president of the Roya ...

in the

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal peoples; its ancient landscapes; the red earth; and its vast mineral deposits, in particular iron ore. It is also a glo ...

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 ...

Pardoo Station Pardoo Station is a pastoral lease, formerly a sheep station, and now a cattle station approximately east of Port Hedland and north of Marble Bar, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Description The property used to be about in s ...

was established as an outstation of De Grey in 1869 and has a size of over . The station has sheep, breeding mares and camels and now runs 6,000 head of cattle.

History

De Grey is the earliest pastoral lease in Western Australia, dating from 1862. The property was owned by

Samuel Peter Mackay Samuel Peter Mackay (1864 – 11 May 1923) was a pastoralist and businessman in Western Australia. His parents were pioneers from Ben Mohr Estate, Snizort, Isle of Skye, Inverness-shire, who emigrated with their parents, perhaps to Victo ...

in 1875 and was briefly managed by

George Julius Brockman George Julius Brockman (2 January 1850 – 29 August 1912) was a prominent explorer and pastoralist in the Gascoyne and Kimberley regions of Western Australia. Born in 1850 at Guildford, George was the seventh son of Robert Brockman and broth ...

for three months of the same year while Mackay travelled to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Alexander Forrest Alexander Forrest CMG (22 September 1849 – 20 June 1901) was an explorer and surveyor of Western Australia, and later also a member of parliament. As a government surveyor, Forrest explored many areas of remote Western Australia, particu ...

, the Western Australian explorer and surveyor, began his historic 1879 expedition from De Grey River Station, leaving on 25 February 1879 and "receiving much kind assistance from Mr Anderson" before travelling with his party overland to Condon. The station occupied almost in 1886 when it was owned by Messrs Grant, Anderson and Edgar. The owners had acquired an additional area from a neighbouring lease that had been abandoned by Messrs Padbury and Co when the price of wool was quite low. At this time the property was divided into 16 paddocks separated by about of six-wire sheep-proof fencing and all with water tanks supplied by the

. The area was struck by a

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...

in 1889 with a number of houses being destroyed, miles of fencing being torn up and the loss of over 1,300 sheep. In 1906 shearing produced 700 bales of wool, with over 43,000 sheep being shorn. The Rubin family bought the lease on the property in 1912 for

A£ The pound (Sign: £, £A for distinction) was the currency of Australia from 1910 until 14 February 1966, when it was replaced by the Australian dollar. As with other £sd currencies, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (denoted by the symbol s ...

100,000 with 75,000 sheep and provided the wool for the uniforms of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914. In 1916 they added Mulyie, Ettrick and Warrawagine Stations, including Nullagine and de Vahl Outstations. Major Harold de Vahl Rubin ran the properties from 1919 to 1965. They made the transfer to cattle in the 1970s with David Rubin as manager. The station was visited by

MacRobertson's MacRobertson's, officially the MacRobertson's Steam Confectionery Works, was an Australian company that produced chocolates and various other confectionery. The company was founded in 1880 by Sir Macpherson Robertson and takes its name from a ...

party twice during the Round Australia Expedition in 1928, once on the way to

and then on the journey to Broome. At this time the manager of the station was John Stewart, and 30,000

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...

were being run on the property. The party stayed in the brick homestead, outbuildings and

shearing shed Shearing sheds (or wool sheds) are large sheds located on sheep stations to accommodate large scale sheep shearing activities. In countries where large numbers of sheep are kept for wool, sometimes many thousands in a flock, shearing sheds a ...

during their visit.

Atlas Iron Atlas Iron is an Australian mining company and an iron ore explorer, developer and producer, predominantly active in the Pilbara region and is owned by Redstone Resources, a fully owned subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting.

began mining and shipping

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

from the

Pardoo mine The Pardoo mine was an iron ore mine located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, 75 kilometres east of Port Hedland. The mine was fully owned and operated by Atlas Iron and was, at the time of commencement of production, the company's ...

site in 2008; the mine site takes up on the station and is situated approximately south from the station homestead. Mark Bettini, the station manager at De Grey in 2006, re-established the native

Mitchell grass ''Astrebla'' is a small genus of xerophytic (adapted to survive in an environment with little liquid water) grasses found only in Australia. They are the dominant grass across much of the continent. They are commonly known as Mitchell grass aft ...

in preference to the introduced

buffel grass ''Cenchrus ciliaris'' (buffel-grass or African foxtail grass; syn. ''Pennisetum ciliare'' (L.) Link) is a species of grass native to most of Africa, southern Asia (east to India), southern Iran, and the extreme south of Europe (Sicily). Other na ...

to combat the spread of

Parkinsonia ''Parkinsonia'' , also ''Cercidium'' , is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae. It contains about 12 species that are native to semi-desert regions of Africa and the Americas. The name of the genus honors English apothecary ...

in the area. He reported that Mitchell grass grows better in clay areas and is just as nutritious to

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

. Bettini was still the lessee in 2012; De Grey is operating under the Crown Lease number CL167-1980 and has the Land Act number LA3114/1142.

References

{{Stations of the Pilbara Western Australia Pastoral leases in Western Australia Pilbara

History

See also

References