Glenroy Station is a pastoral lease 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 stat ...

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 ...

. It is situated approximately north of

Fitzroy Crossing Fitzroy or FitzRoy may refer to: People As a given name *Several members of the Somerset family (Dukes of Beaufort) have this as a middle-name: ** FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855) ** Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset, 8th Duke of Bea ...

and east of

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...

in the Kimberley region.

History

The property was established in the early 1900s by Arthur Blythe and Reginald Nash Spong. The Blythe family had been active in the West Kimberley since 1885. The family owned Brooking Creek Station on the Fitzroy River and Arthur's father, Joseph Blythe, later established Mount House Station. Together Mount House and Glenroy occupy an area of and can carry approximately 20,000 head of cattle. Blythe sold his share of the property to Jabez Pearson Orchard in about 1912. In 1916,

Sidney Kidman Sir Sidney Kidman (9 May 18572 September 1935), known as Sid Kidman and popularly named "the Cattle King", was an Australian pastoralist and entrepreneur who owned or co-owned large areas of land in Australia in his lifetime. Early life Sidne ...

invested in Glenroy with Spong and Orchard, forming the Glenroy Pastoral Company. This was Kidman's first investment in the West Kimberley. In 1919, in a remarkable feat of

droving Droving is the practice of walking livestock over long distances. It is a type of herding. Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the aid of dogs—has a very long history in the Old World. An owner might entrust an agent to de ...

, 300 horses were overlanded over from

Kapunda Kapunda is a town on the Light River and near the Barossa Valley in South Australia. It was established after a discovery in 1842 of significant copper deposits. The population was 2,917 at the 2016 Australian census. The southern entrance t ...

to Fossil Downs and Glenroy. Only 26 horses were lost on the journey but one stockman was drowned at Caroline Pool on the last stages. Kidman abandoned both Glenroy and Mornington Station in 1936 as a result of

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...

s spearing his cattle and the difficulty in driving his cattle to

. Gordon Blythe initiated the

Air Beef Scheme After World War II, pastoralists from the Western Australian Kimberley region sought to develop the local beef export industry by encouraging infrastructure development there. Three brothers, Gordon, Douglas and Keith Blythe who owned and operate ...

in the late 1940s to send beef to market from Mount House Station and Glenroy. An

abattoir A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

was constructed at Glenroy in 1948 to send beef by air to Wyndham and

. The business faced completion from

road train A road train, land train or long combination vehicle (LCV) is a trucking vehicle used to move road freight more efficiently than semi-trailer trucks. It consists of two or more trailers or semi-trailers hauled by a prime mover. History Early ...

s in 1953 and the abattoir was closed in 1964 and nearly completely destroyed by fire in 1966. 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 ...

between 1951 and 1953, with the number of cattle being reduced by half. This was the first drought suffered by pastoralists in 70 years, with many hurriedly sinking bores and buying feed to keep their stock alive. Other nearby properties that were affected in Noonkanbah, Liveringa, Quandan, Gogo,

Cherrabun Cherrabun or Cherrabun Station is a pastoral lease that once operated as a sheep station but presently operates as a cattle station in Western Australia. It is situated about south of the Bayulu Community and about west of Halls Creek in ...

, Fossil Downs, Luiligui, Christmas Creek and Bohemia Downs Station.

References

{{Stations of Sidney Kidman Homesteads in Western Australia Pastoral leases in Western Australia Stations (Australian agriculture) Kimberley (Western Australia) State Register of Heritage Places in the Shire of Derby-West Kimberley

History

See also

References