Toorale Station is a defunct

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 ...

that once operated 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 ...

and

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 ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. The station was purchased by the Federal and New South Wales Governments, and

Toorale National Park The Toorale National Park is a protected national park that is located in the far-west region of New South Wales, in eastern Australia. The national park is located approximately southwest of , at the junction of the Darling and Warrego rive ...

was declared on a portion in 2010. The remaining area is now part of a state conservation area. The property is situated approximately south west of Bourke and north of

Cobar Cobar is a town in central western New South Wales, Australia whose economy is based mainly upon base metals and gold mining. The town is by road northwest of the state capital, Sydney. It is at the crossroads of the Kidman Way and Barrier Hig ...

. The confluence of the

Warrego River The Warrego River is an intermittent river that is part of the Darling River, Darling catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, which is located in South West Queensland and in the Orana (New South Wales), Orana region of New South Wales, Aus ...

and the

Darling River The Darling River ( Paakantyi: ''Baaka'' or ''Barka'') is the third-longest river in Australia, measuring from its source in northern New South Wales to its conflu ence with the Murray River at Wentworth, New South Wales. Including its longes ...

is located on the property.

History

It was first established in 1857. The old

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 ar ...

was built in 1873. By 1880, it was owned by Sir

Samuel Wilson Samuel Wilson (September 13, 1766 – July 31, 1854) was an American meat packer who lived in Troy, New York, whose name is purportedly the source of the personification of the United States known as "Uncle Sam". Biography Wilson was born in the ...

. When Sir Wilson went to England,

Samuel McCaughey Sir Samuel McCaughey (1 July 1835 – 25 July 1919) was an Irish-born pastoralist, politician and philanthropist in Australia. Early life McCaughey was born on 1 July 1835 at Tullynewey, near Ballymena, Ireland, the son of Francis McCaughey, ...

bought Toorale along with another property, Dunlop Station. In 1894 about 265,000 sheep were shorn there. McCaughy owned the property until 1913. In 1892 the poet,

Henry Lawson Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial perio ...

worked as a

roustabout Roustabout (Australia/New Zealand English: rouseabout) is an occupational term. Traditionally, it referred to a worker with broad-based, non-specific skills. In particular, it was used to describe show or circus workers who handled materials ...

in the Toorale woolshed. Lawson composed many works including ''A Stranger on the Darling'', ''Bourke'' and ''Bosses Boots'' while at working at Toorale. The Australian Sheep Farms Limited–with directors including

Sir Arthur Stanley Sir Arthur Stanley (18 November 1869 – 4 November 1947) was a British Conservative politician, humanitarian, and Chairman of the Joint War Organisation of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem in England du ...

, R. H. Caird and G. Slade–raised £400,000 in capital to acquire Toorale, Dunlop and Nocoleche Stations in 1925. Shearing in 1931 took nine weeks and had 24 shearers pass 81,000 sheep over the boards for 2,095

wool bale A wool bale is a standard sized and weighted pack of classed wool compressed by the mechanical means of a wool press. This is the regulation required method of packaging for wool, to keep it uncontaminated and readily identifiable. A "bale of wool" ...

s. In 1936 Toorale was placed on the market, at this time it occupied an area of and was stocked with 54,355 sheep and 1,089 mixed cattle. The last big wool clip from the station was in 1953 with 2,100 wool bales being produced. Toorale was owned by the Berawinnia Pastoral Company and had run flocks of between 50,000 to 100,000 sheep for the last several years. Much of the property was then resumed for

soldier settlement Soldier settlement was the settlement of land throughout parts of Australia by returning discharged soldiers under soldier settlement schemes administered by state governments after World War I and World War II. The post-World War II settlemen ...

. The property occupied an area of in 2008. In the same year it was acquired by the Federal and New South Wales Governments for 24 million. It had been planned to turn the area into a

National Park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

with the century-old dams to be demolished with the water flowing into the river system. The

was declared in 2010, the remaining area now being part of a state conservation area.

References

{{Reflist Pastoral leases in New South Wales Stations (Australian agriculture)

History

See also

References