Australia rode on the sheep's back

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia created a historical film for students called Riding On the Sheep’s Back. From the very beginning of colonial settlement here, the selective breeding of Merino ewes resulted in sheep that adapted well to Australia’s arid interior. Merinos produced wool that was soft, plentiful and appealing to Britain's mills. So from the first boom of the Napoleonic Wars, which largely destroyed the Spanish Merino industry, the pastoral industry in Australia enjoyed a long period of prosperity. There were c2 million sheep in Australia by 1830.

In summary the wool industry gave Australia one of the highest living standards in the world for over 100 years. It was no exaggeration to say that the Australian economy rode high on wealth from primary exports, especially sheep.

Sheep grazing

A culture grew out of the practice of sheep shearing, most publicly exhibited in state-wide agricultural shows and shearing competitions. In the early decades, wool was shorn, carded and washed by hand. After 1888 machine shearing was introduced, reducing second cuts and shearing time. By the time World War One took all the abled bodied men off the land, most large sheep station sheds in Australia had installed machines, driven at first by steam and later by internal combustion engines.

It is not surprising that one of the all-time favourite Australian paintings was and is Shearing the Rams 1890, a large painting by the nation’s favourite Impressionist artist, Tom Roberts. Shearing the Rams has been reproduced in stamps, posters, history books and art folders ever since Federation, the day (1/1/1901) the separate states came together as a unified, modern nation.

Nothing says "Australian Rural Life" as much as Robert’s rams. And no agricultural show booth is as enticing as those selling local wool products. To give one example, Bennett & Gregor hold sales stalls at agricultural shows and fairs - spouse and I bought matching scarves for all the grandchildren.

Tom Roberts. Shearing the Rams 1890

122 x 183 cm

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

By the 1950s Australia ‘rode on the sheep’s back’; those who raised the sheep and gathered the wool had come to symbolise and epitomise what it was to be Australian. In fact the struggle to survive in the rugged bush environment was said to have moulded the very character of the Australian battler. Of course the ruggedness also reflected the need to survive droughts, bush fires and infestations of small and large animal life, but that doesn’t diminish the back breaking work of shearing sheep in the heat.

Yet within a decade, coal, iron ore and other minerals had replaced wool as the basis of Australia’s economic future; wool farmers struggled to sell their product on world markets and the people of the bush now found themselves marginalised and out of touch with city-based Australian citizens. Young people of my children’s and grandchildren’s generation had never seen millions of sheep being grazed, dipped or sheared.

Turlee Station Stay is a working sheep, cattle and wheat station located next to Mungo National Park, in outback New South Wales. Situated within the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area, the station is huge by any standards: 145,000 acres.

wool products at Bennett & Gregor stall, at agricultural shows

Accommodation ranges from basic tents and caravans to lovely cabins and cottages. But the parts of the station-life that children love most are a] the demonstrations of fantastic Australian sheep dogs rounding up the sheep and b] shearing the sheep in the long sheds. Adults are said to enjoy the fully licensed restaurant, aptly titled Woolshed Baa Bar :)

One kelpie dog controlled 20 sheep