Watson and Hunter were a powerful Scottish pastoral company formed in Edinburgh in 1838. It had wealthy and aristocratic backers including the Marquis of Ailsa the chief of Clan Kennedy. The Watsons were famous cattle breeders and perfected the breed Aberdeen Angas a fine beef producer renowned throughout the world. The Watsons had close family connections to the Hunter family.
Looking to expand their enterprise and hearing of the glowing reports from the Port Phillip District of NSW they sent two representatives to Sydney to prepare for future expansion. Brothers Campbell and John (nicknamed “Howqua”) Hunter were the first to arrive in 1839 and were busy acquiring land at Lake George near present day Canberra and at Yass which was the last outpost of habitation south of Sydney town and the starting off point for the overlanders bringing their flocks south into the Port Phillip District.
Shortly after another Hunter brother Alec, arrived to join the party along with James Watson a relative of Hugh Watson of Aberdeen Angas fame and was also an experienced cattle breeder. The final member of the group was the Honourable Gilbert Kennedy grandson of the Marquiss of Ailsa. And so it was that the men representing the Watson and Hunter Pastoral Company set out from Yass with large herds and large ambitions to bring success and profit to the company shareholders in Scotland.
As the team headed south, they were keenly looking out for suitable land to settle their stock and begin their breeding and land speculation activities. On reaching the area we know today as Euroa they sent their head stockman Andrew Ewan east to look for stock that had strayed from the herd. As he crossed over the Strathbogie Ranges, he discovered the rolling hills and grassland with ample rivers and creeks around what we know today as the Eildon and Mansfield district.
They quickly claimed the area and established 6 stations totalling over 200,000 acres, Wappan, Preston, Loyola, Dueran, Mt. Battery and Maindample and when combined they would be known as the Devils River Run. The name came from an incident when the team were camped by a river we now know as the Delatite River when a native corroboree took place in the evening making sounds like the devil, they called it the Devils River.
While they were establishing themselves on the Devils River Run attention turned to acquiring land in Melbourne town where breeding stock shipped from overseas could be contained before being driven to the northern pastures of the Devils River Run.
They took up land on the Saltwater Flats In those early days the two main rivers in Melbourne were known as the Saltwater River or as we know it today the Maribyrnong and the Freshwater River, we now call the Yarra. The Saltwater Flats is the area we know today as the Flemington Racecourse.
They established their main holding area at Keilor a natural amphitheatre in the place where market gardens exist today with ample river water and good grazing land. They had a home on the slopes overlooking the Keilor flats that when sold would become the first inn at Keilor now long gone. They took up land at Watsonia and Rosanna as well as at Mount Macedon all set up as staging posts on the way to Devils River. Money was no problem at this stage and buying or selling land or leases was part of the business strategy.
During their years in Melbourne the Hunter brothers gained notoriety for hard riding, a brash highly competitive nature and were christened “the wild colonial boys” and their feats of Derring do were being spoken of throughout the town. They organised the first race meeting on their land at Saltwater flats which would eventually become the Flemington Racecourse home of the Melbourne Cup.
Not only were they competitive horsemen they were intrepid explorers as well always looking for better land over the next hill and so it was that Alec Hunter leading a party of four set off in early 1841 to cross over the Great Dividing Range from Howqua into Gippsland. The going was tough and realising that while they could herd stock over the ranges it would be impossible to bring wagons and supplies needed to establish a head station, so they turned back before completing the trip in the hope of returning to finish the trek at a later date.
However, in the rush to establish and chart grazing land in Gippsland, The NSW Government in 1843 sent its Crown land Commissioner, Mr. Charles Tyers up to Devils River to find a route over the ranges into Gippsland, then to survey a coastal track into Gippsland from Port Phillip. Tyers was an accomplished bushman and hardy explorer but crossing the ranges proved too difficult and he had to return.
This spurred the competitive Alec Hunter on to complete his second attempt accompanied by brother Campbell and a squatter named Jordan they set off from the Howqua River travelling light and sleeping rough. This time they were successful charting a course through the high country skirting the Jamieson River, picking up the Macallister River at Licola then through Glen Maggie to Lake Wellington. The party then trekked to Port Albert and returned to Melbourne via Westernport. This 2-month journey accomplished what the experienced Tyers could not.
At the time when the Watson and Hunter team were a very influential voice in the district of Port Phillip a group of 27 concerned squatters perhaps the most powerful men in Melbourne gathered at the Lamb Inn in Collins Street on the 21stof April 1840 to discuss a serious problem that confronted them all. With their growing herds and flocks there was a distinct shortage of trusted reliable shepherds and those available were being paid very high labour costs eating into profitability and future expansion plans.
At this meeting a resolution was passed that a company be formed under the name of The Australia Felix Immigration Society “having for its object the procuring from The United Kingdom a constant supply of moral and industrious labourers under the present bounty system”.
Another motion passed stated that “Mr Watson, who from his interest and experience in the colony as well as knowledge of these matters at home has in the handsomest manner volunteered to proceed to that country to procure a present supply of suitable emigrants and to make the necessary arrangements to keeping up a constant supply, that this society do thankfully accept his offer and appoint him their commissioner”.
And so it was that the ship William Abrams of 706 tons under the command of James Hamlin chartered by Watson and Hunter for the Australia Felix Immigration Society left Greenock, Scotland on March 28th, 1841, with 207 people on board which docked at Liardets’ wharf Sandridge (Port Melbourne) on July 26th that year after a journey of 120 days and almost a year after the squatters meeting at the Lamb inn.
On board was family number 27, my ancestors Daniel McIntosh, his wife Margaret (McGregor) and Son Daniel 13 years, daughter Catherine 8 years, Hugh 5 years, James 3 years, and Margaret 11 months. After a gruelling 4 months at sea, they could finally put their feet on the sand of The Port Phillip District half a world away from Scotland. The sparse settlement that was Melbourne must have been a shock to them, what would the future hold, would they ever go back?
During the time that arrangements were being made to bring the extra supply of shepherds to the colony shipping traffic had already increased. According to the Port Phillip Patriot the local newspaper writing on 2nd August 1841 ships were now docking at the rate of one a week and in June and July a total of 1,500 persons had arrived. By the end of the year the population of Port Phillip had doubled.
The effect was immediate the cost of wages dropped by half and the squatters’ overheads reduced while they had an abundance of willing workers. Watson and Hunter advertised they could supply female servants who had travelled on their ship under indentures for 15 pounds a year.
While we hear terrible stories of hardship and privation on some immigrant ships the William Abrams was an exception so much so that steerage passengers being grateful for their safe arrival paid for an advertisement in the newspaper thanking Commander James Hamlin for the kindness, he had shown them since leaving their native shores.
“For the superiority of the provisions and the frequent fresh messes (to which we had no claim) with which you furnished us. For the bright example of moral conduct, you set before us, beside many other privileges and advantages of which (however inadequately we may here express them) we will ever entertain a lively feeling of gratitude. In a word sir we hail you as a bright ornament of the honourable and respectable profession of which you have made choice.”
Like many speculators in a foreign environment when money is flowing into the enterprise things appear to be going fine however, there were early warning signs that strong financial management was needed.
A severe drought over the three years they were increasing the size of their herds and land acquisition affected the quality and world price of wool, lack of water caused the speculative value of the land to drop and an outbreak of catarrh on the Devils River Run saw a significant loss of sheep. Meanwhile spending on sporting events and personal acquisitions seemed to continue unabated. There were worrying signs coming from the head office in Edinburgh where several acrimonious meetings had resulted in instructions to rein in spending and introduce better financial management of the enterprise.
However, nothing could be done to avoid the depression of 1842, world wool prices dropped to the point where it was uneconomical to even shear the sheep, and many were boiled down for tallow of much lesser value. The depression also affected land values as the low price of the flocks took away the speculative benefits of the land.
Like many squatters who were bankrupted because of speculative borrowing so it was that Watson and Hunter were not alone when the company was declared insolvent, and all the land was sold off and herds dispersed. The complications involving the many creditors and the size of the holdings took many years to finalise. The case opened in April 1843 and was finally free of the courts in April 1847.
And so it is that the name Watson and Hunter a once powerful, influential player in the early colonial history whose flame burnt strongly for about five years, who carved a trail through some of the most difficult and uncharted country in the Port Phillip District is all but forgotten today.
But they have left a legacy in the names of places and streets we know of today that were named by them or after them. Such as:
KEILOR: Named after the Watson cattle breeding property in Forfar Scotland.
STRATHMORE: Named after the Vale of Strathmore where the property was situated.
WATSONIA: Named by Watson after himself, where they had a head station.
ROSANNA: Named after Watsons’ wife Rose Anne.
MAINDAMPLE: A town located on one of the Devils River Runs of that name.
HOWQUA: From the nickname of John “Howqua” Hunter.
JAMIESON: Named after a member of the exploratory party on the first crossing of the alps.
WAPPAN, PRESTON, LOYOLA, DUERAN, MT BATTERY. Names of five sheep stations part of the Devils River Run.
STREET NAMES:
IN KEILOR: Hunter Street, Watson Rise. Ailsa Street and Kennedy Street after the Marquis of Ailsa Chief of clan Kennedy.
IN MANSFIELD: Hunter Street, Ailsa Street.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland. John Keay and Julia Keay
Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip. RV. Billis and AS Kenyon
Tracks of the Morning IC. Dillon.
Graeme McIntosh
Talk given to PPPG meeting
14 September 2024