Sturts Meadows Station

Sturts Meadows Station, most commonly known as Sturts Meadows, is a pastoral lease that has operated as a cattle station and a sheep station in outback New South Wales.

Sturts Meadows Station

Location in New South Wales

It is situated about 77 kilometres (48 mi) north east of Broken Hill and 140 kilometres (87 mi) west of White Cliffs.

The station was established by Abraham and Matilda Wallace in 1863, the name given to the property was taken from Charles Sturt whose expedition travelled farther to the west. The Wallaces travelled to the station from Mingarie in South Australia with 25 horses and 1,400 sheep via the Barrier Range in 1864, squatting at different water holes.[1] Lack of water drove them further north and they didn't return to the area until 1868 only to find that Joseph Panton had moved onto the property and named it Sturts Meadows. In 1869 the property was transferred to Abraham Wallace, but a continued lack of water meant the Wallaces stayed on the move. By 1876 a well on the creek near their original camp was providing permanent water and the station was 100,000 acres (40,469 ha) in size.

Wallace embarked on a trek from Sturts Meadow in January 1880 heading north to the properties he had acquired leases to in the Northern Territory along the Roper River in 1879. On arriving in Longreach, some 750 miles (1,207 km) from Sturts, he bought 2,728 head of cattle and continued his journey eventually arriving in July 1881 after covering a distance of about 2,000 miles (3,219 km). The property was later named Elsey Station and Wallace left the next day to return to Sturts Meadows.[2]

By 1882 the station shore 32,000 sheep,[3] and by 1883 the owners had spent £24,080 on improvements.[4]

Wallace retired in 1884 and appointed a manager to run the property.[5]

Matilda Wallace anonymously published a pamphlet Twelve years' life in Australia, from 1859 to 1871,[6] which was discovered and identified by Alfred Thomas Saunders in 1922.[7]

Sackville Kidman, the brother and business partner of Sidney Kidman, once worked at Sturts Meadow as the station manager until silver was discovered at the Barrier Range and he started a butchering business in Silverton.[8] Kidman acquired the property some time prior to 1924 and was making plans to build up a flock of 100,000 sheep across his properties in the area including Sturts, Morden, Longawirra and Corona Stations.[9] By 1924 the area was being plagued by dingos, Sturts Meadows had been carrying flocks of up to 100,000 sheep but since the pest arrived numbers had dropped substantially.[10]

The property was on the market again in 1928 when the trustees of the late W.H. Williams put the property up for auction. The property now occupied an area of 196,000 acres (79,318 ha) and was divided in 14 paddocks. A stone house with seven rooms, men's quarters and a ten stand shearing shed were among the improvements. The homestead well had 16 tanks and could water 7,000 sheep and the land was described as being made up of grasslands and salt bush country.[11]

Bijerkerno Gorge, where Eight Mile Creek breaks through the Barrier Ranges, is situated on the property. In 2004 the owner, Peter Beven, fenced off a 5,600 hectares (13,838 acres) section around the gorge as part of an effort to protect the environmentally sensitive area. The property has a total area of 75,000 hectares (185,329 acres) and carried 12,000 merino sheep and 400 head of cattle.[12]