All Class

Drought, floods and bushfires are part and parcel of a grazier’s life in north-western New South Wales. In the colony’s early days, if the weather didn’t get to the sheep, dingoes often did. As the settlers gradually eradicated the dingoes, rabbits spread like a veritable plague on the land, eating all the grasses. Hungry sheep […]

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Pride of Place

After more than a decade of fundraising and planning by the Wee Waa Historical Society, the Namoi Echo Museum, located on the lands of the Kamillaroi people, opened in 2006. In a section of the museum which highlights the local history of sheep farming, a five-panel mural takes pride of place. Conceived and painted by […]

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Boiling-Down

In the 1840s, graziers in the colonies were beset by falling prices for meat exports due to a depression in Britain. A smelly solution came in the form of boiling-down – the boiling of carcasses in vats to extract tallow (or animal fat). Used to make soap and candles, tallow was worth more than meat, […]

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