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The story of the 'shepherd boys' of 1823, Robert Rowland Leake and his brother Edward John Leake, ushers in the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first Saxon merion to arrive in Australia. The sheep, brought to Hobart town on the Andromeda by Leakes' father and friends, were among the first of this breed to be sent to the Southern Hemisphere. R. R. Leake became the first superintendent of the Saxon merino flock imported by the South Australian Company. His letters, and those of his brothers, tell of their lives as squatters in South Australia; and later of his life as the owner of the vast Glencoe estate on the border of South Australia and Victoria. This is supplemented by a serie of articles written in 1903 by H. Hickmer (a brother-in-law of Robert Leake) who spent his childhood on this station near Mount Gambier in the south-eastern district of South Australia. Miss Yelland has expanded in and around the lives of the Leakes and has included a great amount of information concerning the life style of the time in the comparatively untamed colony. She has compiled a clear and foreful history of the experience, effort and success of these people and of their mammoth contribution in cultivating the wealth of Australian wool of which they were instrumental in pioneering. (Inside cover)… (more)
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Contents
Introduction
I. Robert Leake
II. The sheep farmer
III. White hills
IV. Rivoli bay
V. Mount Schank
VI. Wool-shed station
VII. Lake leake
VIII. Mr and Mrs 'Rivoli Bay' Smith
Part II
IX. Fort Leake
X. Station life
XI. Flocks of sheep
XII. The plauge of native cats
XIII. The cattle muster
XIV. Frontier house
XV. Corroboree
XVI. Boandik tribal customs
XVII. The wreck of the Admella
XVIII. Glencoe
Epilogue
Appendices
Reference notes
Bibliography
Index.