Origins of Travelling Stock Routes. 2. Early development, management, and the growing embrace of the law (1830–70s)
J. M. R. Cameron A and P. G. Spooner B CA 38 Morton Loop, Canning Vale, WA 6155, Australia.
B Institute of Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, PO Box 789, Albury, NSW 2640, Australia.
C Corresponding author. Email: pspooner@csu.edu.au
The Rangeland Journal 32(3) 341-351 https://doi.org/10.1071/RJ10010
Submitted: 11 March 2010 Accepted: 16 August 2010 Published: 14 September 2010
Abstract
Travelling Stock Routes (TSRs) are a network of grazing routes and reserves which are thought to have originated from the informal tracks of early European explorers, pastoralists and settlers. However, their origins are much more complex, and entwined in legislative and administrative attempts from the 1830s to 1870s to manage and control diseases in sheep and cattle. We describe (1) the development of management controls for the emerging TSR network, through the series of enactments in legislatures designed to eradicate scab in sheep, and ovine catarrh from the pastoral industry, and (2) identify the people who made the decisions which influenced the management and design of the TSR network. Requirements for droving permits, access to squatting runs, and historic methods for sheep disease control are described, and development of major quarantine points on stock routes are highlighted. As we indicate, this narrative sets the stage for the formal survey of the first TSRs in the early 1870s, and highlights the rich social and economic drivers that contributed to their development upon the landscape, their design and location, and influence on present-day management approaches.
Additional keywords: drovers, historic roads, quarantine points, sheep industry, squatters.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the assistance of John Fisher, Ian Parsonson and Jim Noble, who provided suggestions to improve an earlier version of this paper. We would like to thank a host of like-minded private researchers who have supported this work, including Mark Allen for his encouragement to delve into the history of TSR. Peter Spooner was provided in-kind support by the Western Transportation Institute (Road Ecology group), Montana State University to complete this manuscript. Figure 1 is reproduced with permission by the National Library of Australia.
Broad J.
(1983) Cattle plague in eighteenth-century England. The Agricultural History Review 32(2), 104–115.
(accessed 22 July 2009).
Hindmarsh W. L.
(1967) Historical Records of The Veterinary Profession: in Australia: III. Animal health and associated legislation in New South Wales from the foundation of the colony until 1863. Australian Veterinary Journal 43, 102–107.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
(accessed 3 August 2010).
NSW PP (Parliamentary Papers)
(1858) Report from the Select Committee on scab and catarrh in sheep, together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and Appendix. Parliamentary Papers [NSW] 2, 767–823.
(accessed 3 March 2010).
Spooner P. G.
(2005) On squatters, settlers and early surveyors: historical development of road reserves in southern New South Wales. The Australian Geographer 36, 55–73.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |
Spooner P. G.,
Firman M., Yalmambirra
(2010) Origins of Travelling Stock Routes. 1. Connections to Indigenous traditional pathways. The Rangeland Journal 32, 329–339.
Winston-Gregson J. H.
(1985) A guide to locating settlements in rural New South Wales. Australasian Historical Archaeology; Journal of the Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology 3, 3–7.
1Acts of Parliament. Acts of Parliament are not included in the References section. However, the numbering in the text in British Dependencies has the Act name, followed by the year and name of the reigning monarch, followed by the sequence number for Act in that year (e.g. ‘10 Victoria, No. 8’ refers to an Act gazetted in the 10th year of Victoria’s reign, and was the 8th bill introduced that year).
