Moredun Station - the rambling ties of kinship

Artist's perspective: Moredun Station c1848, Edward Thomson was the first artist in the early colonial period to extensively paint scenes of the New England Tablelands.

The tales of old New England entwine and ramble.

In October 1853 William Gardner, the New England’s Tableland’s first chronicler, took up the position of tutor on Andrew Wauchope’s Moredun run near Ben Lomond. 

Born in Edinburgh, Andrew Wauchope had arrived in Port Macquarie from Scotland in 1838.  

This entry point was probably no accident, for Port Macquarie was the headquarters of Archibald Clunes Innes after whom Glen Innes is named.

Innes, a fellow Scot, had come to NSW with his regiment in 1822. From November 1826 to April 1827 he had been commandant of the Port Macquarie penal colony, returning to Port in 1830 to settle following the opening of the area to European settlement.

Innes was in the process of building a pastoral, shipping and mercantile empire that, at its peak would make him one of the wealthiest men in NSW. This empire included extensive New England pastoral interests, beginning with Waterloo Station in 1836.

There were clear information flows among the Scots. Another Scot who arrived a little later in 1840 was Innes’ cousin William Tydd Taylor who would buy the Terrible Vale run.

Working men arrived too, many of whom would settle on Moredun or immediately surrounding runs. With time, their and their children’s marriages would create an entwined pattern of kinship that extends to this day.

On 22 April 1844, Andrew Wauchope married Anne Boyd The Scottish born Anne was the sister of Archibald Boyd who had the adjoining Boyd's Plains (later Stonehenge) run among his interests.

Boyd, the cousin of entrepreneur Benjamin Boyd of Boydtown fame, would lose money in his cousin’s financial crash. He ended his life in England writing flamboyant historical romances to generate cash, reportedly dying in a garret.

Wauchope, a canny manager with an ability to pick good usually Scottish staff, was a wealthy man by the time William Gardner became tutor on Moredun in 1853

In 1854, the Wauchopes decided to return to Scotland leaving the property in the hands of managers, first J T Sperling and then John Mitchell. Mitchell had begun as a worker on Moredun and would prove to be a highly competent long running manager.

Back in Scotland, Andrew and Anne had enough wealth to rent and staff some big Scottish Houses including Airth Castle in Stirlingshire. At the census of 1881 he still gave his occupation as Australian squatter!

Moredun was finally sold in 1890 following Andrew’s death, with John Mitchell acquiring his own place.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 17 March 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020