British HistorY-7
' Squatters and Clippers '
RHODA POWER
This afternoon Rhoda Power is to talk about the early sheep-farmers in Australia, and the wool-clippers, or ships that brought the wool home. They were days when British prisoners, instead of being kept in British gaols, were sometimes transported to Australia and to Tasmania, where they worked for a set term of years. You have heard the expression ' Sent to Botany Bay.'
In a report written by a man who owned a merino ' sheep-station ' in Australia in 1805 is to be found the following : ' Estimating the sheep in New South Wales at twenty thousand ... the present stock may increase in twenty years to five millions ; and calculating two pounds and a half of clear washed wool to each sheep, they would produce almost twice as much wool as England now purchases from Spain.'
Small wonder that the Governor of Sydney wrote to the British Government : ' It will be impossible for Mr. MacArthur to pursue his plan unless he shall be indulged with a reasonable number of convicts for the purpose of attending his sheep....'