Elsey Station is a pastoral lease that once operated as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. Its Traditional Owners are the Mangarrayi people whose right were upheld by the Elsey Land Claim which was granted in 1997. The property is owned by the Mangarrayi Aboriginal Land Trust.[1]
The Station is situated about 14 kilometres (9mi) east of Mataranka and 68 kilometres (42mi) north of Larrimah and the Roper River and many of its tributary creeks run through the property. The land is about 10% flood plain, 15% black soil country, 60% red sandy country and 15% ridge country. It occupies an area of 5,334 square kilometres (2,059sqmi), of which 2,200 square kilometres (849sqmi) is fenced. In 2001 Elsey had a herd of about 7,000 cattle grazing on its pastures.[2]
The lease was taken up by Abraham Wallace in 1879, and he embarked on a trek from his other station, Sturts Meadow in outback New South Wales, in January 1880. Wallace headed north and arrived in Longreach, some 750 miles (1,207km) from Sturts Meadow, where he bought 2,728 head of cattle and continued his journey, eventually arriving in Elsey in July 1881 after covering a distance of about 2,000 miles (3,219km). The property was later named Elsey Station and Wallace left the next day to return to Sturts Meadows.[4]
On 15 July 1882 Duncan Campbell, Elsey Station's head stockman, was fatally speared; reprisals for this murder resulted in the Red Lilly Lagoon Massacre, which led to the deaths of approximately 20 Mangarayi people.[5][6]
On 27 April 1884 Abraham Wallace, who had been managing the property from Adelaide, was found with his throat cut by his own hand and the coroner found that his "mind had been unhinged" by a buggy accident six weeks before. Following his death the station was acquired by Victorian investors Osmand and Panton, who already had interested in Ord River Station, and they took over during a period where there was a limited market for cattle from the Northern Territory.[5]
The second white woman and children to arrive at Elsey Station years before Mrs Gunn were Mrs Euphemia Lydia Oakes, nee Gregory, and her two daughters who arrived in 1890 to join her husband Ernest Hassall Oakes who was the station manager for Osmand and Panton.[7][8]
On 17 January 1895 Moolooloorun, an Aboriginal man, was hanged at Crescent Lagoon on the station.[5] He had been arrested and found guilty of the murder of an unnamed Chinese man near the Roper River.[9][10]
Salt Creek near the Roper River, July 1911
Aeneas and Jeannie Gunn arrived at Elsey in 1902 after the death of Osmand, who had become the sole owner. Gunn was appointed by the executor and owned a quarter share in the property but died there on 16 March 1903 from blackwater fever.[11] Jeannie returned to Melbourne and in 1908 wrote the book We of the Never Never based on her time at Elsey.[12]
In 1946 the filming crew for The Overlanders arrived at the Roper River camp the Station for a month, where the river crossing sequence was shot.[13][failed verification]
The station was put up for auction by the owners, Elsey Downs Ltd., in 1951 and was advertised as covering an area of 2,250,000 acres (910,543ha) and stocked with 26,000 head of cattle.[14] The auctioneer tried to open the bidding at £200,000 but could only attract a bid of £140,000 from an agent acting on behalf of a Victorian syndicate, who assured that all historic landmarks on the property would be preserved.[15]
During the 1960s, Brahman cattle were introduced to the property, which coincided with the appearance of Parkinsonia weeds at Elsey. The weevil Penthobruchus germaini, a chrysomelid of the subfamily Bruchinae, was introduced as a biological control for Parkinsonia in 1995, but it is still being poisoned to prevent it spreading.[16] In February 2000, Howard government representative John Herron handed over the title deeds of the property in a formal ceremony at Elsey to the traditional owners of the area, the Mangarrayi people. The Elsey claim had taken nearly nine years to resolve.[17]
In Australia, a station is a large landholding used for producing livestock, predominantly cattle or sheep, that needs an extensive range of grazing land. The owner of a station is called a pastoralist or a grazier, corresponding to the North American term "rancher".
Mataranka is a town and locality in the Northern Territory of Australia located about 420 km (260 mi.) southeast of the territory capital of Darwin, and 107 km (66 mi.) south of Katherine. At the 2016 census, Mataranka recorded a population of 350. 29.5% of residents are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.
Roper Bar is a location in Australia's Northern Territory. It lies on the traditional land of the Ngalakgan people, who refer to it as Yurlhbunji. This part of Australia is extremely remote for travellers, although there are a number of Aboriginal communities in the region including Ngukurr, Urapunga and Minyerri. A four-wheel drive trek through these parts can be an extension of the Gulf Track on a journey further up north to Darwin or Arnhem Land.
Jeannie Gunn was an Australian novelist, teacher and Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) volunteer.
Roper Gulf Regional Council is a local government area of the Northern Territory, Australia. The region covers an area of 185,210 square kilometres (71,510 sq mi) and had a population of 7,397 in June 2018.
We of the Never Never is an autobiographical novel by Jeannie Gunn first published in 1908. Although published as a novel, it is an account of the author's experiences in 1902 at Elsey Station near Mataranka, Northern Territory in which she changed the names of people to obscure their identities. She published the book under the name Mrs Aeneas Gunn, using her husband's first and last name. Over the years, newspapers and magazine articles chronicled the fortunes of the Elsey characters. Jeannie outlived all but Bett-Bett.
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We of the Never Never is a 1982 Australian drama film directed by Igor Auzins and starring Angela Punch McGregor, Arthur Dignam, John Jarratt, and Tony Barry. It is based on the 1908 autobiographical novel We of the Never Never by Jeannie Gunn. It was nominated for five AFI awards and earned one award for best cinematography.
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The Hundred of Douglas was a hundred of Gladstone County in the Northern Territory of Australia.
The Little Black Princess: a True Tale of Life in the Never-Never Land is a 1905 children's novel by the Australian author Jeannie Gunn.
John Roper was an English explorer in Australia, remembered as the last survivor of Ludwig Leichhardt's successful expedition from Brisbane, Queensland, to Port Essington in 1844–45.
↑ "About people". Border Morning Mail. Vol.XLVI, no.13636. New South Wales, Australia. 2 May 1949. p.2. Retrieved 27 June 2024– via National Library of Australia.
↑ Euphemia Lydia Oakes, Women in the world, The Australian Womans Mirror, 19 Sep 1933
↑ "Fannie Bay Gaol". Northern Territory Police Museum and Historical Society. 26 September 2021. Retrieved 6 March 2024.
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