Pastoral Life

When TLM-P wrote his memoir about his voyage to Australia, he commented that he was too ill to work outside, 'almost the first time after sixty years of robust health'. That desire for physical activity, backed by sound health, would be a major determinant of the direction his life, and success, took in Australia.

The first thing TLM-P needed was to gain colonial experience, a form of internship to learn the ways of the colony. He did so on a property Dalwood, near Maitland in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney.¹⁾ Dalwood House (pictured) is now a National Trust Property, but located within the Wyndham Estate Winery - as at 2016, it was not open to the public.²⁾

How and why did he end up at Dalwood? The likely reason is his school network. Dalwood was owned by George Wyndham and his wife Margaret. Her father, John Jay, after business losses during the Napoleonic Wars, had 'conducted a school for English boys in Brussels'.³⁾ Was this the one associated with the Rev Drury that TLM-P had attended, or another one? It seems likely that it was this connection that resulted in him going to Dalwood. TLM-P was lucky as George Wyndham was generally admired: 'Respected for his leniency to his assigned labour in the early days and himself a hard worker in the field, George Wyndham considered himself mainly a farmer and pastoralist. He was highly respected within both the local and wider community.'⁴⁾ George Wyndham kept a diary from 1830-40, and Wyndham family letters have also survived, but these have not yet been checked for any contain a reference to TLM-P.⁵⁾ TLM-P was also lucky in encountering George in the 1840s and not Wadham Wyndham, who 40 years later in a frenzy of religious mania, slaughtered his entire family.⁶⁾

Having gained colonial experience, TLM-P was appointed manager of Rocky Creek Station, in the Nandewar Ranges, in the Northern Tablelands of NSW.⁷⁾ A contemporary view of Rocky Street Station by artist Mick Pospischil.
The station appears to have been owned by the Pringles, but to date, no further information is known about the station, its owners, or how long TLM-P worked as its manager.

Despite the sacrifice his mother had to make to give him a few sovereigns, he had enough capital to acquire and stock a property. He was too late to be given a free land grant as those had ceased in 1831. Until 1836, the only land that people could legally buy was within Nineteen_Counties, an area bounded by Kempsey in the north, Batemans Bay in the south and Wellington to the West. From 1836, the situation of the large numbers of people who broke that law, called squatters, was regulated: from then they could occupy the land as theirs (regardless of traditional owners) for £10 per year. TLM-P became one of these squatters. When he wrote to Leichhardt in September 1843, he mentioned that he intended 'selling my station and believe I have already got a purchaser'. He had stocked it with sheep and horses.⁸⁾

TLM-P struck up a friendship with the German naturalist and explorer,Ludwig Leichhardt. Leichhardt was six years older than TLM-P, and arrived in Sydney three years later, in 1842. In September that year he visited Dalwood property where TLM-P was working, and in June that year the two travelled together to Moreton Bay.⁹⁾ In September 1843, TLM-P wrote to Leichhardt from Limestone (south of Rockhampton, Queensland).¹⁰⁾ The legible parts of the letter reveal that the two men had both, as TLM-P wrote, been great travellers. TLM-P had been in Sydney the previous week and was now 'on the Logan River' and planning to sell his current property to go into partnership in another property with a friend Aikman. TLM-P referred to travelling with Leichhardt, asking him if he 'would like again to be “Compagnons de voyage” (travelling companion)'. Leichhardt had a divisive personality, with people tending to either warmly admire or, equally warmly, dislike him.¹¹⁾ TLM-P was firmly in the former category, referring to him in his letter as his 'chere amie' (dear friend) and sending news of mutual friends, including Anne,'a very nice girl'. Perhaps it helped that TLM-P could converse easily in French, though there is no indication that he knew Leichhardt's mother tongue.

PRIOR T L M Rosewood Moreton Bay Rosewood 18/09/1843 ¹²⁾

TLM-P went into partnership to acquire his second property on 24 September 1845. His partner, Hugh Henry Robertson Aikman, had owned the property he called Broomelton since 1842.¹³⁾. ¹⁴⁾ Broomelton was on the Logan River, 35 miles from Brisbane: TLM-P stayed in the partnership until 1850.¹⁵⁾murray-prior-thomas-lodge-4282))