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The early history - 1827-1862
In 1827, the explorer Alan Cunningham was the first European to traverse the Darling Downs.
It was not until thirteen years later, however, that the pastoralists of New South Wales showed any interest in the report of Cunningham's discovery of vast expanses of rich downs country.
After that, individuals in need of fresh areas for their rapidly accumulating stock ventured forth to this area, which was then part of New South Wales.
Richard Todd Scougall
The first pioneer owner of Jimbour was Richard Todd Scougall, who was a native of Scotland, where his father was a prominent shipowner. Scougall came to Australia in 1832 in his own ship. He was the first person to bring "free" white employees to this country. He first took up land on the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales but, between 1838 and 1840, he applied for a license to take up land beyond the areas that were settled at that time.
Scougall, being somewhat overstocked on his property, "Elderslie," had sent Henry Dennis to seek out new land on his behalf. Dennis, coming from the south, crossed the Darling Downs and eventually took up Jimbour for his employer. Henry Stuart Russell, when writing in 1841 of the events that occurred on the Darling Downs in the year 1840, said:- "Henry Dennis was creeping under the western fringe of the Range, searching for the heads of any watercourses further north, and ultimately marked that of Jimbour, on behalf of Henry Scougall." The total area was about 300,000 acres.
By 1842 Scougall had established at Jimbour a flock of 11,000 sheep and some 700 head of mixed cattle- making it the first fully-stocked station on the Darling Downs. These were mostly brought from the Hunter River Valley in New South Wales.
Scougall did little to develop Jimbour after 1842. He apparently fell into financial difficulties about that time and, in 1843, negotiations were commenced for the sale of the property to Thomas Bell of Sydney. Scougall soon afterwards became bankrupt due to a series of misfortunes, culminating in the crash of the Bank of Australasia, in which he was a shareholder. He later died in Maryborough.
Leichhardt Expedition
Ludwig Leichhardt, a German immigrant, was one of Australia's greatest explorers with the epic 5,000 klm, 1844-1845 journey from south-east Queensland to the then settlement of Port Essington, north-east of Darwin, standing as one of the greatest tales of endurance and persistence in Australia's early history.
In the original journey, two members turned back and one was killed by Aborigines and the whole expedition was given up for dead.
Leichhardt had been in Australia for two years when he heard of plans for an expedition from Sydney to Port Essington - an outpost on the coast of the Northern Territory.
The expedition was to be led by Sir Thomas Mitchell but Governor of the time, Governor Gipps, declared that it was an expedition of so hazardous and expensive a nature, without the knowledge and consent of the Colonial OfficeIrritated by this delay, Leichhardt organised his own expedition.
With a party of six he left Sydney on 13 August 1844, and were eventually joined by another four people in Moreton Bay on their way to Jimbour.
At the time, Jimbour was the last major outpost of European settlement.
There he assembled the personnel of this overland expedition, and broke in his horses and bullocks.
The house in which Leichhardt stayed was a primitive slab hut which burnt down in 1867.
In his diary, Leichhardt records that on 1st October, 1844:
"After having repaired some harness which had become broken by our refractory bullocks upsetting their loads and after my companions had completed their arrangements in which Mr. Bell kindly assisted, we left Jimba and launched buoyant with hope into the wilderness”.
On 1st October the party left Jimbour and, for the next fifteen months, they traversed western Queensland and the north-eastern section of the Northern Territory - a distance of nearly 5000 km.
The group eventually arrived at Port Essington on 17 December 1845, in a state of exhaustion. By this time people in Sydney had assumed that the party had perished; so their delight at news of the arrival was based on surprise as much as an acknowledgement of Leichhardt's achievements.
On his return to Sydney on 25 March 1846 Leichhardt was greeted as a new national hero and widely hailed as the 'Prince of Explorers'.
Leichhardt's life was the subject of Patrick White's novel "Voss", wherein White describes Leichhardt's arrival at Jimbour in a wonderfully evocative passage which reads:-
'By now the tall grass was almost dry, so that there issued from it a sharper sighing when the wind blew. The wind bent the grass into tawny waves, on the crests of which floated the last survivors of flowers, which shrivelled and were sucked under by the swell.'
As a result of Leichhardt's reports on the land beyond Jimbour, there began a great push for settlement of the Darling Downs area and beyond, including the Dawson River area and the Central Western region of Queensland.
Today, when entering the village of Jimbour from Dalby, there is a small sign pointing towards a plaque laid in 1955 by the Royal Geographical Society commemorating Leichhardt's journey.
For further information go to the Living History Walk and Explorer Ludwig Leichhardt & Jimbour sections in the Tourism area of this website. |
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