Clark Irving – pastoralist and politician
Courtesy of Trove Farmer and Settler 20 August 1954
by Diana Mercer
In our third article recalling the pioneers of New South Wales, Diana Mercer tells about Clark Irving who once owned all the country from [Clarence] Broadwater to the Richmond.
Clark Irving was the biggest landholder on the Northern Rivers.
Besides being the first Member of Parliament to represent the Northern Rivers, Clark Irving was one of the largest landholders in the district. He first came to the Rivers in the very early 1840’s and took up land at Ellangowan and Blakebrook. Then he bought from Clay and Stapleton their huge Casino run, which he renamed Tomki. At the time there was a bad drought and the river at The Falls, as the tiny settlement which subsequently became the town of Casino was called, was so low that you could cross it without wetting your feet.
Cattle Deal
Tomki Station at that time carried only 700 cattle on its 2500 acres, but Mr. Irving, taking advantage of the hard times brought about by the drought, bought from Major Innes, of Port Macquarie, and Mr. Wiseman, of Wiseman’s Ferry, 13,000 head of cattle at 10/6 per head, with calves under six months given in free. Three years later he built the first boiling down works on the Richmond River, the tallow from the cattle bringing as much as £3 a head. In 1849 he bought Bungawalbyn station and a year later Ashby on the Clarence. He also owned out stations at Gibberagee, Tullymorgan and Tucombil. Travellers Rest was bought from Walter Hindmarsh not long after. By this time he owned or held all the country from Broadwater (Clarence River) along the coast to the Richmond.
Beef For Cedar
Besides the boiling down works, Mr. Irving established the first meat curing establishment to salt and pickle carcases, which were sold to shipping services. Some went to Mauritius and other places abroad. However, the meat curing did not pay as well as the tallow which continued to rise in price. With the start of the Crimean War it went so high that no other beef enterprise could compete with it. Beef was also traded at Tomki for cedar at the rate of 3/- to 4/- per 100 feet, squared into flitches, with no sap or unsound timber allowed. At the time this enterprise was started there was a slump in timber of all sorts. Some cedar getters received no payment at all for timber sent to Sydney, so this local selling suited them very well. When the depression lifted, and with the gold rush and the Crimean War, prices began to rise and cedar went to £3 per 100 in Sydney. Mr. Irving must have been well repaid for his enterprise.
Clark Irving was elected to Parliament for the first time in 1856, representing the Northern Rivers and the Darling Downs. In this huge electorate there were less than 50 names on the roll for the Northern Rivers and their affairs were, naturally, not greatly considered in the first Parliament. In 1859 Queensland was separated from N.S.W. and Mr. Irving was elected to represent the Clarence electorate.
In Parliament
By this time the number of names on the electoral roll had grown to 516 and he was opposed by two other candidates – Edward Michael Ryan, owner of Waterview Station, near South Grafton, and Alexander McKellar, of Runnymede Station, near Casino. The contest for the seat was described as ‘rather bitter, with sentiment being symbolised by the Rose, the Shamrock and the Thistle.’ Clark Irving won the day with a fair majority and retained his seat until 1863 when, on the motion of a Mr. W. Forster, it was declared vacant ‘by reason of Clark Irving, Esquire, having absented himself from this House during an entire Session without permission of the Assembly entered upon its Journals.’
The reason was that he had been away in England. However, in spite of this he was elected in his absence and retained his seat until 1864. Apart from the absence in England, Mr. Irving was a most energetic member and did a tremendous amount of good for the hitherto neglected North Coast. He was a director and one of the prime movers in the establishment of the Clarence and Richmond Rivers Steam Navigation Company, two of whose vessels, the Agnes and the Florence were named after his daughters.
Harbor Plan
He secured the grant for the harbor works at Clarence Heads which were begun in 1863. Had his plans been carried out, it is possible there would be a deep sea port at Iluka today. However, a change of Government brought about a change of policy and much of the work Clark Irving was instrumental in starting was allowed to lapse. He also caused the Government to do something about the appalling condition of the roads, where bullocks were sometimes bogged to their necks. The road from Tenterfield to Lawrence via Wyan, and the road from Grafton to Tenterfield via Coaldale were the result of his representations, and for the first time a road connecting the New England Range with the coast was started, linking Glen Innes and Armidale with the transport facilities of the Rivers.
First Telegraph
Through Mr. Irving, too, the first telegraph link from Tenterfield and Grafton to the Pilot Station at Yamba, on the mouth of the Clarence, was installed. He did a lot for Grafton which, in the 1860’s, was the largest town on the North Coast. He was largely responsible for the establishment of the municipality of Grafton and the founding of the hospital. By buying most of the printing machinery, he enabled the first newspaper, the Clarence and Richmond Examiner, to start in 1859. He also gave his attention to organising a lot of small routine matters that function these days without anyone being aware of them – the collection of moneys for land purchase and establishment of various officials in small centres. These seem small matters indeed, but their absence caused a very great deal of inconvenience and tedious travelling when a man had to go to Grafton to pay his dues or register a claim.
During the American Civil war a battalion of volunteers was formed on the North Coast to go and fight for the British. Clark Irving took a great interest in this venture and it is recorded that during an official visit to Grafton in 1862 he was regaled with a champagne dinner at which the volunteers formed a guard of honor and Mr. Irving presented them with £10, five of which were to be used as a prize for shooting and five “for refreshments.”
The Irving family did not at first live at Tomki, Henry Barnes of Dyraaba being installed as manager.
However, later a fine homestead was built and here Clark and his wife, Adelaide, reared three sons and two daughters. All the children were educated in Sydney and when they went to England the boys were sent to Cambridge. Mr Irving retained his seat in Parliament until his death in 1865. The family seems to have remained in England, but in 1872 the eldest son, John Charles, returned to take over the management of his father’s vast holdings.
Selectors
The proclaiming of the John Robertson Land Act in 1861, which gave people the right to select land formerly held by the big station owners, sounded the death knell of the enormous holdings and enabled the small farmer to establish himself. By the 1880’s most of the squatters’ big runs were cut up and the gallant days of the almost feudal system of gentleman station owners were over, but in their time they did a mighty job of opening up the country.
