
Duncan Cooper (1813/14–1904)
Early Australian Homestead c. 1845
watercolour;
15.7 x 26.5 cm Rex Nan Kivell Collection, NK10163/4
nla.pic-an2686113
NEW SETTLERS
The major exploring expeditions that paved the way for the spread of settlement are well known. What is less appreciated—because history books generally do not record their stories—is that many settlers were in effect explorers themselves.
They pursued straying stock, followed returned explorers’ reports of potentially good arable land, and struck out on their own to seek new grazing or farming land. With their horse- or bullock-drawn carts and their small herds and flocks, settlers pushed out beyond the boundaries of settled country and established their homesteads. Some families lived on the road. Some, like droving families, still do.
Many achieved success, but others found it an unfamiliar and desperately hard and lonely life. The need for perseverance, stamina and making the best of it perhaps contributed to our national psyche and our ‘can do’ attitude.
Gradually tracks turned into roads, and villages became cities, the growth of which was sometimes hastened by such events as the discovery of gold. Bathurst, for instance, the first settlement on the western side of the Blue Mountains, exploded in size when gold was discovered nearby in 1851.