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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 49| February 2001


Drovers Oral History Project

The Drovers oral history project is a significant addition to the National Library Collection, featuring interviews with 14 drovers recorded during the Drovers’ Camp Festival in July 2000. This annual festival at Camooweal in Queensland attracts approximately 1000 visitors.

Former drover Bruce Simpson interviewed the drovers, with some assistance from historian Bill Gammage. The interviews record a uniquely Australian way of life, now largely lost. The drovers tell their personal and family histories, relate many yarns of bush life and give detailed information about the practices associated with looking after stock and the changes over the last 30 years. Perhaps most importantly, these interviews record speech and terminology particular to bush life in 20th-century Australia.

With responsibility for a mob of up to 1500 cattle in the remoteness of the bush, the boss drover had to be independent and tough, an excellent horseman, able to manage cattle as well as men. The priorities for a boss drover were the cattle, the horses and finally the men, as drovers were paid per head delivered. The drovers moved the cattle along according to their natural routine to feed and water. The drovers would have to lead the bullocks in dry spells, sometimes as far as 40 miles. All the interviews show great respect and understanding for cattle and a willingness to work with their natural habits. Proud of a job well done, the drovers were not beneath showing off, as Ab Teece illustrates: ‘They’d stir the cattle up and leave all their droppings on camp so you could show the next drovers along how well fed your cattle were.’

The drovers

The horse plant was made up of workhorses, nighthorses and packhorses with each drover riding four or five horses during a trip. The night horses were most important, as their skills were essential to control the rushes (stampedes) at night. The horses needed to be fast and sure-footed with excellent eyesight and temperament. The horse tailer was responsible for getting horses to water and feed and rounding them up in the morning.

The industry started to change during the 1960s and 1970s with the use of more economical helicopters and trucks to muster and transport cattle. An earlier interview with Jeff Hill gives a thorough account of the origins of helicopter mustering in Australia. Most of the drovers interviewed agreed that horses were still needed on the ground to steady the cattle. In 1974 when cattle prices dropped the drovers were expected to move larger numbers, a trend the drovers generally dislike, as they believe cattle are not adequately fed and watered in large mobs.

Although droving is considered a hard life, the drovers interviewed have no regrets about their careers. They conveyed a sense of love for the bush and desert life, and a great deal of respect for their animals and fellow drovers.
—Karen Anderson

Above, from left to right: Bill Gammage (historian), Paul Finlay (drover), Bruce Simpson (interviewer)

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