Belshaw Wedding, Sydney, 1944

My parents were married in Sydney in 1944. From left to right, the best man, Dad, Mum, Aunt Helen (Helen Drummond).

New England Australia - the world wool built

This photo shows Belltrees homestead in the Hunter Valley.

The house was designed for the White family, one of New England's pastoral dynasties, by J W Pender, one of three generations of the family firm of Maitland architects who left such an impression on the New England built landscape.

This is part of the world that wool built. Now fading from memory, this was a world of struggle but also of great wealth.

Over coming weeks I plan to run selected photos and other material that will (I hope) bring this world alive. You will find the whole series by searching on wool.

New England Australia - the world wool built 2: the dray

This lithograph by the artist Samuel Thomas Gill (1818 - 1880 - Ballarat Fine Art Gallery) shows wool being carried by dray.

When European settlement began, the new settlers hugged the coast and waterways. Land transport was just too expensive.

Wool changed this because it provided a high value product that could justify land transport.

New England Australia - the world wool built 3: development of wool

• John Macarthur (1767 - 1834) is generally regarded as the founder of the Australian wool industry, although others such as Samuel Marsden also played a part.

Macarthur was a difficult man, something of a commercial buccaneer, whose clashes with various Governors culminated in Australia's one and only military coup.

The first auction of Australian wool was held at Garraway's Coffee House in London in 1821. By 1838 sheep had moved into every Australian colony, the annual wool clip was over two million kilos and wool had become Australia's main export.

New England Australia - the world wool built 4: the 19 counties and the limits of settlement

Today, people best know Murrurundi as a small settlement just before the New England Highway leaps up the Liverpool Range. In fact, this was frontier country.

In 1829 Governor Darling attempted to control the limits of settlement by proclaiming 19 counties surrounding Sydney. Murrurundi lay on the northern edge. To go further north meant being outside the rule of law.

The move failed. Wool boomed in 1830 and settlement spread rapidly.

Those going beyond the bounds of settlement became known as squatters because they were squatting on the land without license or payment.

New England Australia - the world wool built 5: the Aborigines

European settlement moved in two broad streams, one inland, one river hopping up the coast.

The world the squatters entered was not unpopulated. Indeed, while population densities varied, New England was quite densely populated, especially along the humid coastal strip.

The map (original here) shows the distribution of Aboriginal language groups. The Hunter tribes had already felt the impact of European settlement. Now all Aborigines would be affected.

New England Australia - the world wool built 6: heading north

Those heading north to take up land had to pack everything onto drays, not just tools and household goods, but also basic rations.

The drays travelled at best at the pace of the stock, creating a constant stream of noise and dust. Men were needed not just to drive the drays, but also to act as shepherds.

This much late photo from the Powerhouse Powerhouse Museum shows teamsters having a break. While later, it gives a feel.

New England Australia - the world wool built 7: squatter's daugher

This painting by George W. Lambert painted in 1923-1924 is simply called The squatter's daughter.

The squatters who went north from the Hunter Valley to find new land may have been just that, illegal squatters, but within a short time in historical terms they were to become an establishment in their own right.

New blog posts as at 7 September 2008

On Personal Reflections, the week's posting began with Sunday Essay - chick flick books, social change and the desire to escape, further musings on the process of social change in Australia.

This was followed on 1 September by two posts: Blog Performance - August 2008 and then Political parties are NOT brands. The second complains about the misuse of language and the way that this affects thinking.

On 2 September I returned to the Haneef matter in The wheels continue to come off the Haneef case. As, indeed, they continue to do.

3 September saw two posts. Mechanistic management and Mr Rudd's education revolution suggests that whole Rudd education revolution is bound up in the semantics of modern managerialism, set within the bounds of past ideas, while 3 September 1939 - the Second World War starts simply notes that the anniversary of the start of the Second World War appears to have passed without any comment at all in the Australian media.

4 September saw Ethnicity, ideology and the sometimes slippery concept of Australian "independence" - Part One: "Independence" followed on 5 September by Ethnicity, ideology and the sometimes slippery concept of Australian "independence" - Part Two: Australian Identity . Both posts discuss aspects of Australian history and identity.

There were two posts on 6 September. The costs of standardisation and uniformity continues my constant discussion on management and public policy, while in Election Night 6 September 2008 I tried my hand at live blogging the WA election results.

7 September saw Sunday Snippets - As Darkness Falls, New England Woes, Hugh Frewen, a pot pouri post.

On New England Australia there were three posts. The week began with As Darkness Falls - a good read, a review of Bronwyn Parry's new book. This was followed on 3 September by NSW's home building collapse, a brief note on the decline in home building in NSW. 4 September saw New England Australia - blogs, an update on blogs located in or about New England.

There were also three posts on Regional Living Australia.

Regional Australia - how much does food cost pointed people to the Grocerychoice site as a way of getting information on average grocery prices in particular areas, while Regional Australia Food & Wine - Orange revisited simply pointed people to an earlier post on this topic. This was followed on 5 September by Musings on Australian food and wine which is as the name says.

There were just two posts on Managing the Professional Services Firm. Raising one's eyes unto the hills simply provided a copy of one of Gordon Smith's photos, while Establishing a Discipline of Practice - stocktake of posts is as the name says.

A Change in Direction - and new blog posts as at 30 August 2008

This has been a very sad a lonely little blog, quite neglected because of time constraints. I still want it to serve its original purpose, but I also need something further if it is to continue. So I am adding to it weekly reports on the posts I have written, making it a little more like Neil's Gateway blog.

So what is new, or at least relatively new, in the world of Belshaw blogging?

Over on Personal Reflections, the week began with The social and economic pain of demographic change, part of a conversation I have been having with Bob Quiggin. This was followed by The apparent silliness of Headmaster Rudd's truancy plan, a somewhat negative response to Mr Rudd's proposal to withdraw social services benefits from parents who failed to send their kids to school.

£35 on eBay buys details of one million bank accounts reports on the latest computer security breach in the UK, a country now famous world wide for this type of problem. Then Ethnicity in Hurstville - and other Australian cities provides hints for HSC students and others who may want to find out the ethnic make-up of various Australian localities.

My other blogs have been in catch-up mode, bringing older posts on-line. I will provide details here in my next report.