Momba Station is a

pastoral lease A pastoral lease, sometimes called a pastoral run, is an arrangement used in both Australia and New Zealand where government-owned Crown land is leased out to graziers for the purpose of livestock grazing on rangelands. Australia Pastoral lease ...

that operates as a

sheep station A sheep station is a large property ( station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or sout ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. The property is situated approximately south east of White Cliffs and north east of

Wilcannia Wilcannia is a small town located within the Central Darling Shire in north western New South Wales, Australia. Located on the Darling River, the town was the third largest inland port in the country during the river boat era of the mid-19th ce ...

History

Momba Station on the

Paroo River The Paroo River, a series of waterholes, connected in wet weather as a running stream of the Darling catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in the South West region of Queensland and Far West region of New South Wales, Austra ...

and the

Darling River The Darling River (Paakantyi: ''Baaka'' or ''Barka'') is the third-longest river in Australia, measuring from its source in northern New South Wales to its conflu ence with the Murray River at Wentworth, New South Wales. Including its long ...

was established by the brothers Edward and

Frederic Bonney Frederic Bonney (1842–1921) was a British landowner and photographer. He took photographs at Momba Station in New South Wales in the 1870s and he was known for these and his anthropology. He was born and died in Rugeley, Staffordshire. Life ...

. Frederic arrived in 1865 to join his brother after both of them had been attracted to the country by their uncle,

Charles Bonney Charles Bonney (31 October 1813 – 15 March 1897) was a pioneer and politician in Australia. Early life Bonney was the youngest son of the Rev. George Bonney, a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and his wife Susanna, née Knight. He was born ...

. Frederic Bonney sold the station and went back to the United Kingdom in 1881 due to his brother's poor health. Bonney however recorded some important anthropology through his writing and his enthusiasm for photography. Some of his original images were lost, but his work has been published in two books and they include photographs of the

Paakantyi The Paakantyi, or Barkindji or Barkandji, are an Australian Aboriginal tribal group of the Darling River (known to them as the Baaka) basin in Far West New South Wales, Australia. Name The ethnonym Paakantyi means "River people", formed fr ...

. These were the Aboriginal people who lived near the Paroo river who became labourers on the station. In the late 1860s the property occupied an area of .

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

' son, Plorn, was withdrawn from school and he was at Momba Station a few days before his sixteenth birthday in 1868. He worked as a stockman at Momba in the late 1860s to 1872 when he established Yanda Station. By 1883 the owners had spent £102,080 on improvements at both Momba and Mount Murchison. In 1884 the property occupied an area of , and was the largest grazing property in New South Wales. At the time it extended north from the

at Wilcannia and was wide. It was owned by the Momba Pastoral Company, the principals of which later formed Elders. From 1902 Momba was successively subdivided.

Peter Waite Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

owned the property in 1906 when he and other pastoralists in the area formed the Pastoralists' Association of West Darling. Momba was advertised in 1913 with a total area of and carrying a flock of 55,000 sheep, 44 cattle and 154 horses. At his time the property had approximately of double frontage to the

including the flood plains and wetlands of the

. It was most likely purchased by Joseph Timms who owned the property in 1917. Timms disposed of 100,000 sheep to Ben Chaffey of Moorna Station. Later the same year, Timms sold of a portion of the station to Messrs King and Allison of Wilcannia. In 1924 the station was put up for auction by Timms and

Sidney Kidman Sir Sidney Kidman (9 May 18572 September 1935), known as Sid Kidman and popularly named "the Cattle King", was an Australian pastoralist and entrepreneur who owned or co-owned large areas of land in Australia in his lifetime. Early life Sidne ...

as part of an aggregation of over 1.4 million acres. Momba with an area of , Mount Murchison with , Purnanga with , and two smaller leases which all had a combined carrying capacity of approximately 100,000 sheep. Struck by

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

in 1927, the property had been carrying 9,000 head of cattle but only 2,000 were expected to survive. In 1950 the remainder of the property was divided into ten leases including Peery, Mandalay and Arrowbar.Westbrooke, M., J. Leversha, M. Gibson, M. O'Keefe, R. Milne, S. Gowans, C. Harding, and K. Callister. 2003. The vegetation of Peery Lake area, Paroo-Darling National Park, western New South Wales. Cunninghamia 8: 111–128.

The station today

Tom Brinkworth acquired Momba at some point prior to 2006. He also owns the Duntroon, the adjacent property Mena Murtee, Goorimpa on the Paroo, Ulalie and Bon View Stations. Since then the Brinkworth family has also acquired the properties Kalkaroo, Annalara, Wild Duck, Tillenbury, Purnawilla, Bimpero and Gumbalara to add to the Watervalley Pty Ltd portfolio of Western NSW holdings

References

{{Stations of Sidney Kidman Pastoral leases in New South Wales Stations (Australian agriculture)

History

The station today

See also

References