Shepherds and Shearers of the South Burnett

Jondaryan Woolshed

John McNamara, Mary Anne Barry and twenty three year old James arrived at Jondaryan Woolshed, 8 April 1864.

John was employed as a shepherd on a wage of £45 per year, earning additional £1/5/- per week tending ewes during lambing season. Mary Anne earned £10/10/- per year as Hut Keeper.

He tended over 5,000 sheep in an remote area of the run and was supplied a weekly ration of meat, flour, sugar, salt and tea.

The work of an isolated shepherd in Moreton Bay Colony could be very dangerous and in 1864 nobody had forgotten the horrific  massacre almost three years earlier of 19 station people by "friendly natives" at Cullin-la-Ringo, Central Queensland , 17 October 1861.

A Shilling a Score

James McNamara found employment as a yard builder earning £1/5/- a week. He worked alongside his future father-in-law Fred Fuller constructing sheep yards at strategic locations on Jondaryan.

Fred earned £2/-/- a week and was teamed with James after his sons William and Thomas had shown a distinct disliking for the job.

James earned extra income as one of the station's fourteen sheep washers. At the time Jondaryan ran 100,000 head of sheep. He was paid one shilling per score of sheep to wash grease and dirt off the live sheep's back before shearing.

Fred worked as a Wool Presser earning one shilling for every one hundred pounds pressed during the shearing season which ran from September to December.

Greener Pastures

The McNamara family left Jondaryan at the end of the shearing season on 19 December 1864. The Fullers followed two weeks later departing, 1 January 1865.

There is no record where any of family went in search of work. It is believed James found work as a stockman at Barambah while John and Mary Anne may have gone to Tarong to fill a saw milling position.

Mt. Perry Mines

Fred Fuller purchased land in Brisbane Street Nanango and the family found various positions in the town as servants and labourers.

Fred, William and Thomas joined the growing band of bullockies hauling timber, produce and goods throughout the South Burnett region.

Fred and Bridget Fuller moved to Mount Perry shortly after James McNamara married Mary Ann Fuller in 1867.

At that time Mt. Perry was in the middle of a mining boom, wages were good and jobs plentiful. Fred found employment as a miner earning £3 a week, almost twice the average weekly wage, but the thought of finding gold  was always in the back of the mind of the part time prospector and fossicker.

His son-in-law an expert horseman was a frequent visitor to the town taking part in the Mt. Perry hurdles races.

A Family Affair

The marriage of the not yet seventeen year old Mary Ann Fuller to twenty five year old James McNamara was the foundation of the family's life long association with the South Burnett region.

When the Fullers left Liverpool aboard the sailing ship "Irene" in 1856 they had little idea of the toll the harsh land, hard work and living rough would exact on their lives. The South Burnett offered no easy road to riches for these struggling families.

The Fuller family survived by pooling their manpower and money. Bridget Fuller supplemented her hutkeeper's wage as laundress for the Jondaryan homestead, while Fred's sons William and Thomas earned their keep working as shepherds, burr cutters and reluctant fence builders.

Likeable Larrikin

There is no doubt that Fred Fuller and hard work were inseparable companions. It was the only thing between him and his family going hungry.

Following their arrival in Moreton Bay Colony the Fullers headed to the Darling Downs in search of work. After finding their feet at Cecil Plains, the family moved to Jondaryan in 1863. Fred is believed to have met fellow shepherd and lamber John McNamara, wife Mary Anne and son James there in 1864.

Fred Fuller was a genuine "Jack of all trades". Shepherd, shearer, carter, ploughman prospector and bushman were all in a days work for him.

He was a likeable larrikin but his love for a quick quid and a glass of grog would be his ultimate undoing.

Fuller's Fatal Fall

Fred gained notoriety in January 1886 after surviving  for eight days eating lizard meat when he became hopelessly lost in the wilderness near Degilbo while prospecting for gold.

Undoubtedly, Fuller's bushcraft and years of experience in the South Burnett saved his life.

He again made headlines in Maryborough, Queensland, June 4 the same year after falling from a wagon in Adelaide Street while loading produce outside the warehouse of Jonathan Murray.

He is believed to have gone to the nearby Australian Hotel about five o'clock for a beer before he, son Bill and Murray's employee Richard Bowe finished loading a consignment of potatoes bound for Gayndah.

Not long after returning from the hotel he overbalanced while standing on top of the load and plunged headlong into the street. He suffered severe concussion and died from brain injuries the following morning.

Magistrate H. R. Buttanshaw conducted a coronial inquest into his death. Buttanshaw was appalled at the "inhuman behavior" of Fuller's son William and Publican Carl Jocumsen and the circumstances which led to the old bullocky's death.

William Fuller publicly acknowledged full responsibility for the death of his father and Jocumsen was not to blame. The Australian Hotel, owned by Margaret Irwin who had sold The Royal Oak  to William Fuller burned to the ground, 3 June 1889 - the sixth anniversary of Fred Fuller's death in the hotel lounge.