Dr William Henry Pearse
Ship name / Flight number: Strathnaver
Arrival Date: 1950
In November 1950 the Big Brother Movement purchased a property at Canoblas Rd, Orange for ₤11,000 made possible by a ₤8,000 bequest from Dr W. H. Pearse. It was 700 acres and planned to be a second training farm. By July 1952 it was clear that the property required considerable capital invested to realise its potential and that was beyond the resources of BBM. The property was sold in January 1953 but the purchaser defaulted. It was resumed and finally sold at a profit in September 1954.
The Daily Telegraph Saturday 11th February 1950
The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate 7th June 1951
Former Little Brother John Hammond arrived in Sydney on the Moreton Bay on 7th June 1951. Here are his memories of Pearse Hill Farm at Mount Canoblas.
Pearse Hill farm at Mount Canoblas was known to the locals as Whites dairy farm.
When I got to the Sydney farm at Fairfield I was there for three days and Mr White, the manager, asked me if I would like to go to the new BBM farm at Orange. I said yes, and asked him where is Orange and he answered out west over the mountains. I was none the wiser, the next day we started to load the Morris truck with things that we would need there. There were two other boys coming too.
We set off the next morning. Two boys on the back of the truck so we took turns swapping around. We had beds and blankets kits so we covered ourselves up with them. Mr White only drove at 30 miles an hour (60kms) so it took us 12 hours to get there. When we arrived we were met by Mrs Brittain and Dr Pearse. Mrs Brittain was our cook, she was from Cootamundra.
Our sleeping quarters. The milking shed had 2 stands and a milk cooling room, BBM had a builder put a front on the milking bay and close it in and put a wood stove in to get a bit of heat. We went up to the house to eat. Mr White said our first job was to dig a ‘long drop’, a loo in other words and put a shelter over it. There was an old house at the gate to the property which was being pulled down. We got building materials from there for the loo. There was a machinery shed near the house which had an old Ford tractor there with a cracked block from frost.
The next day Mr White said we better check the place out.
The property was on the back road up to the Mount Canoblas about 2 miles from the village of Nashdale which had a school and post office. On the back road there was a gate to the property. A cutting was made through a rocky outcrop and the old house to the left, inside the gate. The old name to the property was called Rocky Road. The name was on the gate The main house was a quarter of a mile further up the road to the left on top of the ridge and the country flattened out to 100 acres, part of the property on the left of the road to the house was covered in blackberry bush, and from the house a path through the blackberry to the road to the Mount Road a fresh water spring ,with a pump which supplied water for the house. One of us had to go there every other day to start the motor to top up the tanks with water and look out for black snakes. On the other side of the mountain road was a creek in a deep gully, which had a 25 foot waterfall. It was in the neighbour’s property ,as the weather warmed ,us boys would go there and have a splash in the pool. Further up the mountain road there was a 30 acre paddock on the left and 50 acre on the right which had a stone fence on the boundary.
Before leaving the UK I had my driving license so I could drive the Morris truck to go to Orange for supplies. After being there for two or three weeks Mr. White got sick and I took him to hospital and from hospital, I think. Frank Mansell took him back to Sydney. In World War II he told me he was on the big guns and he suffered from shell shock. The cold was no good on his ears.
W R. Glasson from Gamboola and his wife Florence who was a pom, used to camp at times at the Mount Canoblas camping ground and they would call in to see how us boys were going. WR Glasson was on the BBM committee and also AB Carroll. Mr. Glasson got his manager to drive 25 head of cattle and two draft horses over to Pearson’s farm. A week later WR turned up with harness for the horses. There was a 2 disk horse plough at the property and he said harness the horses up and have a go at ploughing. In July and early August we had bad weather and 3 foot snowdrifts. The local boys tried to drive their Utes up there and they would get bogged in the snow. They would come to me and ask for a pull out with the horses. I pulled out three or four of them and after that I said that’s it if you are stupid enough to drive up there you can get yourselves out.
Another time one of the boys told me a cow was lying down and it had started to calve. When I got there it had been trying to calve for some time and had two legs sticking out of its back. The calf had its head turned back. I had to put my hand inside the cow and turn the head to allow it to follow through with the feet. We had a rope on the feet to help the calf free itself. After that experience one of the boys brought up his breakfast. I had helped my father do it when I was younger in the UK.
Another time when WR and Florence were there, he said he was sending a mob of sheep over to Pearse Hill farm. A week later a drover turned up with 150 sheep. He had three or four dogs with him and he told me he wanted to get rid of one of the young dogs. He reckoned it could make a good sheepdog he said would you like it? I said okay he knew his dogs. I found out later it was useless. I had it for about 10 years and it became just a house dog.
A few boys came and went while I was there, and when Frank Mansell was there in November 1951 I asked him what jobs are on your books. I am getting a bit sick of being here. He replied. Let me look into it and I’ll get back to you. A week later he came back and said there was a job going at Redbank in Molong on the AB Carroll Corredale sheep stud. The little brother that was there was leaving and he said he thought that would be a pretty good job to go to. A week later Mr. Carroll came to pick me up and when I said I had a dog he hummed and hawed a bit and then said okay bring it.
So that’s my few months at Pearse Hill farm. I went back there many years later Janet and Arthur Trewick bought the house and 40 acres and put it down to orchard. They also had Arthur‘s grandfather‘s Orchard at Nashdale.
AUB CANTRIL Brought the 30 acre loosen paddock and put a house on it. He was the government sheep inspector and we often used to see him out at Redbank. He and his wife used to stay there occasionally; the other paddock with a stone boundary fence on it was put down to orchard and a house put there that’s about all I can tell you.
Mount Canoblas was a very interesting place. Where Cadia mine is now I worked there for Frank Tolhurst. He owned 1000 acres that is now part of the mountain which Newcrest mines own. Originally the place was a copper mine and a three story bluestone block power house was built there with a beam engine in it. The beam engine was removed but the building was still there and Newcrest put a new roof on it and preserved it which is great when it was a copper mine. There was a village there with 200 people living there a school and a church, but when I was there were only footings of some of the houses. While there my family and I actually lived in the old manager’s house on top of a knob near the creek with a mineshaft a few hundred metres from the house. I had to put a fence around it to keep the boys out! I actually ploughed up most of the village, and put it down to grass seeds or should say I scarified it not ploughed it.