Faces of Tamworth: Landowner and grazier, Robert Pringle

Following the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1861, he had been careful to buy the choicest portions; those with waterfronts, gullies and creek flats. 

This was called “peacocking” or “picking the eyes out of the land” and it made it difficult for other selectors to acquire large properties. 

By the early 1860s, his main property,“Bubbogullion”, totalled 32,370 hectares. 

Here’s his story, according to A Chronological History of Tamworth.

What's this Faces of Tamworth all about?

In accordance with the provisions of the Orders in Council, a number of fourteen-year pastoral leases were announced in The Government Gazette of 1848.

Among the major ones was Bubbogullion - 59,574 hectares, later known as Bective station.

The lessee was Robert Pringle who had worked the station since about 1839.

“Bubbogullion” was the Aboriginal way of saying “Bobby’s gunyah”, that is, the home where “Bobby” Pringle lives.

The land was listed in the lease as “Bubbogullion South”, fronting the Peel River, and “Bubbogullion North”, fronting Attunga Creek, which it did for a very short distance.

This strategy was adopted to conceal the fact that “Bubbogullion” station actually straddled the Peel River.

In doing so, it contravened the terms of the Orders in Council, which clearly stated that while leases should have a water course frontage, they were not to straddle streams. 

Continuing drought during the 1840s meant that sheep were bringing only sixpence each at sales.

It was soon realised, however, that each sheep contained around six shilling’s worth of tallow. In an effort to capitalise of this, the A.A. Company and Robert Pringle of “Bubbogullion” set up joint works to boil down unsaleable animals.

A couple of years later, the Maitland Mercury reported the difficulty in obtaining feed between Maitland and Tamworth and that dray traffic had almost ceased.

In about 1864, Denis Patrick Hayes arrived in the district with his wife Margaret and found employment as a shepherd with Robert Pringle of “Bubbogullion”.

His hut was somewhere south-east of Somerton.

His teenage son, Michael James Hayes, periodically acted as a mailman between “Bubbogullion” and “Coomoo Coomoo”, another Pringle property on the Liverpool Plains.

Sometimes, he would ride through the Minarooba Gap in the Peel Range, following Major Mitchell’s route, but mostly he went via Bithramere and Winton through an unnamed gap in the range. No road has ever been built along this particular path.

One day, the bushranger “Thunderbolt” rode up the Hayes’s hut, identified himself and enquired the way to “Bubbogullion”, explaining that he planned to relieve Robert Pringle of some of his money.

Denis Hayes invited him to stay for lunch and after hearing that Pringle was a “good fellow” and a “good boss”, the bushranger was persuaded not to proceed with his plan.

Later, when someone reported to the “good boss” that his shepherd, Hayes, had entertained “Thunderbolt” to lunch, Pringle sacked him on the spot. 

The family thinks, however, that when he learned the truth behind the story, Pringle later financed Denis Hayes in his selection of land along Dungowan Creek.

Robert Pringle died on 13 February 1875 at the age of 75.

His wife had died fifteen years earlier and he was survived by two daughters.

He had continued to acquire land up until the time of his death.

Following the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1861, he had been careful to buy the choicest portions; those with waterfronts, gullies and creek flats.

This was called “peacocking” or “picking the eyes out of the land” and it made it difficult for other selectors to acquire large properties.

By the early 1860s, “Bubbogullion” (North and South) totalled 32,370 hectares.

It had a grazing capacity of 10,000 sheep and was, apparently, all leased as there is no mention of any freehold sections of it.

The annual leasing charges were £275.

Since the days of “Bobby’s Gunyah”, a new homestead and a new two-storeyed storeroom had been built, both not far from the original gunyah.

Bricks for both buildings were burnt on the site and for years afterwards, the remains of rejected bricks could still be found in Bective Gully.

The storeroom was a large one because shepherds and other employees found it convenient to come there to buy supplies instead of making the long, slow trip into town by horse and cart.

During the 1850s, while Pringle and his wife were visiting the British Isles, it is said that they met and took a fancy to the Countess of Bective, a very gracious lady.

On their return, they changed the name of their station from “Bubbogullion” to “Bective”.

Robert Pringle’s trustees were the Clerk of Petty Sessions, John McDonald; Magistrate David W.Irving; and William F. McCarthy, probably the father of one of Pringle’s sons-in-law.

They served his estate well and it prospered.

Four years after his death, it was carrying 24,500 sheep. By 1883, its stock return listed 50,600 sheep, 600 cattle and 200 horses, all on the original 32,370 hectares.

By the next year, the property had been increased in size to 43,660 hectares, made up of both leasehold and freehold land. 

- Information sourced from A Chronological History of Tamworth