Community & Business
5 November, 2024
Bitter fight by pioneers over Clifton’s land
It was standing room only at the CWA rooms in Clark Street for the launch of a new book Squatters, Sinners, & Selectors is a historical account of the battle to control the land from the Clifton Run from 1840 to circa 1900.
Author Diana Beal has not spared harsh criticism for many of the well known Squatters of the Clifton District as they became embroiled in the fight to control the rich farming land they saw as a pathway to wealth and power.
Ms Beal also recognises the harsh living conditions that pioneers had to endure and the almost impossible task that confronted them.
Typical of her contempt for the wealthy and admiration for the battlers is her statement, “From the young adventurers and the Lords of the Manor with inflated views of their worth to the hardworking families who came to grips with their new environment, persevered and succeeded by trial recognition and insight.”
The need and popularity of such a book is obvious given the attendance at the book launch as organisers were surprised by the big roll up of people interested in the history of land ownership in the district.
It can be assumed many people in the audience are descendants of the names mentioned in the book.
One couple visiting from Melbourne came to the book launch because they are descendants of the Enright family who took up land around Spring Creek in the 1800s.
The battle that took place in Australia between Squatters and the later Selectors is one that most Australians know little of and Ms Beal’s book explores this battle in some depth.
The Squatters were generally people of some wealth who saw the opportunity in newly explored lands to claim large tracts of land generally for grazing sheep.
Beal explores the extent of the enormous Clifton Run which varied in size from 64,000 acres in 1847 to 100,000 acres in 1851 with a carrying capacity of 10,000 sheep.
“The carrying capacity of the land was important for two reasons: firstly a low grazing capacity per acre justified holding larger tracks of land and secondly a tax was levied on a per head basis by the government,” she wrote.
“It was in the squatters’ interests to minimise the estimates of both metrics.”
It seems there’s nothing new about the wealthy attempting to avoid paying tax but ultimately the governments of the day moved later in the century to “unlock” the land from the squatters and the day of the small battling selector arrived.
Copies of the book sold like hot cakes at the launch and a new print run may well be needed such is the interest in the book.
Whether you’re a descendant of a Clifton pioneer family or not the story of the break up of the Clifton Run in Squatters, Sinners, & Selectors is the generally untold bitter battle and flaunting of the law that consumed the district for many decades.
It is a story worth knowing and Diana Beal’s book tells that story well.
At the event, local identity Anne Glasheen launch the book.
Ms Beal, a member of the Toowoomba & Darling Downs Family History Society, was helped in organising the launch by the likes of the Clifton CWA branch and the Society’s Secretary and Clifton resident Marionne Diggles.
Those wanting a copy of the book should contact the Society.
