Wantabadgery Essay

With thanks to Sherry Morris, author of Junee: A Thematic History, a report compiled for the Junee Shire Wide Community Based Heritage Study Committee, Unpublished
Wantabadgery Station is in south-western NSW between Wagga Wagga and Gundagai on the Murrumbidgee River. The original inhabitants of the area were the Wiradjuri people. They travelled in small groups over large areas of southern NSW hunting and gathering and often camped by the Murrumbidgee at Wantabadgery. The Aborigines called the area Pondebadgery.
In December 1829, a group of explorers led by Captain Charles Sturt, trying to determine the course of the Murrumbidgee, were the first Europeans to come to the area. Two Wiradjuri men showed him the best routes to avoid the steep hills. Sturt was impressed by the wide flood plain at Pondebadgery, describing the soil as “of the richest description” and saying that together with the hills backing on to it, would be capable of supporting the most extensive flocks.

The first pastoralist in the area was James Thorn, who bought a lease as a squatter in 1837. By 1840, Thorn employed a superintendent, six free males, six convicts and two Aborigines. The property was estimated to be 108 square miles, extending from Nangus in the east, well beyond Eurongilly in the north and westward to

Eringoarrah Station. Cattle and sheep grazed over this huge area.
Wantabadgery was bought by Walter Orton Windeyer during the 1850s or 1860s and in 1866 it was 64,000 acres.

He extended his flock of Merinos as demand for wool exports grew. In addition, he had thousands of shorthorn cattle bought in Goulburn from the champion breeder Mrs Chisolm . Windeyer built a stone homestead on the site of the current Wantabadgery East homestead in 1862 and the first woolshed on the site where the Wantabadgery Public Hall was later built. In 1879, it passed to Mr Dangar and the Macdonald brothers, Falconer and Claude, who later bought out Mr Dangar. The Macdonalds improved the woolshed, which included a holding pen for 2,000 sheep, with 22

shearers.

“Lou Hartwig was busy building the settlement’s first haystack, assisted by his neighbour, Fred Hazelwood, and Charlie Morgan, the caretaker of the blocks. ‘We all help each other here,’ Hartwig told us. ‘It’s the only way for people like us, starting from scratch.’ This community spirit was always strong among the soldier settlers at Wantabadgery.
The effect of soldier settlement on the Wantabadgery community and on neighbouring Eurongilly was marked. Not only did the land become much more productive as a result of the removal of rabbits, clearing of dead wood and rocks and intensified farming methods but the communities became vibrant. Eurongilly and Wantabadgery public schools grew with the influx of the new families. School buses were started or expanded to reach the children on the many new farms. The Wantabadgery Hall was redeveloped, mainly as a result of fundraising through gymkhanas, and a new church was built.
Today, few of the original soldier settler families remain, however their legacy has been a thriving farming community which, despite the advent of improved transport and communications to Wagga and Junee, still has a strong community spirit.