The pastoral families of the Hunter Valley, 1880-1914
Date
1978
Authors
Eldred-Grigg, Stevan Treleaven
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Abstract
The Hunter valley in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries was a burgeoning rural society. Its population of humans,
cattle, sheep and horses grew rapidly. The number of its farms increased from 5,000 in 1885 to over 11,000 by 1914. Although legal
and social attacks were launched on the unequal distribution of property
in this society between 1880 and 1914, the economic structure
remained fairly stable. While the community as a whole grew richer,
the rich grew richer too. The principal forms of property in the
Hunter valley were land and animals; in 1880 ownership of this property
was concentrated in a marked way into the hands of a few score
families and after more than thirty years remained almost as concentrated.
Ownership of property among this handful of families was
largely hereditary, and although there was a good deal of transference
of property from one individual or partnership to another, estates
tended to remain with the same few score families. These families
were a stable and distinct economic elite in a prosperous expanding
society.
The economic elite did not form a complete marriage or social
elite, being divided within itself into circles of connubiality and
acquaintance which on occasion crossed the lines of economic class .
Religion acted as an arbitrary divider of th economic elite, but
education seemed to unite many members of the group - along with
other well-to-do people - into something of a status elite. The
economic elite clearly dominated certain fields of political , military,
magisterial and other power in the Hunter valley and was certainly disproportionately influential in most. On the other hand, many
members of the economic elite took no part in public life and did not
act as leaders. In two particular environments important to the
economic elite - their estates and their homesteads - they were
clearly distinguishable in their customs from all other people in
the community.
The economic elite - which I have dubbed 'the pastoral families'
- was a successful propertied group which had acquired, and was
acquiring status and power in varying degrees. Those status and power
forms that could be paid for in cash were common to all the pastoral
families. But where personality, public presence and other intangibles
came into play - as in so many institutions of rural society - only
some pastoral families held authority or were admired by their economic
inferiors.
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