John Arthur Macartney
John Arthur Macartney (5 April 1834 - 10 June 1917) was an Irish-born Australian colonist, pastoralist, squatter and grazier who established a large number of frontier cattle stations in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
His great-grandfather was Walter Hussey Burgh, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and his grandfather was Sir John Macartney, 1st Baronet of Lish, County Armagh.
His father, the Very Reverend Hussey Burgh Macartney had come to Australia to take up the position of the Dean of Melbourne within the Anglican church, a role he held until 1894.
Macartney soon acquired two large parcels of land: Glenmore on the northern bank of the Fitzroy River; and Waverley on grassland plains inland from Broad Sound.
Macartney's own father, who held the respected social position of the Dean of Melbourne, is even quoted as saying that the Aboriginal people "were not the rightful owners of the soil" and had "not been unjustly dispossessed by the white man.
[1] In 1859, Macartney attempted to stock the Belmont property with sheep when a shepherd named Tarrant was killed by local Aboriginal men.
"[4] In 1860 and 1861, Macartney formed or bought several other squatting pastoral properties in the region including Yatton, Avon Downs, Wolfang, Huntley, St Helens and Bloomsbury.
Drought, flood and financial difficulties in the early 1870s at Waverley contributed to Macartney deciding to expand his pastoral interests into the newly colonised areas of western Queensland.
The government report of the region just before Macartney's purchase read that some of the country consisted of "magnificent plains" but also that "the natives are numerous and inclined to be hostile.
[1] Undeterred, Macartney organised 1,500 head of cattle and 200 horses to be overlanded from his Waverley property to Florida Station, a distance of around 2,000 miles.
[17] Initially, Florida Station looked like being a successful venture, however, monsoonal floods in the wet-season and a previously unknown fatal disease in his cattle brought misfortune to Macartney.
[18] Increasingly aggressive resistance from the Aboriginal people in the region brought matters to a point and in 1892, Macartney decided to abandon Florida Station.
Hardy's replacement, James "Barney" Flynn, who had worked for Macartney at Florida, appears to have developed severe psychological trauma from the frontier conflict there.
A visitor to the Lawn Hill homestead in 1883 noted that "Mr Watson has 40 pairs of blacks' ears nailed round the walls collected during raiding parties.
[25] Macartney now owned only relatively small interests in land near Longreach and at Baffle Creek and obtained employment as general manager for the Queensland Cattle Company.
