Thomas Chirnside
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Thomas Chirnside (1815–1887) was a pastoralist.
Background
In 1815, Thomas Chirnside was born to Robert and Mary (Template:Nee) Chirnside in the Scottish village of Cockburnspath.[1] In the 1820s and the 1830s, thousands of Scots were spurred on by poverty and famine to try and make a living in colonial Australia. Scottish squatters and rural workers started farms.[2] In January 1839, Thomas Chirnside arrived in Adelaide with a Bible from his mother and several hundred pounds from his father. Thomas had told his parents that he would only return home if he became a rich and respected man, before boarding the Script error: No such module "WPSHIPS utilities".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". in Liverpool.[3]
Thomas was raising sheep on the Murrumbidgee by April, but drought forced him to abandon his flock. He joined his itinerant brother, Andrew, in Melbourne,[1] and the two set about finding a good place to settle.[3]
In April 1842, the brothers established a station in the Grampians, and that same year Thomas acquired a station on the Wannon River, where he was one of the first to employ Aboriginal People. In the mid-1840s the brothers acquired a series of properties in the Western District of Victoria.[1]
The elder Chirnside settled in Werribee, Victoria, just before the gold rushes, eventually buying 80,000 acres (320 km²) of land. He built a substantial bluestone house surrounded by a ha ha wall, and later, in the 1870s, the sandstone Italianate Werribee Park Mansion.
On 2 September 1853, he purchased, through a government grant, Section 14, in the Parish of Cut Paw Paw, County of Bourke. The allotment was Script error: No such module "convert"., which is now the Melbourne suburb of Kingsville.
From 1857 to 1859, Thomas Chirnside was a member of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, and of the Royal Society of Victoria from 1860 to 1866. He was a strict Sabbatarian, allowing no work on his properties on Sundays. He donated an acre (0.4 ha) of land and £100 for the first Presbyterian Church in Werribee and, in February 1884, he laid the foundation stone of the second one. He and his brother, Andrew Spencer Chirnside, gave £1000 to Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.[1] Thomas and his brother, Andrew Spencer Chirnside, bought Skibo Castle, located to the west of Dornoch in Sutherland, Scotland, and the surrounding 20,000 acres for £125,000 in 1868 and lived there until they sold it in 1871 for £130,000.[4]
In 1887, suffering from depression, Thomas Chirnside committed suicide with a shotgun in the garden of the Werribee Park Mansion.[5][6] Andrew Spencer Chirnside inherited the property, but died three years later.[1]
A primary school in Werribee has been named in Thomas's honour.[7]
References
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- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ "Wool Past the Winning Post, A history of the Chirnside family" by Heather B Ronald. Published in Australia by Wilke and Company. 1978. ISBN 9596522 0 5. Pages 79-82
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Further reading
Template:Library resources box Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". Wool Past the Winning Post by Heather B Ronald A History of the Chirnside Family published by Landvale Enterprises 1978