Hard work: Good prospects - that was the philosophy behind the Devon and Cornwall Group Settlement Scheme to Australia initiated in the early 1920s by Colonel Stewart F. Newcombe.
The Groups Settlement Scheme was a bold idea designed to
encourage families from England’s West Country to settle in Western Australia.
The original programme, set up in 1921 under the direction of the region’s
Premier, Sir James Mitchell, had successfully cleared areas of dense forest in
preparation for dairy farming to make the region self-sufficient in milk, butter,
and cheese. To bring his dream to fruition, Mitchell needed more settlers and
more money. For both, he turned to Britain where unemployment in post-WW1
England was high and especially so in the South-West following a gradual decline
in local industries such as tin and copper mining. Stewart Newcombe’s close
contact with Australian and New Zealand troops (ANZACS) at Gallipoli and on the
Western Front warmed him to the opportunities that this vast continent and its
people could offer. From his military posting at Raglan barracks, Devonport,
he began to explore ways to promote its benefits to families from the local
towns of Devon and Cornwall.
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| Clearing trees by chain and snig |
Newcombe proposed a personal initiative that closely fitted
with the scheme run by Sir James. To see its potential for himself, he was
invited by Sir James to conduct a six-week fact-finding tour of the country that
would hopefully result in a considerable flow of candidates to the region. Early
in March 1923, and before a planned relocation to the War Office in London,
Newcombe wasted no time in putting in for leave and informed Sir James that he
and his wife, Elsie, were on their way.
Unfortunately, the Newcombe’s fact-finding
mission did not get off to a good start. Soon after the reception they set off
on the short nine-mile drive from Fremantle to Perth, WA’s capital city. The
car in which Newcombe, Elsie and Mr. and Mrs. Stewart was travelling swerved to
avoid a horse and cart on the road. Passing the cart, a piece of
timber struck the upright which held the hood in position forcing the car to collide with an electric light pole with considerable force. Elsie was thrown forward into
the windscreen which smashed over her cutting her face and lips. Suffering
from shock she was treated by a local doctor before the group continued their journey to Perth where the
Newcombes were lodged at the Palace Hotel at 108 St. George’s Terrace. On Friday 6 April, the day after the
crash, the incident was worthy of a mention in The Argus newspaper, which had been reporting Newcombe’s
forthcoming visit since the beginning of the year.
After an initial meeting with Sir James there followed two
weeks of meetings and receptions. Newcombe devoted his time to promoting the
merits of his scheme, assessing the productivity of the
country he passed through, appraising the rainfall and climate, and acquiring
information as to markets and marketing facilities. Questions from the press focussed
on the financial viability of his scheme with one reporter commenting that
Colonel Newcombe’s scheme “appears to be complex, and it
will require most expert organisation if it is to achieve any measure of
success.” Newcombe responded by saying: “This is a
draft of the scheme I drew up in England without consultation with your
Premier. He may tear up our proposal, but I feel confident that he will submit
something in its place which will be equally good or better for the people we
wish to serve at home and in the interests of this State, and for the good of
the Empire at large.”
On 18 April 1923, Newcombe and the investigating party
visited two group settlements, Nos. 41 and 42, already successfully operating
just nine miles west of the town of Denmark and close to the railhead. During
the six weeks tour of the region, it was the first and only time he was able to
get close to groups carrying the scheme forward where he witnessed
the cooperative process of clearing, and chatted with the settlers and their
wives, learning much of interest from the practical side of the joint
enterprise. Strongly impressed by what he
saw he unhesitatingly predicted success for the venture allowing
for minor mistakes usual during the early stages. He and Elsie then
embarked on a long train journey on the Trans-Australian Railway east to Melbourne
via Adelaide to promote his scheme before the return journey home.
Impressed by the little that he had seen, Newcombe returned
to the UK in June full of enthusiasm for the endeavour: "I consider the
whole world can offer no finer opening for a working man than Australia provided
he goes out under a sound scheme, and now we have got the scheme I think no man
who is willing to work need hesitate a moment, for the prospects are exceedingly
good." Early the following year he formed the Devon and Cornwall
Migration Committee to deal with the promotion, administration, transportation,
reception, and assimilation to the new country. Its members were duly
instructed to tour the region with sophisticated publicity material to present
to prospective pioneers.
Problems would later arise from what was seen as misleading
imagery and statements depicted on lantern slides, films and posters and in
pamphlets donated by the Tourist and Publicity Bureau of the Western Australia
Government, a tone that was replicated in the committee's own locally produced
materials that portrayed a seductive representation of what awaited potential
applicants. The message was simple and unambiguous: "Those desiring
to improve their positions and those of their children in various walks of life
have here an excellent opportunity of working for their own benefit and being
their own masters, provided that they are able and willing to work
hard."
Widespread publicity and well-attended meetings proved
successful and initial uptake was encouraging; even Elsie was on hand, promoting
the scheme from the women’s point-of-view. A programme of fund-raising was initiated
to provide some families with money for incidental expenses such as the
obligatory £3 per head landing fee, travel expenses to Plymouth, and in a few
cases, even clothing and children’s shoes.
Within less than a year the first group of specially
selected emigrants assembled for embarkation on the S.S. Sophocles at
Plymouth’s Great Western Millbay Docks. Twenty families, comprising
twenty men, twenty women and sixty-one children were gathered together in
preparation to sail into the unknown. Some said it was like the Pilgrim Fathers
304 years before them, only now their journey would take them south towards
what had been described as “God’s own country”.
Speeches were made, bands played and Lady Astor, the local
M.P., distributed gifts - a scarf for each woman, a tie for each man, toys for
the children and two silver cups to be competed for in games during the voyage.
The Mayor, Solomon Stephens, not to be outdone, gave a framed photo of Plymouth
to each family and a pen to each adult "with which to write home".
“I am not so old that I forget the day I left England 45
years ago, and I want you first and foremost to know that you are not in any
way exiles from home,” he went on. “You are merely moving from one room to
another, as it were, in the great house of the British Empire.”
As paper streamers broke the final physical ties to family
and friends, the Sophocles set sail towards what all hoped would be a bright
new future.
“A land of golden opportunities, but not of feather beds”
On 7 March 1924 Albany welcomed the newcomers after their four-week
voyage and provided temporary shelter and immediate needs for two or three days
before the families were assigned to their groups. The Women’s Reception
Committees took the lead in instructing the women in what to expect from farm
life and how to cope in situations far removed from anything they would have
experienced in the UK. Even Sir James Mitchell was on hand to welcome the
families. Their arrival was recorded by the Western Australian newspaper:
"Substantial ghosts of the Pilgrim Fathers walked the
streets of Albany today. True, they wore no high-crowned wide-brimmed hats, no
knee breeches, and no dour air. But they sailed from Plymouth Hoe a month ago,
their Mayflower - the Sophocles, and their America - Western Australia. This
morning the first 20 of what may be a procession of 1,000 Pilgrim Fathers -
another 20 are already on the water and scores are ready to follow if the
vanguard reports are favourable - descended the gangway of the Sophocles.”
The newspaper continued: "Some time ago, it will be remembered,
Lieutenant-Colonel Newcombe visited Western Australia on behalf of the Devon
and Cornwall Association, and inspected group settlement areas. The new
arrivals say they have come because of the story he told, and they regard him
with the highest respect.” The men were described as fine, physical types, many
already acquainted with rural life. Among them were engineers, carpenters,
blacksmiths, and other tradesmen considered useful in settlement life.
Sir James and the people of Albany extended them a hand of
welcome at a meeting in the town hall before the families were due to depart by
train to Denmark. “This is a great country of ours," Sir James told them
in a rousing speech. “There are only 350,000 people here, so you are almost pioneers.
You men and women from Devon and Cornwall have reached port today. You will
arrive on your land tomorrow and, two days later will be at work on your
holdings. No man can do anything for you unless you are willing to work. There
is nothing in Australia we will not do for those who will work. There is
nothing we can do for the man who will not work.”
Sir James then described the land that awaited the group: “Of
course, it is a wilderness today, but you are good enough to conquer a
wilderness. The average Englishman very readily takes to the bush in this
country and very soon learns to love it.”
"More of you are coming naturally," continued Sir
James, “and I hope that before long we will be able to adopt a British county
name for all this country you enter.” Encouraged by his words the group cheered
loudly. "Good luck to you all," said the Premier. "May you
prosper and multiply: may you enjoy your lives in Western Australia, and may
the work you do be amply rewarded."
Initially, work consisted of back-breaking land clearance and by the mid-Thirties about 100,000 acres of dense forest had been cleared mostly by handsaw and fire. For those determined to make it work, and even before the stubborn-rooted Karri and Jarrah trees were felled, the hardy pioneer could already see in his mind’s eye a vision of lush pastures, fat grazing cattle and, above all, a prosperous future.
But what started out as a 'sound scheme' soon ran into difficulties. A Royal Commission in 1926 found that land unsuitable for dairy farming had been included in the allocations and that a herd of fewer than 23 to 30 cows would not provide a farmer with a livelihood, but most settlers had fewer than ten. Unaware of the difficulties that awaited them, the 'Groupies', as they were known, made significant inroads into clearing the land, and then looked on helpless as their cattle inexplicably deteriorated into emaciated and infertile wrecks. As one settler, Fred Osborne, remembered: "After the enormous hardship of clearing the land, the care taken in establishing pastures and the excitement of stocking the new land, the animals just starved and died. In lush green pastures they simply lay down and died - bags of bones." It was not until the mid-Thirties that soil tests revealed a deficiency in the trace element cobalt. The cure was simple – with the addition of cobalt enriched Cow Lick into their feed healthy cattle once again grazed the Karri hills. But a second blow to the farmers’ endeavours was about to fall.
When the Great Depression sweeping around the world reached
Australia the country’s dependence on agricultural and industrial exports meant
it became one of the hardest-hit countries in the Western world. Having
conquered the land and solved the Denmark Cattle Wasting Disease the settlers
were finally crushed by mounting debts as the price of butter fat plummeted and
interest rates on their loans rose. After years of struggling most settlers
were forced to walk off their land and abandon their efforts to a later
generation. Fred Osborne’s family is one of the very few who managed to stay on,
and the farm is still in their ownership today.
Group 113 member Eileen Croxford also stayed in the area.
This is how she summed her time as a Groupie and what happened to her after:
"We just lived in these shacks - no floor, no doors, no
windows. I was out to work by the time I was 12. I was 20 when I got married
and then I proceeded to have a family. Then the war came, my husband went away
to Japan and didn't come back again".
Newcombe's families
Newcombe and his fellow committee members have been accused
of being seduced by the imagined landscapes projected by Western Australia’s publicity
material while officials in Australia responded forcefully to the claim that
blocks had been “window dressed” by insisting that all inspection trips were
shown “as much as their time permits, and no attempt is made to conceal the
sore spots”. Despite the criticisms, key values underpinning the enterprise
were clear and unambiguous - hard work was at the heart of a scheme designed to
appeal to anyone having difficulty in making a decent living at home, and were
not afraid of getting stuck in. Newcombe never shied away from pressing this
point home and never pretended that this was a land of feather beds.
Fifteen groups were eventually established in the Denmark
area. They were identified by numbers. Newcombe’s groups were 113 (Parryville),
114 (Tealedale), 116 (Tingledale) and 139 (Hazeldale) – 136 families in all.
They mostly arrived during 1924 and then a trickle until 1926 on the following
ships of the Aberdeen Line: the Sophocles, Themistocles, Demosthenes, and the Diogenes.
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| Group 116 Tingledale |
The legacy
The land that was assigned to the Groupies in Western
Australia is breathtakingly beautiful, with a shoreline that contains some of
the best beaches in Australia and where the might of the Southern Ocean crashes
against dramatic cliffs and rock formations that seems to pre-date history
itself. West of Denmark, 90-metre-high Karri and tingle trees – among the
tallest in the world - are a tourist attraction in a national park that today
embraces the term ‘Valley of the Giants’ as a marketing tool. In between this
wonderland there exists successful farms that produce award-winning wines,
succulent olives, and peppery virgin oil, complimented by honey and cheese – a
not insignificant shift in economy from the 1920s and a world away from the
privations experienced by the original settlers as they laid the foundation of
today’s success. Self-catering accommodation located within many of the old
block boundaries, now promoted as idyllic weekend retreats, completes the
evolution from hardship and struggle to pleasure and relaxation.
Backed by a strong economy and a robust tourist industry,
today these are the things worth striving for on land that was once toiled with
such stubborn determination and courage by a
diverse group of individuals far from familiar comforts. Today, these farms
form the backbone of modern Western Australia’s tourist industry, occupying the
very same land that once broke the health, the spirits and the hearts of the
men, women and their children who came to create new colonies on the far side
of the world through sheer determination, endeavour and hope. This is their
legacy.
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