Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Friday 12 June 1925, page 10


EARLY MEMORIES.

"A MUSCULAR CHRISTIAN."

The sudden death of Mr. C. Fetherstonhaugh, the well-known senior proprietor of Mungerie Station, Coonamble, marks the passing of one of the best friends of many of the graziers gathered in Sydney at. present, and has re-called to them his many fine attributes.

In the 'Sixties and 'Seventies he had encoun-ters with bushrangers, and in a poem by Boake entitled "Fetherstonhaugh." he Is re-ferred to as "My saintly preacher" and "The muscular Christian." Although his family had lost some of their property, and much of their money, he stayed among sheep as a young man, working on the Peak Downs for a Melbourne firm. During his management of Brookong Station in the Riverina, he raised the wool clip of the flock from 5½lb to 6½lb in 1871, although in these days 10lb of wool is a common average. While on the Peak Downs the murder of shepherds led to an affray with the blacks, which gave the late Mr. Fether-stonhaugh definite views on the black race. He considered that, had they been justly treated from the start, there would never have been massacres of whites or blacks.

It was at the age of 36 that he became a clergyman of the Church of England, but re-signed after four years. He then went back to the land, and was later a land valuer, but his chief attentions in the autumn of his life have been directed to Mungerie, whither he was making a journey from Blackheath at the

time of his death.