Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Saturday 18 February 1911, page 13


MR. T. R. BOWMAN DEAD.

A GENEROUS CITIZEN.

PIONEER PASTORALST.

The death of Mr. T. R. Bowman which occurred at his residence. "Waverley," South-terrace yesterday, removes one of the most successful as well as one of the most highly respected of the citizens of South Australia. Mr. Bowman, while descend-ing the stairs of his house, fell and expired

about 10 minutes afterwards. The cause of death was thought to be the bursting of a blood vessel on the brain. Imme-diately before his sudden collapse he was apparently in good health; he was better, in fact, than he had seemed for some time.

Only a little more than a year ago it was announced that Mr. Bowman had handed over to trustees for the benefit of 23 Adelaide philanthropic institutions, which had been selected with characteristic care, a sum of £26,400, represented by City of Brisbane municipal debentures hav-ing a currency for from 9 to 13 years. The breadth of Mr. Bowman's sympathies and the generosity of his heart were mani-fested by the wide scope covered by this splendid benefaction. The institutions which, participate in his gift are:— The Dis-trict Trained Nursing Society; the Home for Incurables, Fullarton; Port Adelaide Seamens Mission and Sailors' Rest; Our Boys' Institute; the Boys' Brigade; Ade-laide City Mission; Adelaide Benevolent and Strangers' Friend Society; South Aus-tralian Institution for the Blind and Deaf and Dumb: Royal Institution for the Blind; Minda Home; the Cottage Homes for Aged and Infirm Poor and Widows; Hindmarsh Town Mission; South Austra-lian Deaf and Dumb Mission and Angas Home for Aged and Infirm Deaf Mutes,

The late Mr. T. R. Bowman.

Parafield; St. Mary's Mission of Hope; Prisoners' Aid Association; St. Margaret's Convalescent Home, Semaphore; South Australian Female Refuge; the Salvation Army; Children's Home, Walkerville; Ade-laide Rescue Society; the Adelaide Orphan Home; and South Adelaide Creche. Each of these will receive £45 3/7 annually until January 1, 1919, when the first par-cel of debentures will be sold, and each will receive £635 7/3. Thenceforward their income will be £19 14/6 each, until January 1, 1922, when the final dividend of £509 will be received. Each institution by that time will have derived £563 12/8 in interest, be-sides its share of the principal. In addi-tion to this act of signal munificence Mr. Bowman has shown his public spirit in very many ways, and he has always been ready to help every deserving cause which was brought under his notice.

A Well-known Family.

Mr. Bowman at the time of his death was in his 76th year, and his family had been well known in Australia for an even longer period than that covered by his own life. His father, Mr. John Bowman, came out to Tasmania in 1828 with a family of two sons and four daughters in a small ship chartered by himself and his fellow passengers. They intended to settle in Western Australia, but the vessel after a voyage of six months put in at Hobart

instead. Mr. John Bowman rented a small farm between Bridgewater and Ris-don Ferry, near the Tasmanian capital, and later purchased 1,200 acres on the bank of Lake Tiberias, a reedy swamp, where Mr. T. R. Bowman was born on St. Patrick's Day, 1835. Sheepfarming and agriculture were carried on here for some years, and then Woodlands Farm, on the Coal River, was purchased. In 1838, when Adelaide was two years old, the eldest son, Mr. Ed-mund Bowman, then about 20 years old,

came to South Australia in the Parsee, which was wrecked on Troubridge Shoal, and he lost all his possessions. He remained with a survey party in the neigh-borhood of Encounter Bay, and then re-turned to Tasmania, but came back to Adelaide in 1839 with a few sheep and horses, one of the latter being sold to the Government for £105. He fixed his camp on what is now the site of the Islington workshops. His report on this State was so favorable that Mr. John Bow-man decided to sell his Tasmanian prop-perty and come to South Australia. The eldest son again made the trip to Adelaide with stock, and all the rest of the family but two daughters followed him. A frame house was brought over and erected near Islington, and Mr. Ed-mund Bowman bought a section at Enfield. Two other brothers—Messrs. John and William Bowman—one of whom was 13 and the other 14 years old, came over with a consignment of sheep in the Lady Emma, 136 tons. They had to crawl among the sheep to feed them with hay and to give them drink out of bottles, but they landed them safely. However, wild dogs killed several of the animals after they were landed, near where Largs Bay now stands. Dingoes were then plentiful in the plains about Islington. Two of the daughters married and went to live at Willunga, and a great portion of the sheep were removed to the same place, but many were run alone the hills at Dry Creek, being watered one day at the Tor-rens near Beefacres, and the next perhaps at Dry Creek.

The Flocks Growing.

Mr. Kelsh came from Tasmania with sheep in 1846, and started pastoral work on a special survey at the head of the River Light, but he grew so discouraged by reason of the losses caused by wild dogs, scab, and low prices—he sold his wool one year at 5d. and in another at 5½ d. per lb.—that he sold his flocks to the Bow-man's. Mr. T. R. Bowman was shepherd-ing for his father on Dry Creek Plains when Captain Sturt started on one of his earliest exploration trips. They herded the sheep by day, and slept in a little "watchbox" by night. This box was removed from place to place as re-quired. Good wheat was grown on land rented by the Bowmans' from Captain Bagot, and they were among the first to use the reaping machine invented by Mr. John Ridley, which at the outset had to be steered by a pole. Afterwards land was taken up between the head of the Wake-field and Tothill's Belt, and thence by the Black Springs to the Flagstaff. A brother bought Martindale from Dr. W. J. Browne, while the family owned the land extend-ing for his father on Dry Creek Plains mocks, and thence down the west of the gulf with a station at the Gilbert. The brothers did their own cooking and washed the sheep, while three of them—when the shearers had nearly all gone to the Vic-torian diggings - shore 7,000 sheep in one year. They built their huts and wool-sheds and sank their own wells. Scab troubled the sheep considerably. and al-though they got rid of it, in 1847 a stray sheep infected the flocks again in 1853. They dipped 35,000 sheep on the Werocata and Crystal Brook runs in six weeks. Mr. H. T. Morris, and the late Messrs. John Watson and Allan Mcfar-lane, were then inspectors under the Scab Act. Messrs. T. R. Bowman,

John Bowman and W. Bowman spent 30 years on the Crystal Brook run, which they bought from Messrs. Younghusband & Co. It comprised 500 square miles, and carried 25,000 sheep, 3,400 cattle, and 200 horses. In 1859, in 1886-9, and in 1874 they suffered terribly from drought, losing 15,000 sheep one year and 10,000 in another, while dogs also did an immense amount of damage,

Removal to the South.

When the Government resumed the nor-thern pastoral areas for farming settlement the brothers had to look elsewhere for a

location for their flock and herds, and in 1876 they purchased the Poltalloch estate from the late Mr. John Malcolm, who had named it after his native place in Scotland. It is in connection with this property and Campbell Park, on Lake Albert, that Mr. T. R. Bowman has been best known during recent years, although he was always ready to give interesting reminiscences of the pioneering times when he and his brother had to work hard from daylight to dark among the sheep under all conditions of climate. He met his discomforts with a cheerful heart at the time, and he spoke of them with pride afterwards. He amassed great wealth from his pastoral pro-perties, but he worked hard for everything

he had, and he richly deserved all the suc-cess attained. For very many years Mr. Bowman had lived at Waverley House, South-terrace, having relinquished the ac-tive supervision of his properties to the younger members of the Bowman family. Mr. K. D. Bowman is at present living at Poltalloch, but he contemplates visit-ing England shortly. There is no name better known in the pastoral annals of South Australia than that of Bowman, and it has always been associated with a reputation for honor and uprightness. The family have done an immense service to the State in opening up its pastoral and agricultural lands in the immediate vici-nity of Adelaide, in the lower north, in the south, and on the lakes, and although much money was made by themselves in the process the indebtedness of the com-munity remains. Mr. T. R. Bowman did not inherit a ready-made fortune, but carved his way for himself, and he will always be remembered as a high-minded, kind hearted, and enterprising man, whose work was of public benefit. His father and his brothers are all dead, but there is a younger generation remaining to maintain the best traditions of the Bowman family.

Mr. Bowman leaves a widow, two daugh-ters (Mrs. H. C. Cave, of Second Valley. and Mrs. Cecil Bray, of Adelaide), and two grandchildren.

The funeral will leave Waverley, South terrace. at 2.30 this afternoon for the Enfield Cemetery, where the body will be interred in the family vault.