John MacarthurDied 11 Apr 1834 at age 66 (born 3 Sep 1767).Australian agriculturist and promoter who helped found the Australian wool industry, now the world's largest. He was one of the first in New South Wales to obtain Spanish Merino sheep from the Cape of Good Hope (1797). He took specimens of their fleeces to England (1802), wrote a Statement of the Improvement and Progress of the Breed of Fine Woolled Sheep in New South Wales (London, 1803) and was granted 5,000 acres of the best pasture land in the colony, to be increased if tangible results were forthcoming. Each time he returned to England (first for four years and later for eight years) his wife, Elizabeth, was left to breed the sheep, produce the wool, manage workers, bushfires and Aboriginal uprisings, and run a profitable farm. |
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