Tough Life For The Bullocky
Newcastle Herald
Saturday March 4, 2000
MANY years ago a bullocky, Walter Lumby, of Sweetman's Creek, used his team of 14 bullocks to move three five-ton winches from the railway to the pit head of Millfield Colliery.
Walter used a sledge to transport the winches and when he arrived at the mine to off-load the first winch on to a trolley he found that the two pieces of equipment ? the winch and the trolley ? would together damage the roof of the mine tunnel.
So against advice Walter decided to take his bullock team and the winch about a kilometre and a half into the mine, down a tunnel which had a considerable dip to it.
Walter would have been in trouble had the bullocks stampeded on the way down but he said at the time that he never knocked his animals about, bullocks or horses, and he was confident he could control them.
He successfully made the trip three times despite having very little space to turn the team when he reached the bottom of the pit.
Bullocks and bullockies played an important part in the development of the Hunter. It was bullock teams that carried the grains, timber and the wool from the bush to the ports in the early days of settlement.
The same teams then returned with the necessities of life for the families living in the bush ? items such as sugar, tea, and salt.
The bullockies, or teamsters, were mostly strong, hearty men, who upheld the traditions of the bush. Most were hard workers and hard drinkers who loved to tell stories about life on the road and in the bush.
The poet, Henry Kendall wrote about the teamsters in `Bill the Bullock Driver' and talked of the bullocky `with his cabbage tree hat on the back of his head and the string of it under his nose.'
The bullocky's drawing-room was his dray, his bedroom the space between the wheels, and his friends were his bullock team.
The Hunter Valley once had many families well-known as teamsters including the Budden brothers of Muswellbrook; Morrow, Jeffrey, Gardner, Paterson, Neilsen Shorter and Gunn, from Aberdeen; Dunbar, Smart, Moore, George Budden, and the Haynes family, of Scone; and in the Cessnock-Wollombi district, the Lumbys, Mitchells, Bridges, Clarke, Williams and Harrison. Others included the Crawfords, Mortons, Allens and Snapes.
Accidents often occurred with bullock teams. In 1863 a young bullocky named Dempsey returning from Singleton with a team of eight bullocks was heading for Glendon when he reached a river crossing at Scott's Flat. There had been rain and the river was rising and the current beginning to pick up speed.
When the leading bullocks reached the centre of the stream they were swept along with the current. The other bullocks followed. The leading bullocks became entangled with a log and within moments, the bullocks, gear and dray, were in a tangle.
Dempsey tried to sever the yokes and chains with an axe but failed. He just managed to save himself. The drowned team was found in a heap further down the river the next day.
A story is told about a teamster from the Maitland district who was working for a carrier named Turner. On a day when he was supposed to meet a steamer at Morpeth to load goods the bullocky had a bit too much to drink and was thrown in the lock-up. He pleaded with the police to let him out so that he could meet the steamer. They refused his request and that of his wife.
So she yoked the bullocks, attached the chains to the lock-up and the bullocks did the rest. The lock-up was pulled down and the bullocky was set free. Or so the story goes.
© 2000 Newcastle Herald
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