Original Pastoral Runs

Alpha Station homestead, 1876

Most of the pastoral land in the Alpha and Jericho districts was licensed between 1863 and 1885. Included in the unsought land was the more rugged country along the Great Dividing Range, which remained as a boundary between runs. Under the Land Act effective for the area, ‘run’ was used to describe any portion of land licensed or leased according to the conditions of the Act. It referred to a large area of land in unsettled districts in which landholders could depasture their stock without a lot of fencing necessary.

From 1863 to 1874 all the licensed runs were located within the Belyando River basin east of the Great Dividing Range. After 1874, land to the west of the Range, in the Cooper Creek basin, was also applied for. When talk began, in 1880, about the possibility of a new land act being passed allowing landholders to consolidate holdings in these unsettled parts of Queensland, applications for the remaining un-held land almost doubled.

Notes on database:

This database shows only the first holder/s of each run and the years during which they held it.The chronological order of the list illustrates the origins of pastoral occupation of this area in central western Queensland.

Period held

A number of the runs were held by the original licensee until they were consolidated under the Crown Lands Act of 1884, for example, Karlsbad was held by Arthur Hunter Palmer from 1863 until consolidated as part of Beaufort – shown on the database as 1863 —. Information about the leaseholders of consolidated holdings will be included in a separate list.

Other runs are shown on the database as being licensed for only one year before being forfeited or transferred, for example Strasbourg was licensed by William Springer only during 1874. For the majority of runs listed, the ‘Period held’ indicates the years held, including under mortgage, by the original licensee.

Run name

These run names are those chosen by the applicants or their agents and used, in the applications, as part of the description of an unsurveyed portion of land.

Area

Runs in this district were applied for using a description in which the boundaries were identified. The areas included in the database are those clarified by surveys, often made a number of years after the original application.

References:

Information about the original pastoral landholders has been collected from the Queensland Government Gazette, 1863-1899. The Gazettes are accessible at Text Queensland.  Additional information on some pre-consolidated runs is available in the Pastoral Holdings (Run Files), Series ID 14031, Queensland State Archives.