Pioneering first cattle station in Cecil Plains

FOR many years, Henry Stuart Russell's station was the only cattle station on the Downs.

EXPLORER: Henry Stuart Russell (1818-1889) started Cecil Plains station and recorded those days' history. Picture: Contributed

IN AUGUST 1927, the old Cecil Plains homestead was put up for sale.

It had been one of the early holdings on the Condamine River, taken up 86 years before by wanderer and adventurer Henry Stuart Russell.

In those years, the settlers were put to the test by the tribesmen, taking sheep, spearing cattle and even holding up the homestead.

In the early days auger holes were put through the walls of the homestead, through which muskets were fired to repel an attack by the warriors.

James Taylor pre-empted at auction, large areas of the leasehold, consolidating the run into an extensive and valuable freehold.

In October 1841, after spending a year with his friends Hodgson and Elliot on Eton Vale, Russell decided to join the squatters of the Darling Downs.

He planned an expedition with his brother Sydneyham and Frederick Neville Isaac to travel down the Condamine to select a pastoral holding.

However Russell was ill at the time so didn't go.

Leaving the boundary of Yandilla Station, the party followed the Condamine until they found long stretches of water and it was there Russell, once recovered, formed his head station.

He made application for land both sides of the river to within a few miles of Dalby.

The area spanned about a quarter of a million acres.

However things didn't go as planned as the Aberdeen, afterwards known as the North British Australasian Company, had applied for the northern half of the country and its manager, John Crowther, was on his way to stock the station.

The dispute was referred to Commissioners MacDonald and Rolleston, who decided in favour of the company and a large slice of splendid country was cut off from Cecil Plains, which was Russell's. It was named St Ruth.

Russell stocked his station with cattle and for many years it was the only cattle station on the Downs.

Unfortunately a cattle market collapse in 1843 made fat cows unsaleable at a pound ($2) a head.

After they survived the cattle crash, Russell resumed his urge to travel and, leaving his partner Stephen Glover in charge, joined an expedition to Wide Bay and made numerous visits to Brisbane and Sydney.

Glover retired from the partnership and James Taylor took his place.

Russell then sailed to England.

Returning to Australia, he bought a home at Willoughby in Sydney.

Cecil Plains was later managed by G Corey and the people on the station had to contend with the vagaries of the Condamine River.

The government later purchased the property and held it for two to three years and then parcelled it out as Soldiers Settlement.

The town of Cecil Plains is a reminder and a landmark of the early pioneering station settled by adventurer Henry Stuart Russell.