Camden Park - NSW

Along with Elizabeth Farm at Parramatta, Camden, in particular Camden Park, is the origin of Australia's merino wool industry founded by John Macarthur.

In about 1803 Lord Camden, the Colonial Secretary, ordered Governor King to grant John Macarthur "not less than 5,000 acres of land . . . situated near Mt. Taurus, as being peculiarly adapted for sheep", in order to test his theories about developing the Merino flock and a wool industry in the Colony. He allowed Macarthur to take to New South Wales the first pure merino rams and ewes ever exported from the Royal Stud at Kew.

Since 1805 Camden Park has been part of the core of Australian history. Governor Bligh's resistance to allowing Macarthur to keep his land on the Cowpastures, and his contempt for the sheep industry, were factors that brought Macarthur actively into the rebellion against the Governor in 1808.

Macarthur's experience with the wool trade in England during his eight year exile there after the rebellion enabled him to tutor his devoted wife, Elizabeth, and his nephew, Hannibal. They bred the wool of the flocks on Camden Park to superior marketable standards, while fighting drought, isolation, and aborigines who killed their shepherds. On Camden Park all the prototype methods of sheep breeding, sheep washing, shearing, wool sorting and press baling were first established in Australia.

A good starting point for the history of the area can be found here.