Arriving in Sydney and the Droving Days to Come

Whilst searching and orientating to get around town, Philip was to meet, in his neighbourhood, a young lady who was to become the love of his life, and the real influence on his ultimate destiny. She was 16 years old, and her name was Mary Ann Underwood. She was, unbeknown to Philip, part of the very prosperous and already famous and successful Underwood family. 

They were successful early colonial pioneer descendants of Mary Ann’s convict grandfather, James Underwood. The famous distillery at South Head they owned and Mary Ann and sister Catherine lived with their father Thomas in Paddington Street, Paddington. This was very close to where Philip was living in Elizabeth Street Paddington with his sister.

This, Philip said, ‘was the one love episode of his life and birth’, and the influence she had would have kept strong and fresh his faith in womanhood. 'This love of his was a sacred thing, and so must be the name of the woman who inspired it.'

Philip wrote a lot of poetry about this love, beginning and including in October 1864  ‘To a Young Lady’ or ‘The Young Lady with Golden Tresses’.

Mary Ann founded Philip’s passion for the romance in his poetry for many years to come. 

Prior to his leaving Sydney, to get a posting droving in 1862, he received a photo of Mary Ann? This photo in the album was taken at a photographer just down the road from where they both lived. This photo possibly of her, with 'long blue ribbons and flowers in her hand', took pride of place adjacent his photo in his album and was seemed to be referred to in future poems?

The romance was though needed to be interrupted, as Philip’s need for stability, and a supported future, could wait no longer.

In 1862 Philip took up a squatters post in the New England district, on a property on the McIntyre River, close to the Queensland border. Things were all going fine for Philip. He was enjoying his new life and responsibilities, and foresaw a great future.  

Philip, being though a devout Presbyterian, having strong values he knew would be continually challenged in a land of life and death, and by the difficult job he had undertaken, together with his sometimes wild comrades. Soon this challenge was too much. When he was ordered by the master to kill an injured bullock on a Sunday, his refusal to do so lost him his job.

Soon, he was again heading north and across the Queensland border to another station near Warwick. Here he, through good fortune, engaged himself with a party of twelve overlanders, headed by Nash and Gregg, transporting 5000 sheep and 1000 cattle to new to be discovered lands in Northern Queensland, to find a new long term situation in the northern Queensland Gulf region.

During this time, Philip said, he often dropped across Frank Gardiner the Bushranger of Ben Hall’s gang. 

He described him as 'swarthy complexioned, with eyes almost roaming all over the place.'

Once he bailed Philip up for something to eat. 

“Who the hell are you?”, said Philip.  

“Now young fellow, do as I tell you, and that quick!,” yelled Gardiner. “I soon got my dinner bag.” Phil said with a wink.

It was now early in 1863, and Philip wrote to his brother Peter in Edinburgh, advising him of his prosperity and good fortune with the prospect of Peter also venturing to Australia to join him. 

It was not long and Peter was soon to join Philip. 

Peter set out from Leith in Scotland on the 30th June 1863. The sole passenger on the Aberdeen Ship, the ‘City of Quebec’, arriving in Sydney on the 15th October 1863. 

(Click to view shipping advertisement)

It is hard to imagine how confronting for Philip the long and challenging journey to the baron North Queensland was to be. Travelling in stages they then rested for long rejuvenating periods for both stock and cattlemen. 

These treacherous years were faced with everything that the Australian scape could throw at them. Drought and lack of feed. Regular loss of stock. Battles with Aborigines, and the eventual curse of Gulf Fever saw many people die. 

Peter met with the group in early 1864, after a long journey from Sydney, and he met up with Philip. This was with the expedition of Francis E. Nash and a Mr Gregg and his wife Mrs Gregg and their daughters. 

Mrs Gregg was to be the first white woman on the Barkley Tablelands. 

They were contracted by J. and A. Brown of Newcastle, 9 men with 10000 sheep, and 4 with 1000 head of cattle. Ultimately they were to establish Cambridge Downs Station in 1864 in the same vicinity as Kennedy and J G McDonald. 

Gregg was later murdered by the blacks. Philip was officially the overseer of the sheep. 

Going straight to the wilderness for Philip and Peter must have been overwhelming. In the company of every type of character. It was a real education and induction for the boys in Australian colonial life, as both had come from the 'well to do' blocks of Edinburgh. At home with 3 household servants, and they with University educations. Throughout all of the expedition, to use Philip’s own words,

 ‘I have been doing a lot of writing, but have lost many of my early MSS through hard living.’

Letter about this time from Peter…

“This," says his brother Peter, "was in 1863. Philip wrote to me on his journey and I made up my mind to join him. After a ride of six hundred miles, I overtook the expedition about twenty miles from Roma, and I also signed an agreement for a period of two and a half years. 

We travelled as the water stages would permit, eight, ten, or fifteen miles a day, as far as the Aramac Creek, Thomson River. Beyond this lay a desert of fifty miles to Cornish Creek, and another of ninety miles to the Flinders. We had to camp on Cornish Creek and divided the sheep into mobs of 2000, and with the cattle, occupied four camps about four miles apart, each of the men taking in turn the four-hour watch at night. 

We spent eight months here. The sheep were shorn and the wool was sent by bullock teams to Bowen, Port Denison, a distance of 450 miles, under the charge of Philip, who also was to bring back our supplies.”

" During the absence of the teams, the rainy season set in and we at once struck camp and made a start over the ninety miles of spinifex desert, as delay meant the growth of a poisonous herb called the ‘Darling Pea’ which sheep eat and shortly after die in agony. 

This herb grows so fast that after we got over this patch of country, we must have lost fully, fifty sheep. We kept by the banks of the Flinders, then a bed of sand with occasional water holes which supplied our stock, until we reached the Cloncurry. 

Here our privations commenced. We had no flour, tea, or sugar and we lived on salt beef, and baked or fried mutton, and drank muddy water for three months, by which time Philip and the drovers returned with the bullock drays. 

You can imagine the scramble there was for clothing, boots, and the means for making a good damper (a dough baked in the ashes) a good bucket of tea, and to enjoy a good smoke."