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‘contrary to the public interest’. However, by this time Kidman was powerful enough to shrug off the demands of
governments that he comply with lease covenants.
Kidman’s interests in the Northern Territory at various times included outright ownership of or shares in
Huckitta, Stirling, Owen Springs, Crown Point, Bond Springs, Hamilton Downs, Austral Downs, Newcastle
Waters and Victoria River Downs. Extensive though these holdings were, they did not approach the scope of those
held earlier by Fisher and Lyons, or later by Vesteys. In fact, the Northern Territory was peripheral to Kidman’s
main activities in the arid lands of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.
There is evidence that Kidman influenced the South Australian government to develop water facilities along
the Birdsville Track stock route in the 1890s in preference to the development of the route along the Overland
Telegraph Line. Certainly, the drilling of bores along the Birdsville Track was critically important to Kidman.
Whether the neglect of the north-south stock route that the Territory so badly needed was a direct consequence of
Kidman’s representations will probably never be known, but in any case, the result was inimical to the Territory.
However, Kidman soon afterward had cause to be thankful to the Territory. The great drought that marked the
turn of the century lasted longer than Kidman bargained for and would have forced his failure but for the support
of the Bank of New South Wales. The bank, fearful of the national consequences of Kidman’s collapse, backed
Kidman when he formed a syndicate to buy Victoria River Downs in 1902. Kidman knew that the huge station had
countless thousands of cattle that had not been mustered for years and he correctly forecast that there would be a
surge in the demand for cattle when the drought broke.
Just as Kidman judged the market to a nicety, so he judged the men who were capable of mustering VRD’s
scrubbers and taking them cast to market. In 1904 Blake Miller, Kidman’s head drover, took the first mob east
across the Murranji stock route toward eager buyers, and Kidman was out of difficulty. Typically, the Kidman
syndicate sold the great station at the end of the decade, just when the current beef boom was about to end.
Kidman had been able to attract the very best bushmen into his workforce because to work for him was to join
the outback’s elite. Kidman’s huge stations tested all the skills of the Australian stockman. Kidman men had to
excel at their work because they had to handle stock in primitive conditions, usually without the benefit of yards
and fences. Men liked working for him, because ‘you always knew where you stood with him’, and because his
financial strength meant comparative security of employment.
Kidman was created Knight Bachelor in 1921, when he was at the height of his power. The honour recognised
benefactions to wartime charities and to the Australian Inland Mission. In 1932, 100 000 people came to a
bushman’s carnival held in Adelaide to celebrate his 75th birthday. He died on 2 September 1935 but his empire in
other parts of Australia was held together and continues even today. However, the family interests in the Northern
Territory were quickly disposed of. He was married on 30 June 1895 at Kapunda to Isabel Brown Wright. They had
three daughters and a son.
Ion Idriess and more recent eulogists of Kidman have tried to present him as a visionary pioneer of inland
Australia. He was never that. He was a stock dealer who acquired already developed land as an adjunct to his
trading operations. That is not to belittle him—as a dealer his activities were of enormous significance to the
pastoral industries. He was a buyer at times when others lacked the money or the courage to buy, and thus he put
a ‘bottom’ in the market at critical times. That was his unique contribution to the outback.
I L Idriess, The Cattle King, 1936; H M Tolcher, Drought or Deluge: Man in the Cooper Creek Region, 1986; Film produced by Dick Smith
c1983; Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame Newsletter, November 1982; ADB, vol 9, 1983; Report of the Northern Territory Pastoral Leases
Investigation Committee, 1935, AA, Darwin; Personal communications with the following ‘Kidman men’, tape recordings held by author:
Bryan Bowman, Alice Springs, 1982; Jack Dowler, formerly Alice Springs, now of SA, 1982; Charlie Strudwick, Nambour, Queensland, 1986;
Bill Brook, Birdsville, 1982; Robey Miller, Mount Isa, 1982.
PETER FORREST, Vol 1.
KILFOYLE, THOMAS (1835–1908), drover and pastoralist, was born in Ireland in 1835 and migrated to
Australia in 1849. After working as a drover in Queensland, he took part in long cattle treks through the Northern
Territory during the 1880s. It was at that time the ‘T K Camp’ on the southern edge of the Jasper Gorge, in the
Victoria River district, was named after him. A large boab tree there bore his carved initials. He shared a number of
expeditions with M P Durack in the 1890s, sometimes droving cattle for sale in the mining settlements of the Pine
Creek area and at others exploring unoccupied country. On one such trip, they marked out a block on Auvergne
Station that they called Kildurk, a combination of their two names. In 1891, he married Catherine Byrne, member
of a well-known pioneer family in the Kimberley district of Western Australia.
From 1896 until his death Kilfoyle managed Rosewood Station, which he owned in partnership with J J Holmes,
a Western Australian politician. He became one of the most prominent pastoralists in the Victoria River District,
a fame partly acquired due to accusations concerning his theft of cattle from adjoining properties. ‘Patsy’ Durack,
father of M P Durack and patriarch of the Durack family, excused Kilfoyle here, saying, ‘He’s been a faithful friend
and servant to this family, and I’d not now begrudge him a bit of tarry-diddle with his branding iron.’
Kilfoyle died in Darwin in 1908, survived by his wife and only child, John. By then he was widely regarded
as one of the Northern Territory’s most remarkable drovers and bushmen and as one of those who opened up the
Victoria River district for pastoral occupation.
D Carment, ‘A Future for the Past in the Victoria River District’, Northern Perspective, vol 7, no 1, 1984; M Durack, Sons in the Saddle, 1983;
J Makin, The Big Run, 1983.
DAVID CARMENT, Vol 1.