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came to dominate, and with profits from his other businesses, Fisher was quickly out of debt. By 1844 he was
farming along the River Torrens reed beds on quite a substantial scale, planting 123 acres (50 hectares) of crop,
and running sheep, cattle, horses and pigs.
From early in life ‘CB’, as he was affectionately known, showed a great passion for horses and horseracing.
He was an excellent horseman, and achieved an early reputation for his long rides. He often argued that horses
‘of the early days’ had markedly more stamina than those of latter years, and proved their staying power with
rides of up to 100 kilometres on horses taken straight off the grass. On one occasion, it was said, he set off from
Lockleys for Inman Valley, almost eighty kilometres away, to muster cattle for a friend. He had them in the yards
before breakfast, and was back in Adelaide to sell them for slaughter on the following morning.
Fisher’s businesses expanded rapidly, the 1840s being the golden age for business expansion in the colonies.
He was quick-witted, adventurous, and astute enough to invest his profits in land.
Over the years Fisher went on to purchase a number of important South Australian pastoral properties. These
included stations such as Bundaleer, Hill River, Wirrabara, Mount Schank, The Levels, Moorak, Port Gawler,
Thurk and Ned’s Corner.
One of Fisher’s most important properties in South Australia, and clearly the one most closely associated
with him, was Hill River, near Clare. This was purchased in 1855 from Robert ‘Encounter Bay Bob’ Robinson
for 44 000 Pounds. The lease, of which 66 000 acres (26 730 hectares) were to be converted into freehold at
an additional cost of 90 000 Pounds, ran 40 000 sheep at the time of its purchase. It was to Hill River that
‘CB’ devoted much of his energy and money. Here he pioneered extensive cereal cropping (one early photograph
shows 50 mechanical strippers at work in the one paddock!) and the breeding of large-framed densely covered
sheep—known subsequently as the ‘Fisher Merino’—and Shorthorn cattle. He was an exceptionally good judge of
livestock and thus knew what he was aiming for in his breeding.
It seemed during the 1850s that everything Fisher touched turned to gold. Whatever he did was done on a
grand scale. In fact in 1856 he was able to write to his brother James in England telling him that their various
undertakings were so prosperous that ‘I am thankful we are now in a position to help others’.
‘CB’ faced the first of a number of financial difficulties during the early 1860s, caused in part by his rapid
expansion in land—and from drought—and partly due to problems caused, so it was claimed, by the American
Civil War. A pattern thus emerged which tended to repeat itself throughout his life: large enterprises, success,
difficulties, financial rearrangement, and then embarking again on further expansion.
Although Fisher acquired substantial property in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, it was the
Territory that not only dwarfed all his other land holdings but also contributed to his later financial collapse.
In the 1880s, in partnership with Maurice Lyons, a Melbourne magistrate and businessman, Fisher acquired
vast parcels of land in the Northern Territory. These included approximately 40 000 square miles (103 600 square
kilometres) in the Palmerston area, and a further 15 890 square miles (41 155 square kilometres) in the Victoria
River district. In area this was equivalent to almost two-thirds of the state of Victoria.
CB Fisher and Maurice Lyons were the first to open up and stock pastoral land in northern Australia on such a
large scale. Land was acquired for the purpose of running cattle; not, as was the case in many other instances, for
speculation.
It was to their Glencoe run that the partners brought their first breeding cattle from Queensland. This 18 000 square
mile (46 629 square kilometre) station, said at the time to include some of the best pastoral country in the Territory,
was purchased from Travers and Gibson in 1881. Improvements were quickly undertaken under the direction of
H W H Stevens, Fisher’s and Lyons’ Darwin manager.
‘In place of two thatched huts, which were designated by the name of homestead, and a small yard capable of
holding only 300 head of cattle, there are now good iron buildings. Large stockyards after a fashion of those on the
more modern runs in Queensland are in course of construction; paddocks are being made around the homestead,
and others for the reception of stock for weaning. There are now 1900 head of cattle, and 86 horses on the run.
The stock are principally store cattle, but they are to be replaced by others en route, the intention being to keep
Glencoe as a thoroughly good breeding station.’
As well as Glencoe, the partners acquired 21 000 square miles (54 400 square kilometres) on the eastern bank
of the Adelaide River, a further 1 000 square miles (2 590 square kilometres) on the Daly, and land—a mere
21 000 acres (8 500 hectares)—suitable for agriculture, in the Hundred of Bagot, north of Palmerston.
In one of the greatest feats of droving ever undertaken, Nat Buchanan was contracted to deliver 20 000 head of
Shorthorn cattle to Glencoe—droving them over a distance of 2 800 kilometres of unexplored country. Most came
from Fisher’s own properties in Queensland.
Due to an outbreak of ‘redwater’ amongst the cattle on Glencoe, and overstocking those parts of the station
previously readied to handle the cattle, Fisher and Lyons were obliged to look elsewhere for country on which
to run their herd. As they had recently acquired immense leases in the Victoria River district, it was to there
they turned their attention. Thus Victoria River Downs was established with the arrival of the first breeders from
Glencoe in mid-1883, under the charge of Lindsay Crawford. Numbers quickly built up on what Fisher called
‘the largest cattle station in the world’. It was a station so remote and, as was quickly realised by its new owners,
so large, that it was to become the ‘last straw’ for the partners.
During the 1880s, Fisher extended his financial resources beyond their limits. Large mortgages were held over
land and stock, particularly on his assets in the Northern Territory (by the Bank of New South Wales), and at one
stage included 146 pastoral leases covering 36 166 square miles (93 670 square kilometres) and 20 000 head of
cattle. Further mortgages were raised from R Goldsbrough and Company Ltd., this firm being involved in Fisher’s
Doondi Station in Queensland.