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In 1928, Humbert River Station consisted of 9 264 square kilometres of poor country, aptly described by one of
the original settlers as, ‘walls of mountains you can’t get up and spinifex—they call this a river—the Humbert—
it is only a short creek’. By contrast, Victoria River Downs covered over 19 200 square kilometres of mostly
top class black soil country. The ‘walls of mountains’ on Humbert extended well to the south, west and north—
backcountry of VRD and other big stations such as Limbunya and Auvergne. There were still ‘wild blacks’ in
this back country—old renegades wanted by the police for attacks on white men years before, as well as ‘station’
blacks on extended walkabout.
Charlie’s first move was to fence off one of the many cliff-lined valleys to create a bullock paddock. He then
set about mustering and branding the wild Humbert River cattle, and any cleanskins that came his way. In those
days, there were no boundary fences on the stations. Cattle wandered freely from one station to another, so Charlie
mustered cattle throughout the surrounding ranges. To assist these musters he built many yards in the backcountry.
In one relatively treeless limestone area he built one with stonewalls instead of the usual posts and wire.
The first seven years were the hardest for young Charlie. More than once he ran out of rations and had to
borrow supplies from the Depot Store, or from his neighbour on Bullita Station, Reg Durack. Although there was
a ‘blacks’ camp at Humbert, most of the time he was without ‘white’ company, and loneliness compounded the
rough living conditions and financial worries he had to endure. On one occasion, he had a terrifying experience,
believing he was about to be attacked by bush Aborigines. Woken in the early hours by his dogs barking and
growling, Charlie grabbed his rifle and warned whoever was outside that he’d shoot. His fear and anxiety had
reached fever pitch when he was struck on the leg by what turned out to be a fowl, fallen from its perch and
wandering blindly in the dark!
In 1930, 1931 and 1933 Charlie hired drovers to take Humbert cattle for sale in Alice Springs. Each of these
drovers lost several hundred head (one is believed to have sold them) and the debt on Humbert continued to
increase, so Charlie determined to take subsequent mobs to market himself. In 1935, 1937, 1939 and 1941, Charlie
became a drover, taking mobs of over 1 000 Humbert cattle along the Murranji Track and across to the railhead
at Dajarra or Kajabbi in Queensland. In spite of the long distances involved, the occasional ‘rush’ and storms,
his losses on these trips were minimal. His usual practice at the end of these droving trips was to continue on to
Woodhouse Station to visit his family. While at Woodhouse he bought and broke in up to 150 head of horses, which
he then walked over 2 720 kilometres back to the Victoria River district and sold to local stations and drovers.
The year 1941 marked a turning point in Charlie’s fortunes. With the onset of the Second World War, cattle
prices rose dramatically and in 1941 he was finally able to clear the debt on the station. In addition, in that year he
married Hessie Graham of Ayr. Later Hessie and Charlie adopted two baby girls, Donna and Betty.
In 1947, he obtained a lease over Bullita Station, an outstation of the Durack property, Auvergne, located on
the northern boundary of Humbert. Two years later, he acquired the ‘up-river block’, 400 square miles of rough
country on the upper Wickham River, formerly held by VRD. Once he was clear of debt Charlie tried to avoid
going into debt again, and any profits he made were ploughed back into the station as improvements—fences,
bores, yards, motor vehicles and so on.
In 1962, he acquired the ‘Whitewater block’, 640 square kilometres of prime black soil country on the southeast
side of the station that, in Charlie’s words, ‘really made Humbert’. He immediately sold Bullita and poured the
money into improving the Whitewater block. During the next nine years he built a new homestead complex, fenced
many paddocks, put in numerous bores with windmills and turkey nest dams, and built a number of yards on this
block.
Throughout his life, Charlie was an innovative and thoughtful cattleman, his drive to improve his station being
spurred by the attitude of VRD, which tended to look down on him as a ‘battler’. He was one of the first Territory
cattlemen to transport livestock by truck, was among the first to use road trains in the Victoria River district and
was one of the first to experiment with pasture improvement. In 1951, he became the first to fly cattle into the
Northern Territory. A yard Charlie designed so impressed an Animal Industry Branch official that he had scale
plans of it made and distributed as an example of how a drafting yard should be laid out. The rails of this yard were
of long-lasting lancewood that Charlie trucked in from over 160 kilometres away on the Murranji track.
Generally speaking, Charlie held attitudes towards Aborigines typical of his day—‘you had to show them
who was boss’—but in many ways he was ahead of his time. In the mid-1930’s, long before it became a legal
requirement to provide accommodation for Aboriginal station workers, he built a number of grass-roofed huts for
them. He also established vegetable gardens and a milking herd of sufficient size to provide not only the homestead,
but the Aboriginal camp as well. When he finally overcame the station debt, he began to provide his workers with
pocket money. Charlie regarded the government policy of removing ‘half-caste’ children from their families as
nothing short of ‘blackbirding’. He and Hessie raised and educated several such children to prevent their removal.
Native Affairs officers regarded it as ‘a pleasure to visit Humbert River Station’, and Charlie is remembered today
by Humbert River Aborigines as ‘hard but fair’ and a ‘good boss’.
In about 1970, at the age of 62, Charlie suffered a severe fall from a horse while out mustering. Both his knees
were badly injured and he was unable to walk or ride for several months. This accident was a primary reason for his
decision to sell Humbert River that was put on the market and sold in 1971. After Charlie sold Humbert, the station
passed through a succession of owners until 1993 when most of the rough range country was acquired for the new
Gregory National Park. The good black soil country of the Whitewater block was not acquired and retained its
identity as Humbert River Station.
Charlie and Hessie retired to a farm near Yankalilla in South Australia where they continued to raise beef cattle.
Charlie was also able to follow his interest in horse racing, importing several horses from New Zealand, one of
which was quite successful in metropolitan races. Hessie Schultz died in 1979. Charlie continued to live on his