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Fred was released in 1945 and almost immediately went to move a mob of 125 cattle to Muckaty from the
vicinity of Larrimah. For about 100 kilometres, he was assisted by an Aboriginal man who ran off and deserted
him, leaving him to travel the rest of the way with horses and cattle alone for weeks.
Fred purchased two ex-army vehicles in 1946 and rebuilt them to suit the station’s needs. In September 1948,
a third daughter, Lois, was born in Tennant Creek and this same year saw the purchase of a small kerosene
refrigerator. Progress was slow for the property because Fred would never borrow, relying on sales to provide for
basic needs. Cattle numbers increased slowly and sales were mainly to the Tennant Creek butcher. Later they were
able to access the Adelaide market.
Aboriginal help was transitional, that is, the people came and went at whim or will. Several returned often over
the years, since they were able to live traditionally and work for the designated rate of one pound per week plus
keep for themselves and as many of their relatives as they wished. Additionally, rations of flour, tea, sugar and meat
were handed out for weekend survival when they often went out hunting in the desert.
The children did correspondence lessons, received and returned fortnightly and enrolled on School of the
Air in 1952. This was a wonderful educational system since everything had to be written in complete sentences.
A single ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer was not tolerated, and even for very young children, answers had to be grammatical
and perfectly spelled.
Fred and Mary worked long hard hours, establishing fencing, two stockyards, roadways and creek crossings.
He was environmentally conscious, never burning on ridgy slopes where water runoff could cause damage.
He purchased a manually operated small grader that was dragged behind a vehicle. With this, he cleared aside
stones and brush while trying not to score the earth. This prevented unnecessary erosion during wet seasons.
A series of drought years during the 1950s took a severe toll on stock numbers since this was the era before
supplementary feeding which virtually cut losses by three quarters. Of course, life was enjoyable too. Everyone
had hobbies and interests. Fred read extensively and was an authority on American history. He loved leather craft
and became an artisan at leather carving. Mary read and did crochet work while the girls rode their ponies, read
books, wrote to penpals and friends and did artwork.
Mary grew a large vegetable garden which was watered by bucket and siphon hose. She was able to sell this
produce to grocers in Tennant Creek and this augmented their very skimpy income. This was only possible for five
months of the year, then the weather became too hot and the water supply in the well receded to a low level.
The Ulyatts sent two of their girls to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart boarding school in Alice Springs in 1956 and
1957 to finish their high school education. This also involved office training in typing, bookkeeping and shorthand
that gained them Pitman diplomas.
These were the countdown years prior to leaving the station that Fred loved obsessively. Miriam and Patricia
left home and went to jobs. Lois went to boarding school at Monte Sant’ Angelo College in Sydney and there were
long dry years at Muckaty. Fred’s health suffered as his heart weakened. Miriam married a young station career
man, Allan Hagan, and in 1963, they bought Muckaty from Fred and Mary Ulyatt who retired to Alice Springs.
Patricia married Allan’s brother, John, and after a year working in the Alice Springs district, they went to manage
Brunchilly Station, a property not far from Muckaty.
Fred and Mary led full and happy lives in Alice Springs, joining clubs and investing in several rental properties.
Fred also did relief managing of station properties for weeks at a time while owners were absent. He also worked for
some time as a ranger with the Northern Territory Reserves Board, a forerunner of the Conservation Commission.
They both died suddenly, 13 months apart, Fred on 11 April 1975 the day after his 72nd birthday and Mary on
13 May 1976, three days after she turned 66.
Two good people who, from having visited, left the world a better place.
Family information.
MIRIAM A HAGAN and LOIS ULYATT, Vol 3.
UMBALLA: see BILLIAMOOK and UMBALLA
URQUHART, FREDERICK CHARLES (1858–1935), poet, paramilitarist, police commissioner and
Administrator of the Northern Territory, was born at St Leonards on Sea in Sussex on 27 October 1858.
He was the second son of Major F D Urquhart of the Royal Artillery (formerly Bengal) and went to Felstead
School and All Saint’s School at Bloxham. As a youth, he had a brief spell as a Midshipman on Wigram’s
clipper ships, but at age seventeen decided to head for Queensland and try his hand in the outback, droving
and bookkeeping. During the westward expansion of the Queensland telegraph line in 1878, Urquhart became a
line repairer. Four years later, he joined the Queensland Native Mounted Police Force. Initially he was a Cadet
Sub-Inspector, but spent his first seven years in western Queensland as a Sub-Inspector.
In 1883, militant Kalkadoon Aborigines on the Fullarton River in the McKinlay Ranges- killed Sub Inspector
Marcus Beresford and his party; his grave is on Devoncourt Station. Urquhart was entrusted with the difficult
task of restoring law and order among the Aborigines. He was twice wounded, once in the groin and again with
a tomahawk in the thigh. His later travels in the west took him to the wreck of the Quetta in 1890 in the Torres
Straits. In 1891, he published some poetry, Camp Canzonettes, about Carpentaria and Leichhardt ‘as a humble
tribute to the valiant dead’. His interest in exploration led him to compile an article, ‘Albatross Bay and the Embley
River’, the subsequent site of the Weipa Mission. It was surprising that Urquhart found time to record in verse
some phases of outback life, the Aborigines and nature. In 1896, he transferred to Brisbane as an Inspector and in
1898; he became involved in the investigation of the murder of the Murphy family at Gatton—the unsolved Gatton