His Majesty the Merino Stud

This image from our collection shows a sepia photograph of a magnificent merino ram named ‘His Majesty’ from the famous Wanganella Station near Deniliquin in New South Wales. This photo is thought to date from around 1890. The note on the mount says that His Majesty was sold for 2000 guineas to South Africa when he was 5 years old. A guinea equates to roughly £1.05 so His Majesty would have cost about $4,200 in today’s currency – an enormous sum in 1890.

So what could have made a 5 year old ram so valuable? Rams are valuable because of their own body shape, hardiness, resilience and wool quality. Most importantly, they can pass on their characteristics to their offspring. At 5 years old His Majesty would have already demonstrated his breeding prowess and as pampered stud ram his new owner could expect him to perform until he was at least 10 years old. Merinos are known to be a long lived sheep and can live to over 20 years old.

Wanganella was one of the most influential sheep stations in the evolution of the Peppin Merino sheep in Australia. The Spanish and Saxon Merinos introduced into Australia, soon after European settlement, were only able to produce one to two kilograms of wool each year. Peppin Merinos were bred to be larger, stronger animals with much longer wool, and a Peppin ram today may produce up to 20 kilograms of wool.

Perhaps just as importantly, His Majesty would have provided an important status symbol for his new South African owner, especially as he came from such a prominent Australian stud. It is likely that J S Minnour Esq enjoyed parading His Majesty at the major Agricultural Shows in his homeland as well as the undoubted improvement to his flock.

The museum holds an important collection of wool samples including the Bill Montgomery Vintage Wool Collection which includes samples from stud rams and ewes at Wanganella station in the 1890s.

Post by Lynne McNairn

Photographer unknown, c 1890 (95/265/1)
No known copyright restrictions.

Tags: agriculture, farming history, farms, merinos, sepia print, sheep, sheep breeding, stud merino, Wanganella Station, wool

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.