A Brief History of Mikkira Station
In 1839 Adam Borthwick left Peebleshire in Scotland and came to South Australia in the ship ‘Duchess of Northumberland’ (540 tons), landing at Port Adelaide on 18 December 1839. He was described on the shipping list as a shepherd, 43 years of age, and was accompanied by his wife and five children. They first settled at Gawler, then in 1842 Adam selected land on Occupational Lease 103, which extended from Sleaford Mere to the Cobbler Hill, nearly to the western coastline and south to Fishery Bay, in an irregularly shaped block.
“Mikkara” was chosen as the site of the Head Station, no doubt for the abundant and excellent water supply and the shelter of the gum trees.
Port Lincoln had been settled for three years at that time, but the first European settlement in the Sleaford Bay district was the whaling station at Fishery Bay, officially dated as 1837–1841, but whaling had been known around the coast long before that.
A small homestead was built after the style of a Scottish stone hut, and other one-roomed huts with stone chimneys and sheoak walls, for the shepherds.
There were wells to be dug, rough brush fences to be made and each year, the sheep washing and shearing. Each shepherd was responsible for about a thousand sheep and these were also protected at night, because of dingoes.
After shearing the wool was taken in drays to Port Lincoln and later to Wool Bay at Tulka, and loaded onto ketches, such as the ‘Lubra’. Adam’s son William acquired the lease for the Tulka run – a homestead was built there.
In June 1859 Adam Borthwick sold “Mikkira” to the brothers, Dr John Harris Browne and Dr William James Browne, who were very large landowners on Eyre Peninsula, owning at different times, ‘Calca’, ‘Talia’, ‘Warna’, ‘Koppio’ as well as other large properties.
By 1865 the improvements on “Mikkira” were listed as: four oak and one stone huts, five wells, one set of troughs, two two-roomed oak huts with porch, store, men’s kitchen and sleeping room, tool and harness room, cartshed and out-house, woolshed and leanto, wooden drafting yards, garden fence, milking yard.
On an 1879 map, the large stone walled flock yard is shown, and the men’s room survives as the big stone chimney. Alex Tolmer managed “Mikkira” for the Browne brothers and later for Hugh Dobbins, the new owner in 1867.
In July 1879, baby Lily May Farrant, aged one day, died and was buried in the little stone-walled grave under the gums: her mother Margaret Farrant, wife of the manager, also died and was buried in the Port Lincoln Happy Valley Cemetery.
In 1884 the lease, now a much reduced acreage, passed to James Sinclair and in May 1889 to Joseph Sawyer. Joseph was a builder as well as a seaman and landholder and enlarged the homestead. Joseph’s son Richard took the lease after Joe’s death, then in 1906, William Bolitho White, briefly: Alexander Sinclair 1906–1912: John William Henderson lived at “Mikkira” from 1912–1915, and James Augustine Schmidt the Elder, leased the land from 1915–1923.
The lease was then taken up by Samuel and Charles Theakstone on 26 February 1923, and has remained in the Theakstone family since then.
Thomas Black, known as Tom Black the Poet, lived at “Mikkira” 1920–1924. Tom had emigrated from Ireland in 1858 and worked at “Mikkira” as a shepherd in the late 1860s and 1870s. Tom’s sister Charlotte was the mother of Samuel and Charles Theakstone.
Ref: “Mikkira” document
