 Nanima
Station, Forbes, 1898: a virtual exhibition
Nanima Station, a large irrigration and grazing property on the Lachlan River between Forbes and Cowra, NSW, was acquired by Paul Wenz in the 1890s. It is currently home to Janet Moxey, a patron of the Paul Wenz Society.
French-Australian
writer Paul Wenz posing with an ancient eucalypt on Nanima Station c. 1898. Such trees were once prolific in the Lachlan River
Valley but few of this size now remain.
Nanima is a Wiradjuri word which, according to contemporary Wiradjuri informants, means 'a sitting
down place' or 'something that is lost'. (An Aboriginal Reserve of the same name was established near Wellington in 1910 and is now owned and administered by a local community organisation.)
These photographs document life on a pastoral station in
Wiradjuri Country in the late 1890s. The originals were bequeathed
to the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, by Paul Wenz's widow, Hettie
Wenz nee Dunne. These images were scanned from a set of prints sent to then-Forbes Mayor, Clive
Thomas, in 1990 by Tom Thomson, publisher
of Wenz's Diary of a New Chum
and other Lost Stories. The Mayor passed them on to the then-Forbes librarian, Jenny Hawkes, and I found
them in the Library's Wenz file in 2004. They are published here as part of the Paul & Hettie Wenz Project.
Above: Nanima
Station, via Forbes. The house was constructed from bricks
made on the property and roofed with tiles imported by
the Wenzes from Marseilles, France. Photograph by Paul
Wenz c. 1898.
Paul
Wenz and his early busines partner, William Dobson (left),
celebrating the completion of Nanima homestead with a
case of Krug champagne in the garden in 1898.
Another
view of Nanima homestead, c. 1898. If you look closely
you'll see a bicycle leaning against the front fence.
Drying
the bricks for the homestead at Nanima, c. 1898. Notice
the stacks of split timber, presumably cut from the property
for the brick kiln. Photo by Paul Wenz.
Removing
a rock during dam building on Nanima Station, c. 1898.
Notice the already ring-barked eucalypts surrounding the
dam site. Photo by Paul Wenz.
Wool
bales ready for the long haul from Nanima on the Lachlan
to the coast to be loaded onto sailing ships bound for
Europe. Photo by Paul Wenz.
Pay
day at Nanima: shearers waiting outside the shed.
The
Lachlan at Nanima in pre-irrigation days when it was still
a wild river lined with red gums. Photo by Paul Wenz.
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created 23 June 2004. Last revised 12 May 2008. Copyright Merrill Findlay. |