Land consolidation

Alpha Station homestead, 1876

Under the Crown Lands Act of 1884, leaseholders were able to consolidate adjacent runs under one lease, with a portion reverting to the Crown to be made available for selection. In this part of Queensland, most of the ‘available’ pastoral land was consolidated over the next 6 years. The resulting 18 pastoral properties ranged in area from 80 to over 16 000 square miles.

Notes on the database:

Date gazetted

The database lists the consolidated runs according to the date gazetted in the Queensland Government Gazette. Most were gazetted between November 1885 and August 1891. A debate between the lessee and the Department of Lands about areas to be consolidated and resumed on Beaufort continued until July 1896.

Consolidated run

The name of the original homestead run was most often chosen as the name of the consolidated lease holding. In this group, the exceptions are Boongoondoo, Hobartville, Wee Dunrobin, Beaufort, and Clare.

Lessee (Mortgagee)

A number of the runs were consolidated under mortgage, generally to a financial institution.

Area resumed for selection

The area resumed for selection depended on the time that had elapsed since the date of the first licence to occupy land within the consolidation. For that land held 20 years or longer, 50% was resumed; for that held from 10 to 20 years, 33.3% was resumed; for that held less than 10 years, 25% was resumed.

Other variations in the percentages of land resumed shown in the table were due to allowances making the relative value of leased and resumed land equivalent.