Sheep, cattle and populations in the Australian colonies, 1815 to 1856
The Laureate Centre for History and Population, 26 September 2025
Convenor
Dr. Nicholas Pitt
Contributing Scholars
Hon. Prof. Ann Curthoys, University of Sydney (brief remarks and comment)
Senior Prof. Simon Ville, University of Wollongong (chair and comment)
Assoc. Prof. Nancy Cushing, University of Newcastle
Dr Cameron Muir, University of Western Australia
Dr Jarrod Hore, UNSW Sydney
Dr Matthew Birchall, UNSW Sydney
Synopsis
Histories of pastoralism and histories of populations represent two central streams within the historiography of Australia and the British Empire more broadly. Both livestock (living and as commodified bodily products) and humans criss-crossed the globe, driving colonial expansion, and remaking landscapes, economies and diets. Later historiography has largely separated out the ways that nineteenth century thinkers on political economy and colonisation frequently thought about livestock and populations together, in terms of food, reproduction and occupation of land. This small gathering of scholars with backgrounds in animal history, cultural history, environmental history, business history and settler colonial history will reunite these strands to explore it means to include sheep and cattle in the histories of populations in Australia up to the granting of responsible government to the colonies in the mid 1850s.
Program
| 26 September 2025 | |
| 9.30am – 9.45am | Welcome – Dr Nicholas Pitt (UNSW) |
| 9.45am – 10.30am | Assoc. Prof. Nancy Cushing (University of Newcastle): ‘An Antipodean Ungulate Irruption: Sheep as Actors in the New South Wales Political Economy, 1815 to 1856’ |
| 10.30am – 11.15am | Dr Nicholas Pitt (UNSW): ‘Counting sheep and cattle: placing livestock in histories of the population of the Australian colonies up to the 1850s’ |
| 11.15am – 11.30am | Break |
| 11.30am – 12.15pm | Dr Matthew Birchall (UNSW): ‘Sheep, Violence, Land: The Van Diemen’s Land Company, 1825–1831’ |
| 12.15pm – 12.30pm | Mid-way comment: Hon. Prof. Ann Curthoys (USyd) |
| 12.30pm – 13.30pm | Lunch |
| 13.30pm – 14.15pm | Dr Jarrod Hore (UNSW): ‘Cosmic Commodities and Colonial Infrastructures: Meteorites in the Political Economy of Pastoralism, 1788-1930s’ |
| 14.15pm – 15.00pm | Dr Cameron Muir (UWA): ‘Legacies of pastoralism: experiments in relational approaches to history and storytelling’ |
| 15.00pm – 15.15pm | Break |
| 15.15pm – 15.30pm | Summary comments: Hon. Prof. Ann Curthoys (USyd) and Senior Prof. Simon Ville (University of Wollongong) |
| 15.30pm – 16.30pm | Roundtable discussion |
For more info contact Dr Nicholas Pitt (n.pitt@unsw.edu.au)