Frederick Wolseley

Frederick York Wolseley (16 March 1837 – 8 January 1899) was an Irish-born New South Wales inventor and woolgrower who invented and developed the first commercially successful sheep shearing machinery after extensive experimentation. It revolutionised the wool industry.

The former Murray Shire Council erected a monument to him where he lived at the time, referring to his invention: "It has become part of the rich history of the wool industry and is now perpetuated in poem and song."

Born in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) in County Dublin Ireland, Frederick was the third son of the seven surviving children of Major Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1780–1840) of The King's Own Scottish Borderers (25th Foot) and of the family of Mount Wolseley, co. Carlow, and Frances Anne (1801–1883) daughter of William Smith of Dublin. His eldest brother became Field Marshal Wolseley and a hero of the Victorian era, another brother became General Sir George Wolseley. Their father died in 1840 leaving their mother little more than his army pension and the brothers were educated at the local day school instead of being sent to England. The seven children remained close-knit throughout their lives.

He married his nurse, Ellen Elizabeth Clarke (1850–1922), in Melbourne in 1892. She looked after him through his long final illness. They had no children.

Frederick Wolseley, unassisted, went to Melbourne from Ireland, arriving in July 1854, aged 17, to be a jackaroo on his future brother-in-law's sheep station. His sister Fanny's husband, Gavin Ralston Caldwell, they married in Dublin in 1857, held Thule, on the Murray River, and later added nearby Cobran near Deniliquin; both stations were in New South Wales.

Caldwell died in 1868. About that time, Wolseley set to work developing his ideas for a sheep shearing machine. By 1872, he had created a working model. He returned from a visit to England and Ireland in 1874 and continued development in Melbourne with Richard Park & Co, an engineering business where a few years later Herbert Austin, a new immigrant from England, was to serve an apprenticeship. Austin's uncle was works manager.

Having acquired an interest in them, Wolseley lived on Cobran and Thule until 1876, 22 years in the same district. In 1871 he acquired Toolong in the Murrumbidgee district, five years later another property, Euroka near Walgett. Now living at Euroka, he continued testing and on 28 March 1877 he and Robert Savage (1818–1888), the inventor of various items of mining and agricultural machinery, were granted a patent. Another patent was granted in December; however their machine was not a success and Wolseley continued to work on it but without Savage. He made further developments with Richard Pickup Park and they patented an 'Improved Shearing Apparatus' on 13 December 1884.

The following year, Wolseley bought John Howard's rights to his horse clipper and hired him to work as a mechanic on his Euroka station. There Howard made improvements that were so effective that Wolseley began public demonstrations in Sydney and at Euroka. A William Ryley made suggestions for improving the handpiece. In 1887–1888, demonstrations were arranged throughout eastern Australia and New Zealand. The culmination was the first complete shearing by machinery which took place at Sir Samuel McCaughey's woolshed at Dunlop, Louth, N.S.W. and that year, 1888, eighteen more woolsheds were equipped with Wolseley machinery.