Dagg, Matthew
Matthew Dagg - From Stannersburn to the great Outback.
By Clive Dalton
Can you imagine your parents allowing you to leave school at age 12 to be hired to go shepherding oot bye? That’s what happened to Matt Dagg as the oldest of the Dagg family where father Isaac and mother Grace (nee Jackson) farmed the 32ha at Stannersburn near Falstone. Their children in descending age order were Matthew (1902-1984), Elizabeth (Betty 1905-1986), Mina (1907-1959), James Jackson (1908-1978), Edith (1918–2012?), Mildred Isobel (1922-2015).
Isaac spent a lot of his time riding around farms buying stock in small numbers, so Matt and brother Jim ended up back at home running the farm, and collecting and moving purchased stock to ‘parks’ or rented fields in the valley before they were ready for market. And this included going to marts to handle stock that Isaac had either bought or sold. Isaac had no bank account – he dealt in gold sovereigns!
The problem was, as it was with most farmers’ sons and daughters of the day, there was very little pay if any, on the presumption that one day you would get the farm and be rich and grateful. So the years of suffering were all supposed to be worthwhile.
In 1926 Matt had enough of this, and his engagement to Elizabeth (Bessie) Lawrence from Mounces made him make a major decision about their combined future and to leave home – not just to another farming area in the UK which would have seemed obvious, but to the other side of the world – Australia!

It’s hard to imagine what he had to do to make it all happen, but he finally farewelled the family at Falstone station and boarded the train to board the SS Hobson Bay on January 1, 1927 (listed as farm worker with probably assisted passage) at London bound for Sydney - with no intention of ever coming back. He did have a family contact in Australia – a family called Short with North Tyne connections who met him on arrival. A year later Bessie (listed as domestic worker) arrived on the SS Beltana to be married the same day in a church in Sydney.
Their new life began and it was hard, and not made easy by the climate. Matt cleared bush by ring barking trees, rode boundary fences to check for damage, travelled a Clydesdale stallion around farms when mares needed to be mated, worked in a chalk quarry – and much more. Their son Lawrence was born in Mudgee where they rented a cottage beside the Shorts.
Then disaster struck big time – all caused by a plant called the Bathurst Burr (https://www.business.qld.gov.au/industries/farms-fishing-forestry/agriculture/biosecurity/plants/invasive/other/bathurst-burr) which had many spikes on it some of which spiked Matt. It set up a blood infection which required a short time in hospital, and in the age of no antibiotics was a serious problem. Matt could not work for a considerable period of time so they had no income. They could not rely on friends or government.

Things got so bad that the inevitable had to happen – he had to write to Isaac and ask for enough money for their return fare to UK. It was not the age of airmails or emails, so the length of time taken for sea mail would have added to the stress. But eventually the three of them boarded the SS Mongolia, and sailed out of Sydney harbour complete with new bridge, eventually ending up at Falstone station again to be met by their many friends, all very anxious to see 3-year-old Lawrence.
Isaac had taken the tenancy of the Hott farm which Matt and brother Jim took over, till Matt had it on his own when Jim did service in the airforce. Lawrence took the tenancy after Matt and he was followed by his son Neil who will be the final tenant until the farm is let again.
At any opportunity Matt enjoyed telling anybody willing to listen about his time in Australia and it always included tales from this list:
- Clearing bush while living in a shack built from opened-up kerosene tins.
- Remembering to stand the pinch bar upright in the ground and not laid flat to prevent it getting too hot to handle in the intense sun.
- Lighting a bit of paper and burning around the underside of the seat in the long-drop toilet to remove any poisonous red-back spiders.
- Always being wary of resting snakes in the undergrowth.
- Always carrying a water bag with you in case of emergencies.
- Living in the bush on damper bread cooked on a camp oven.
- Making cooking leftovers into small round cakes on the camp oven, which he called ‘puffdaloonies’.
- Fruit bats leaving their roosts at night in great flocks to go feeding.
(Matthew Dagg was father in law to Clive Dalton