George Barlin was born at Droxford, England, in June 1859 and came to Australia as an assisted immigrant in August 1882. He married Elizabeth (nee Tisdell or Teasdale) a descendent of a convict who was assigned to Major Innes of Port Macquarie. Somehow George Barlin was able to select enough land at Upper Lansdowne, located on the western side of the Lansdowne River at the end of Payne’s Lane, to clear the forest and start a dairy farm. George was a bricklayer and travelled far and wide building brick chimneys on the timber houses of farmers. In his absence the dairy farm was mainly run by Elizabeth and their 10 children (5 sons and 5 daughters): Violet (Matt), Charles, Beatrice, Subinia, Oswald, Maida, Frederick, Leslie, Margoria and Dudley.
In the early days it was mainly subsistence farming progressing to the sale of cream for butter making. On one occasion Elizabeth was confronted by bush ranger Jimmy Governor who demanded and was given food. Elizabeth was unharmed.
Two members of the family suffered premature deaths: Leslie was killed in a logging accident near Comboyne, and Oswald suffered war wounds when the Japanese bombed Darwin and subsequently died from these wounds.
Of the 10 children, two remained as long-term residents of Lansdowne and Upper Lansdowne: Beatrice and Charles.
Beatrice married Augustus (Gus) Unger who had a dairy farm on the eastern side of the Mt Coxcomb Road where they remained until their retirement and then moved to Taree. As a young man Gus was involved in the harvesting of red cedar. Beatrice and Gus did not have children but always sought their company. Gus (a pipe smoker) was a very agreeable and entertaining person who interacted well with kids. He told them many stories (many far-fetched) and played jokes on them. Needless to say, he was a popular uncle.
Charles in his early years, through an acquaintance, gained a knowledge of photography. He married Mildred McAlpin, a daughter of Duncan and Sarah McAlpin who were farmers at Lansdowne and grew maize as their main cash crop.
Following their marriage Millie and Charlie lived at Gloucester and Charles travelled widely by horse and sulky taking photographs for farming families. He then bought land known as Newton’s paddock at Lansdowne (now accessed from Barlin’s Lane) and started clearing the land for a dwelling and dairy farm.
Millie and Charles had a family of seven boys: George, Harold, Neville, Athol, Norman, Gordon, and LyndaI. Charles had plenty of male help with the farm work and he was quite successful.
When George and Elizabeth retired from the original property at Upper Lansdowne, Charles purchased it and installed a sharefarmer, initially the Thatcher family, and eventually son Neville (see below) took over.
The dairy farms initially sold cream to the Lower Manning butter factory (cream was sent by boat from a wharf at Lansdowne), raised calves and pigs (sold to the Wingham bacon co-operative) and grew maize. Later when electricity was reticulated to the district (after World War 2) farmers installed refrigerated vats and supplied whole milk, collected by tankers, to the Manning River Dairy Cooperative in Taree. Some of this milk was supplied to the Sydney metropolitan market through the Milk Board, which introduced a quota system. This led to a change of farming practice. Whereas considerable quantities of maize had been grown previously to support pig production, the requirement for year-round milk production led to cultivated land being used to grow winter and spring pasture for dairy cows.
With family help to run the dairy farm, Charles engaged in a little livestock trading and land purchases. During his lifetime he considerably expanded the original Barlin farm at Upper Lansdowne with two properties to the west (Previous owners: Diamond and Clune) and two on the eastern side of the Lansdowne River (Previous owners: Degiovani and Alex Payne). He also purchased and operated a dairy farm on the upper reaches of the Mt Coxcomb road (sharefarmer Harry Reeves) and ultimately connected this, by purchasing an adjoining property (Previous owner: Perrett), to a large area of rain forest on the Comboyne escarpment. This area contained a significant number of large red cedar trees which he sold with other timber to H Walters and Son, sawmillers of Lansdowne. Cedar logs about that time were taken to Sydney by ship from the Wingham wharf. He also purchased cattle raising areas fronting the Upper Lansdowne-Comboyne road (previous owners: Pinsini, Artie Martin and Tim Berry?), and significantly expanded the home property at Lansdowne and elsewhere.
Two of the seven sons remained long term residents in the Lansdowne / Upper Lansdowne area: Neville and Athol.
Neville married Melva Bennett, daughter of Col and Evelyn Bennett who had a dairy farm on Hogan’s Road at Upper Lansdowne. They had two children, Wendy and Ross. Neville and Melva operated the expanding original George Barlin farm at Upper Lansdowne for many years and then moved to the Barlin farm at Lansdowne (on Barlin’s Lane). They relocated to Clovernook, near Cundletown, on retirement. Neville was awarded first place in the 1961 Championship Field Maize competition for the North Coast and Central Coast division of the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW; and a National Medal for his services over many years as Captain of the Lansdowne Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade.
Athol married Hilda Carle from Cundletown and they had two daughters, Fay and Robyn.
Athol managed the Lansdowne home farm for several years until he purchased land from the Tyrie family on the southern side of the Lansdowne River adjacent to the Melinga / Upper Lansdowne road and later expanded the dairy operation to the northern side of the river with land purchased from the Roddy McDonald family. Athol and Hilda worked hard and were successful dairy farmers and raised cattle on other land purchased at Upper Lansdowne from JJ McDonell. Athol and Hilda remained at their farm in (semi) retirement.
Charles’ other sons relocated as follows:
George, Canberra, Management of radio and television stations, awarded AM;
Harold, Dumaresq Island, Dairy farmer;
Norman, Wauchope, Transport Company;
Gordon, Canberra, Australian National University;
Lyndal, Canberra, Commonwealth public service, later Clerk of House of Representatives, awarded AM.
Compiled by Gordon Barlin – 4 November 2019