Gordon Arnold and his wife Nell (Ellen) spent 25 years working for the Australian Agricultural Company on Wrotham Park, from 1963 to 1988. Prior to that they were managing AACo-owned Ivanhoe, near Kununurra in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Gordon was a character and gentleman of the old school, of my father’s generation. Generous, thoughtful, blunt but with a healthy sense of humour – a hardworker and early riser, he took a very dim view of anyone who was a bit faint hearted in the work department. He and his family (Nell and six children; Julie, David, Geoffrey, Fiona, Tom and Lisa) supported the RFDS for decades, through entering Queen of the Outback quests and running bi-annual horsesports on Wrotham Park. His work for the Mareeba Shire as Councillor of Division Two, stretched from 1977 to 1997 and from 2000 to 2003. Gordon’s considerable and very successful efforts with pasture development, using Townsville and Verano stylos, began with the CSIRO in 1966. Several CSIRO blokes were involved however it is Les Edye that I remember Gordon mentioning most often.
Over two and a half decades of putting in miles more fencing plus improving waters, pastures and herd quality, ‘The Park’ had undergone huge changes. However for some years Gordon was sure the AACo would sell Wrotham Park. It was a considerable distance from other AACo properties, and running costs were higher. As a smart compromise he encouraged the sale of the most phosphorous-deficient and more distant country, Highbury and Drumduff, and the retention of Gamboola and Wrotham Park, rather than see the whole station of 9,973 square kilometres sold. On average the four stations ran more than 40,000 head, and Gordon knew that by concentrating the available capital on the two areas of better quality soils, carrying capacity could be lifted up to what the whole aggregation used to run. Gordon and Nell retired to the outskirts of Mareeba in 1988, and his eldest son David and wife Tess took on the managing of Wrotham Park.
Sadly after semi-retirement of just five years and an illness lasting around 12 months (which in typically stoic style, he only told a handful of people about), Gordon Arnold died on 2 May 2003.
Gordon’s wealth of knowledge, the way budgeting figures rolled out so easily, and above all his absolute passion for Wrotham Park, shines through in this paper he wrote, published in the Tropical Grassland Society of Australia’s newsletter, Tropical Grasslands (1997), Volume 31, 522-526. Reading this summary of Wrotham Park, Gamboola, Highbury and Drumduff is just like hearing him speaking, and I’m reminded of how much I loved the place too. It was like paradise – massive, not easy or cheap to manage – but with beautiful rivers, fabulously interesting and massive potential. It is also a reminder of how poorer rural Australia is for losing the generations who grew up with horses – those born in the 1920s and 1930s.