Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia

by Edward Ellis Morris

(2) A pastoral tenant of the Crown, often renting from the Crown vast tracts of land for pasturage at an almost nominal sum. The term is still frequently, but incorrectly, used for a man rearing and running stock on freehold land. <i>Pastoralist</i> is now the more favoured term.

1840. F. P. Labillicre, `Early History of the Colony of Victoria' (edition 1878), vol. ii. p. 189:

"In a memorandum of December 19th, 1840, `on the disposal of Lands in the Australian Provinces,' Sir George Gipps informs the Secretary of State on the subject, and states that,—'A very large proportion of the land which is to form the new district of Port Phillip is already in the licensed occupation of the Squatters of New South Wales, a class of persons whom it would be wrong to confound with those who bear the same name in America, and who are generally persons of mean repute and of small means, who have taken unauthorized possession of patches of land. Among the Squatters of New South Wales are the wealthiest of the land, occupying, with the permission of the Government, thousands and tens of thousands of acres. Young men of good families and connexions in England, officers of the army and navy, graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, are also in no small number amongst them.'"

1844. `Port Phillip Patriot,' July 8, p. 3, col. 3:

"The petitioner has already consigned the whole country to the class squatter in perpetuity."

1845. R. Howitt, `Australia,' p. 165:

"The squatters of Australia Felix will meet on horseback, upon Batman's Hill, on the 1st of June, for the purpose of forming a Mutual Protection Society. From the Murray to the sea-beach, from the Snowy Mountains to the Glenelg, let no squatter be absent."

1846. C. P. Hodgson, `Reminiscences of Australia,' p. 366:

"`Squatters.' A word not to be found in `Johnson's Dictionary'; of Canadian extraction, literally to sit on the haunches: in Australia a term applied to the sheep farmers generally; from their being obliged frequently to adopt that position."

1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition' (Introd.), p. 15: