Accompanied to the meeting by his partner, Margaret Shepherd, Jeff Prell told members of the Probus Club of Goulburn and District about their property ‘Gundowringa’, his forebears and the influence they had on the Goulburn and Crookwell districts and indeed, Australia.
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Arriving in Sydney from Hamburg in Germany in 1853, Jeff’s great-grandfather Frederick Prell commenced business as a general merchant. After a short visit to England, he returned to Australia and transferred his business to Melbourne. In addition to his mercantile activities in 1888 he purchased Richmond Downs station in Northern Queensland, a property of 1500 square miles. Frederick’s fourth son, Charles, was educated at Hawthorn Grammar and after an adverse school report he was told: “You are only fitted to go on the land. You can go straight up to Queensland.”
In 1888 after five years experience on Peak Downs he was appointed to manage his father’s newly-acquired Richmond Downs station where cattle and horse breeding was carried on. Deciding to purchase his own property in 1899, Charles took a punt on buying the 2000 square mile Savannah Downs in the Queensland Gulf Country. It was offered at a low figure because it was almost waterless and the bank had been losing money on it. After finding water, six years of great success followed with fat cattle and sheep raising which allowed Charles to sell up at a very profitable figure and look south for other opportunities.
In 1904, it came to Charles’ attention that a property called ‘Gundowringa’, near Goulburn was for sale. Travelling by rail via Goulburn to Woodhouselee he was not impressed by the country he had seen along the way and was not prepared to walk the extra five miles to the property. Fortunately, the postmaster at Woodhouselee suggested he should have a look at the property and offered him a lift.
He and his family had reason to be grateful to that postmaster, for when Charles Prell reached ‘Gundowringa’, he realised it was the place for which he had been searching. Mostly uncleared, run down and carrying less than one sheep per acre, Charles could see potential and quickly purchased the property.
Unfortunately, space does not allow the full story but with many years of hard toil, innovation, introduction of new grasses, experimentation and pasture improvements, the property became one of the finest properties in Australia. In 1923, ‘Gundowringa’ comprised 9000 acres.
Charles Prell was a very strong community person and was elected as the first president of the Goulburn Rotary Club in 1930. He and ‘Gundowringa’ were written up in the most respected agricultural journals and he held many board positions. Charles spoke of the benefits of pasture improvement to national and international Rotary conferences.
- For enquiries about joining Probus, contact Peter Jordan 4821 3875 or Mick McGhie 4821 3328.
There was no Thumbnail Sketch this month as it was the club’s AGM.