Obituaries Australia

John Darke, n.d.

from Pastoral Review, 16 October 1917

There recently passed away in New South Wales, by the death of Mr. John Charles Darke, a very noted figure in the stud sheepbreeding and sheepclassing industry of New South Wales and Queensland. From the early eighties, when he was for a while associated with the late John Ryrie Graham, to the time of his death, he had directed his attention to the management and improvement of the Merino.

About 1885, after the death of J. R. Graham, who had a big sheepclassing connection in northern New South Wales, and the retirement from active work of Jonathan Shaw, who worked a number of the big Riverina flocks, it seemed to Mr. Darke to be an opportune time to start the business of sheepclassing, and after consultation with the writer, who at that time was working a number of flocks in the central, north, and north-west of New South Wales and southern Queensland, he set to work. From that start he never looked back, and in a few years, by his skill and judgment and great energy, he got together a big business, extending all over New South Wales and far out into western Queensland.

This he continued to carry on successfully to the day of his death, for he died in harness. His capability and judgment, combined with absolute straight going and integrity, gained for him the entire confidence and support of the many constituents for whom he worked, and secured him the same high position among all interested in the sheep industry which was formerly held by John Ryrie Graham and Jonathan Shaw. A friendship of over thirty years existed between the writer and John Charles Darke, only broken by his lamented death.