Obituaries Australia

Mr Irving Winter, n.d.

from Pastoral Review, 16 September 1914

We published a note last month announcing the death of Mr. Irving Winter, who, after a painful illness of some months, expired very suddenly on the 7th August at his Melbourne residence, Ambo, named after his Queensland station.

The deceased was a well-known figure amongst pastoralists, with whom his kindly, buoyant nature and rare gift of original humour made him very popular. Rather abrupt in manner, straightforward and decided in all his dealings, and with a racy sense of the ridiculous that instantly seized on the comic aspects of daily life he was a most refreshing and stimulating companion, who will be greatly missed by a wide circle of friends. The fourth son of the late John Winter, of Ballarat, in which town he was born in 1844, and educated at the Scotch College, Melbourne, he started his pastoral career in Victoria, becoming owner of St. Germains Station. In 1873 he married Mary, eldest daughter of the late Alexander McLaurin, of Moroco Station, near Deniliquin, N.S.W., and in the following year purchased Tulcumbah, in New South Wales, where he and his wife resided for over thirty years. In 1893 he joined Mr. Richard Newton in Ambo, a group of grazing farms near Longreach, Queensland, on the Mount Cornish resumption. The long drought that followed shortly afterwards proved a severe trial for all graziers, and Mr. Winter's losses were very heavy, both at Tulcumbah and at Ambo. As an example of his humorous way of regarding events, even if disastrous, we may quote his comment on the policy he and his partner had been compelled to adopt of renting at high rates unsuitable coast country for the Ambo Sheep, where they inevitably died in great numbers. "Perhaps," he wrote to his partner, "we may be mistaken in engaging such expensive cemeteries for our stock." At this cruel time Mr. Winter reluctantly parted with Tulcumbah at a considerable sacrifice, and later buying out his Queensland partner, concentrated his energies on the development of Ambo, which by judicious and liberal outlay he made one of the most profitable properties of its size in Queensland. Recollections of the trials and anxieties of the big drought have been almost obliterated by the long succession of bountiful seasons that have followed, but no man who passed through that fiery ordeal more thoroughly deserved the splendid success that attended his pluck and energy than Irving Winter. The Ambo flock has a high reputation in the district, and the small stud of Devon cattle are equal in quality to any in Australia.

A true and generous friend, and a man of marked originality and energy, a good judge of stock, with an especially keen eye for a horse, we regretfully realise that a most genial gentleman and a pastoralist of note has passed from us.