Obituaries Australia

John Manchee, n.d.

from Pastoral Review, 16 June 1913

John Charles Manchee, another of the diminishing band of pioneer graziers of Australia, died last month in Sydney from heart failure. Mr. Manchee, who was eighty-one years of age, was born in 1832 at Montpelier, a suburb of Bristol, England. He was a descendant of a Huguenot family of Normandy, France, who fled from that country soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685. Educated first in Bristol, and later at a pension at Darmstadt, Germany, he first set foot in Australia at Melbourne in 1852. The goldfields of Forest Creek and Bendigo were then the great attraction, and he determined to try the latter field, but did not succeed in striking a big find. The allurements of the goldfields were not particularly enticing at the time, and Mr. Manchee left Victoria for New South Wales. Various occupations in Sydney engaged his attention till 1860, when he journeyed out over the Queensland border to Doondi cattle station, on the Balonne River, Maranoa. There he remained for fifteen years, improving the herd of over 10,000 head by introducing the best bulls, procurable at a figure which surprises station owners nowadays, 25 guineas being then the price for good herd bulls, and store bullocks selling at from 30s. to £2 per head, and fat bullocks at from £3 to £4 per head, Sydney. In 1876 he purchased Glen Moan, on the Liverpool Plains of New South Wales, where he has been very successful with Devon cattle and Merinos. His Devon stud herd is one of the largest in Australia, and the Glen Moan wool has won many awards at different world's exhibitions, including the gold medal at the exhibition in Paris in 1900 for fleece and wool in bale.

Mr. Manchee was a member of the council of the Pastoralists' Union of New South Wales and of the Stockowners' Association of New South Wales. He was also one of the founders of the New South Wales Sheepbreeders' Association and a member of the council of the People's Reform league. He leaves a widow and seven children. Three sons, W. H., Arthur Frederick, and Alfred Lionel Manchee, are principals in the firm of Manchee Bros., owners of Binneguy Station, Moree, N.S.W., while of the other two, F. H. is a grazier at Peak Hill and H. E. is a station agent at Manilla N.S.W.