Obituaries Australia

The late Andrew McFarland, whose decease we regret to record, was the third son of the late Mr. Patrick McFarland, of Melbourne, and was born in September, 1840, at Omagh, Co. Tyrone, Ireland; arrived in Victoria in 1853, and educated at the Victoria Grammar School, Collins Street. He went to Dunedin, N.Z., to open and take charge of a branch of the business of McFarland and Sons in 1861, and with the exception of a few months, resided there until 1872, when he returned to Victoria. Daring his residence in Dunedin he was Captain of the Dunedin Volunteer Artillery, which was considered the crack volunteer corps in N.Z. He was a capital rifle shot and won many prizes.

On returning to Australia, he, in partnership with his father and brother Robert, purchased the Thelangerin Station, N.S.W., on the Lachlan, about 35 miles from Hay, and in 1874 married Miss Jeanie Archer Dowling, daughter of the Hon. Thos. Dowling, M.L.C., of Jellalabad, Victoria, by whom he had four sons, all of whom survive him. He was a brother of the late Judge McFarland, of Victoria, of Messrs. Robert and Patrick McFarland, of Barooga, N.S.W., and of Mr. Thomas McFarland, Melbourne. He was well known as the introducer of the Vermont Merinos into Australia in 1881.

He took no part in political affairs but was ever foremost in all social and pastoral matters connected with Hay and the district, where he will be much missed and his loss greatly deplored. At the time of his death he was chairman of the local Pastures and Stock Board. The cause of his death (which was very sudden and quite unexpected) was heart failure, resulting from pneumonia supervening on an attack of influenza, caught while attending the sheep show at Sydney.

He died at Tattersall Hotel, Hay, N.S.W., on 14th July, 1898, and was buried in the Hay Cemetery on the 16th, the funeral being very largely attended by the townspeople and the adjacent country residents, the pall-bearers being his two sons Robert and Harold, Mr. Thos. McFarland, and Mr. Albert Tyson.