Obituaries Australia

The death occurred on Friday at Woollahra, of Mr. Stewart Marjoribanks Mowle, at the age of 86. Mr. Mowle, who was the third son of the late Mr. Richard Mowle, an officer of the Imperial Revenue Service, was born at Deal in 1822. He arrived in Sydney in 1836, and was educated at the Normal Institution, and at Sydney College, now the Sydney Grammar School, when he had with him as schoolmates, T. Brown ("Rolfe Bolderwood"), Dr. Norton, W. Smith, W. Robberds, Walter Lamb, and Edmund Gibbes, with the last of whom he was an intimate friend. In July, 1838, Mr. Mowle decided to take to squatting, at Sir T. A. Murray's Yarrowlumla property, where in the midst of the great drought of 1837-9 he was left in charge of the establishment, 25,000 sheep, and 50 or 60 men, mostly convicts. In October, 1845, Mr. Mowle entered into partnership with Mr. E. Thompson, went to Mannas on the tableland of the Murray, then called the Hume. The country being wet and unfit for sheep, a return was made to Yarrowlumla. He subsequently settled at Canberra, but having suffered great loss through droughts and disease, gave up the land, and was in 1852 appointed a sub-collector of Customs and Water Police Magistrate at Eden. He remained there until 1855, when he joined the Customs-house in Sydney. In 1862 Mr. Mowle obtained the position of Clerk in the Legislative Council, and in 1883 he was appointed Usher of the Black Rod, which office he held until he retired in 1905. The deceased was for many years secretary of the late Civil Service Club, and was also one of the first directors of the Civil Service Co-operative Society, and secretary to the Civil Service Musical Society. Mr. Mowle was a frequent contributor to the local press. The deceased gentleman was twice married and leaves two sons and a daughter by the first marriage, and one son and two daughters by the second marriage.