Challicum, 1844

• This asset shows an aspect of Challicum - the sheep run was occupied by Cooper and his partners, the brothers George and Harry Thomson in 1842; like many Englishmen in this period, the three men were lured to Australia by tales of the wealth to be made from wool; by the 1850s Challicum had a reputation in London for producing high-quality wool.
• It suggests that Challicum was well established by 1844 - while uncertainty over land tenure meant that squatters were reluctant to build permanent structures, the number of buildings at the Challicum home station indicates rapid expansion; records show that even by 1844 the 15,000-acre (6,070-hectare) property was stocked by 3,500 weaned sheep, 3 horses and 8 cattle, while 12 men and 1 woman were employed there.
• It shows an aspect of the home station at Challicum - the hut depicted here may be the second cottage, which was built around 1843, and which housed Cooper and his partners; the kitchen behind the hut may have been a later addition, although it may have been deliberately detached because of the ever-present threat of fire, or to keep the hut cool in the summer months.
• It shows a store - supplies for domestic and farm use were kept in the store; supplies were transported from town by bullock drays, usually on the return journey home after delivering wool, grain and other produce to market; the long and slow trip to either Geelong or Port Phillip happened rarely, so the store had to be kept well stocked.
• It shows a carpenter's shop - the isolation of Challicum from urban settlements meant that all building or carpentry was carried out by the partners or workers at Challicum.
• It indicates that chickens were kept at Challicum, as Cooper included a henhouse in his diagram - squatters kept hens in order to have fresh eggs; as squatting runs were isolated from the main settlements, squatters had to be self-sufficient; eggs also added variety to a diet that consisted mainly of mutton and damper.
• It indicates that Challicum had a dairy operation - in order for a cow to give milk for cream, butter and cheese, it needs to have had a calf and the calf needs to have been kept away from the cow in a separate enclosure (the calfpen).
• It shows the woolshed at Challicum - the woolshed, where sheep were sheared, was built before 1844; it was made of wooden slabs and a roof clad with bark; it also had permanent yards enclosed by fences made of split rails and mortised posts; the Challicum holding included foothill country that provided timber for building and fences; up to 500 trees were probably cut down or destroyed by debarking to build the woolshed.
• It may be part of a letter written by Cooper while at Challicum - the words 'turn over' written at the bottom of the page suggests instructions to a letter reader; the flip side of the original contains the lines of writing that are faintly visible through the page in this reproduction; Cooper may have drawn the diagram to give a correspondent an impression of Challicum.

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