James Charles White (1809-94) was the manager of Robert Tooth’s Queensland stations, Jondaryan, Goomburra, Callandoon and Pikedale when he designed the new shearing shed at Jondaryan Station. The famous woolshed was built 1859-61 at a cost of approximately £5000. The ‘T-shaped’ shed had 52 stands for shearers in the east/west wings and could hold 3000 sheep. The north wing processed the shorn wool, first the wool classers, then the wool bins, two wool presses, scales and stencil for bales and lastly storage of bales waiting to be loaded onto a wool wagon.
James White was born in Ceylon where his father was a military surgeon. He moved to Australia in 1830 and secured employment at the Australian Agriculture Company (AAC), firstly as accounts’ clerk, then storekeeper, superintendent of works, and superintendent of agriculture, stud and cattle. He worked for 12 years at AAC serving under Sir Edward Parry, Colonel Dumaresq and Captain King with the latter period at the company’s operations near Port Stephens. In 1837 he married Sarah Elizabeth Hoddle, daughter of Robert Hoddle, who had been an assistant surveyor under John Oxley. Robert Hoddle was appointed Surveyor-General of Victoria in 1837 and is credited with preparing the plans of Melbourne.
Sarah and James had three sons before Sarah passed away in 1841 and James left AAC in late 1841. He moved to Bathurst in about January 1842 as superintendent at Glanmire Station then running sheep and he was appointed a Magistrate in Bathurst in September 1844. He married Ann Macansh in 1848.
In 1846 he exhibited in Sydney a collection of scale models of buildings that were intended to give a clearer idea of Australian architecture and the exhibition included ‘a squatter’s station – the house, the huts for the men, stockyards, &c., all being laid down to a scale, and remarkably accurate…’. The model of All Saint’s Church, Bathurst, was described as ‘at once chaste in design and elegant in execution.’ In 1847, James built a very fine scale model of St Andrew’s Cathedral, ‘to the amended designs of Edmund Blacket’, who had been appointed Diocesan architect to the Church of England in 1847. Joan Kerr notes that the model ‘was brought by the building committee and presented to (Bishop) Broughton…subsequently exhibited in the Paris International Exhibition of 1855 as an example of colonial Arts and Manufacturers and is still extant in the cathedral’.
The foundation stone of the first St Philip’s Church had been laid in Sydney in 1800. By 1846 that building was no longer suitable and at a public meeting in November that year a proposal to build a larger church was adopted. Blacket’s design of the second St Philip’s was splendid. White’s model (1849) of St. Philip’s church was described as ‘a work of great ingenuity and delicacy…of skill and perseverance’ and was sold to raise funds for construction of the church which opened in 1856. As well as this model, White also carved the altar, pulpit and reading desk. ‘When it was opened Blacket and White’s communion rails and pulpit and Blacket’s organ front were much admired’.
On 1 December 1849 the Governor appointed Blacket as Colonial Architect. White was appointed as Clerk of Works on 14 January 1850 and, to begin with, Blacket’s sole employee as a draughtsman. In addition to his duties as Colonial Architect, Blacket was permitted to continue with his private practice. He designed at least six bridges, completed Treasury, designed the Water Police Office, Goat Island Overseer’s House and Magazine, Glebe Island Abattoir, Gabo Island Light and Cape Moreton Light, and supervised repairs to Government House. Due to the discovery of gold in May 1851, the colonial government had to erect a large number of buildings such as: a courthouse at Drayton, lockups, watch houses, escort stations and gold offices – all designed by Blacket.
It is likely that White was kept very occupied on a great variety of work. One of the private commissions was Robert Tooth’s residence ‘Brooksby’ in Double Bay which commenced in 1848 and Blacket was still visiting in 1850.
Blacket had trained as an engineer and was a skilled draftsman and surveyor and he had spent a year recording details of English medieval architecture. Blacket married Sarah in 1842 and moved to Sydney where he set up practice as an architect. He was appointed Anglican diocesan architect in 1847 and ultimately designed schools, hospitals, convents, lighthouses, bridges, commercial buildings and nearly 80 churches. Initially, he was influenced in New South Wales by Bishop Broughton and adopted 18th century Gothic styles. He designed at least 12 churches and other buildings during the period 1846-54 when he and James White were associated with the Church of England in Sydney.
Early 1854 James White joined Mort & Co and then resumed employment with AAC in June 1854 as assistant general superintendent at Port Stephens reporting to Captain Brownrigg. He became aware in July 1856 that Brownrigg had been unjustly accused of mismanagement by the Directors and in protest he tendered his resignation.
On 28 March 1857 he departed the Darling Downs in charge of 18,000 sheep heading to Victoria. In a lengthy letter to the Colonial Secretary in December 1857, James described the challenges he experienced droving a large mob of sheep from the Darling Downs to Victoria. He crossed 11 major river systems and, due to heavy rain in the catchments, built bridges over seven of them to get the stock across. His letter to the Colonial Secretary recommended the establishment of three designated stock routes.
The partnership of Robert & Frederick Tooth appointed James White manager of Jondaryan, Goomburra, Pikedale and Callandoon Stations on 1 February 1858 and his family moved to Jondaryan Station from Port Stephens in May 1858. James White was uniquely equipped to design, in 1859, the finest woolshed in the Colony.
This shearing shed designed by James White is an outstanding example of 19th century industrial design and construction. It excels in achieving the optimum efficiency for the shearing very large numbers of sheep, in as short a time as possible, without compromising the quality of the wool. With Blacket’s influence, White was able to build a shed wide enough to accommodate two parallel lines of shearers and to bring the vital function of processing the fleece into the centre of the shed. It did so without alteration for over 80 years.
