James Francis Cudmore

Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore (1811 – 3 November 1891) was a pastoralist in the early days of South Australia and the founder of a family highly influential in that and other States, especially Queensland.

Daniel was born in Tory Hall in County Limerick, Ireland in 1811 and educated in Essex, England. In 1835 he and his wife Mary (née Nihill), together with his wife's immediate family, emigrated to Australia on the John Denniston under Captain Mackie which left Liverpool on 11 February 1835 for Sydney, Australia and arrived in Hobart, Tasmania (or Van Diemen's Land as it was then known) on 7 June 1835. His original destination may have been Sydney, but while the ship was in Hobart, he met a cousin, surgeon Captain Russell of the 63rd Regiment, who persuaded him to settle in Tasmania. Daniel found employment as a schoolmaster, then at Peter DeGraves' (1878 – 31 December 1852) Cascade Brewery at The Cascades in Hobart.

A year later they received news of the Proclamation of South Australia and he chartered a yacht and with a cargo of supplies headed for the new colony, arriving at Holdfast Bay early in 1837, Mary following in the Siren, on which yacht their second child, James Francis, was born. Daniel was a partner in the Adelaide Union Brewing Company of Hindley Street, Adelaide in 1838. In August 1843 he took out a wine and beer licence for the "Harp Inn" (later "Harp of Tara") on North East Road, near Dry Creek. In the early 1840s he built a substantial brewery and a malt factory off Melbourne Street, North Adelaide, which perhaps became the Lion Brewing and Malting Company.

In 1847 the news came that he had inherited a considerable property, "Manister", in County Limerick, Ireland from Jane Cudmore (ca.1803 – 7 May 1847), a cousin. He arranged for it to be sold and with the proceeds purchased pastoral properties in the mid-north of South Australia: Yongala, Pinda and Beautiful Valley (situated between Mount Remarkable and Port Augusta Stations. He also purchased the Paringa cattle station. He left management of these properties to his sons and went to Queensland. He took up a station on the Clarke River, a tributary of the Burdekin, and purchased 4,000 acres on the Herbert River, near Cardwell for a sugar plantation. In 1871 he purchased Avoca Station at the junction of the Murray and the Darling. and in 1876 added the adjoining Popiltah Station, making a total leasehold of 900,000 acres and freehold of 33,000 acres near Wentworth.

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