Robert Kaleski

Robert Lucian Stanislaus Kaleski
Born	1877 Burwood, NSW
Died	1961 Hammondville, NSW
Residence	Moorebank, NSW
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Writer, Bushman, Dog Expert
Known for	Australian Barkers and Biters

Robert Kaleski was a self-taught writer, bushman, environmentalist and canine authority living in New South Wales at the turn of the nineteenth century. While he is perhaps best known for his role in breeding the Australian Cattle Dog he also developed the first breed standard for the Australian Kelpie, wrote on a number of practical subjects for the newspapers of the time, and published works of fiction in magazines such as The Bulletin. In addition Kaleski patented his designs for improved farm implements, and developed and applied successful theories of soil management in times of drought.

A bachelor, he spent most of his life on his farm at Moorebank, where a street is now named in his honour. He died at the age of 84.

Robert Lucian Stanislaus Kaleski was the son of a Polish mining engineer, John Kaleski, and his English wife Isabel, née Falder. Political pressures in Poland led John Kaleski to move to Germany, where he held academic appointments at Bonn and Heidelberg Universities, and from there to Australia where he re-built a career as a mining engineer and assayer. Robert Kaleski was born on 19 January 1877 at Burwood in Sydney. Ill health as a child led to him spending long periods with a relative at Holsworthy, where he attended little school but learned much about the local bush.

In his teens, living in Sydney with access to a good library, he educated himself and began studying for a legal career, however he abandoned his studies at the age of twenty-one and went droving. He had a series of jobs in the bush including working on a property at Grenfell and timber getting on the Dorrigo Plateau before taking up a small selection at Holsworthy in 1904.

Kaleski became a dog owner at the age of six years, and was a lifelong student of the dog and the dingo. In 1893 he was a member of the Cattle Dog Club of Sydney, and one of a group of members who bred from bloodlines originating from Thomas Hall's "heelers" and called their dogs the Australian Cattle Dog.

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Wikipedia