Beschreibung:

THE JACKIE HOWE SHEARING MEDAL, GOLD FOB WATCH WITH ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS Despite the major economic, social and technological revolutions of the past fifty years, Australia's national identity remains significantly connected to the pastoral industries, and in particular to sheep and wool. As well as the general social mythology of rural life, of boss cockies and bushmen and drovers' wives, the specific imagery of sheep and shearing is deeply embedded in the national imagination, and can be seen in a host of cultural artefacts: from Tom Roberts's celebrated paintings Shearing the rams and The golden fleece to Ken Hannam's 1975 film Sunday too far away; from Banjo Paterson's poem Waltzing Matilda to Roger McDonald's novel The ballad of Desmond Kale. In the two decades prior to Federation, the Australian colonies certainly 'rode on the sheep's back': there were more than 100 million head of stock, almost 60,000 shearers and shed hands, and the income from wool was a full two-thirds of the export earnings of the colonies. Given this economic context, shearing also had an important bearing on Australia's political history. It was in the outback shearing sheds of the 1880s and 1890s that capital met labour at close quarters, that industrial relations were tested, and that the Australian Labor Party was born. This is the context in which John Robert ('Jackie') Howe (1861 – 1920) became a folk hero. Shearer, publican and unionist, Jackie Howe was a big, broad man: he was 5 ft 10 in. (177.8 cm.) tall, weighed 14 stone (89 kg.), measured 50 in. (127 cm.) around the chest, 27½ in.(70 cm.) around the thigh and 17 in. (43 cm.) around the biceps, and had 'a hand the size of a small tennis racquet.'[1] Despite his size, he was agile and light on his feet; he won prizes at a Warwick sports day for dancing the Irish Jig and the Sailor's Hornpipe, and reputedly once ran 100 yards in 11 seconds in bare feet.[2] But Howe's most celebrated achievements were not as an athlete, but as a shearer. Historian Patsy Adam-Smith called him 'the Bradman of the boards'[3], and after his death the blue shearer's singlet became known as a 'Jackie Howe', in acknowledgement of Howe's great prowess as a 'ringer', and his pioneering preference for a sleeveless flannel work shirt. By the late 1880s, Howe had a well-established and formidable reputation in the Queensland shearing sheds, but his 1892 season was extraordinary, cementing his place as a national bush hero. That year he was working at 'Alice Downs', north of Blackall. A substantial property, at the time 'Alice Downs' carried over 200,000 head, and maintained a 47-stand shed over a ten-week season. Between 3 and 10 October Howe notched up the extraordinary weekly (5½ day/44 hour) tally of 1,437 sheep. The following week he did even better: on Monday 10 October he shore 321 sheep in only 7 hours and 40 minutes, securing a record that was not broken until 1950, and then only with machine shears. As a hand-shears record it has never been beaten, and nor has the earlier weekly total. Moreover, later that season, at 'Barcaldine Downs', Howe used the newly-introduced machine shears for the first time – and made another record daily tally: 237. These phenomenal totals led to Howe's being awarded both of the gold medals offered that year by Colemane & Sons Ltd, a Cootamundra eucalyptus oil manufacturer: the 10 guinea medal for the 'highest tally of Sheep Shorn/in the Colonies in eight hours/for the season 1892./by Hand Shearing' and the smaller, 5 guinea medal for the 'highest tally with/shearing machines/Season, 1892./(in eight hours)' Jack Howe is the only shearer ever to have set a blade as well as a machine shearing record in the same year. The present lot features both of these medals, and Howe's gold watch and chain – photographs taken later in his life show the two gold discs hung proudly on the front of his waistcoat. A further and later element of the ensemble is a monogrammed and engraved fob shield, pr