S. Kidman and Co. Ltd., the largest private landholder in Australia and one of this country’s biggest beef producers. The company was founded by South Australian-born pastoralist, Sir Sidney Kidman (1857 –1935). Kidman left home when he was thirteen, with only five shillings in his pocket and riding a one-eyed horse. He worked as a drover, stockman and livestock trader, making money trading whatever was needed and supplying services to new mining towns that were springing up in outback New South Wales and South Australia.

When he was 21, Sidney Kidman inherited £400 from his grandfather and used it to trade in horses and cattle. In his mid twenties he acquired a one-fourteenth share in the new BHP mine for 10 bullocks worth about £40, subsequently selling his share for £150, less £50 commission. Not a bad profit, especially in the 1880s. Kidman held a significant number

of mail contracts and in 1886 bought his first station, Owen Springs in the Northern Territory, gradually extending his holdings into Queensland and New South Wales.

The great drought in 1901 was a disaster for all pastoralists including Sidney Kidman, but within a year, with the support of his bank, he had made £40,000 and began buying up big again, eventually owning or having an interest in land covering more than three percent of Australia. He owned over one hundred cattle stations and moved his cattle

between them along the great inland river systems, drought-proofing his empire.

‘The Cattle King’ was a millionaire by the time World War I broke out and during the war he gave back to his country by donating wool, meat, horses, ambulances and even fighter planes to the government. His deep sense of loyalty to his staff resulted in him guaranteeing the jobs of employees who went to fight in the war and he assisted the widows of those who were killed in action. He was knighted in 1921.

Today S. Kidman & Co is one of Australia’s largest beef producers with a herd of 200,000 cattle. The company has pastoral leases covering 120,000 square kilometres in three states and the Northern Territory, and produces grass-fed beef for export to Japan, the USA and South East Asia.

(MaryAnne Leighton)