Pastoral lease history
Gluepot Reserve was a Pastoral Lease for the 120 years before Birds Australia acquired the property on 30th July 1997. The initial lease from 1/7/1877 was to James White of Kapunda and was under regulations governing ‘Waste Lands of the Crown for Pastoral Purposes’. There is evidence of Aboriginal use of the area and the leases made provision for the access of Aborigines to the area. Over the decades various portions of the present Reserve were leased to the following: (in alphabetical order)
Birdseye, Alfred of Kooringa, farmer
Broad Bros Pty Ltd, (Colin and Harold) of Booborowie
Daw, John Wickham of Kapunda, butcher
Finch, Walter of Kooringa, grazier
Hatherly, Herbert Ledden of east Kooringa, sheepfarmer
Heard, John Reginald Foreman of Unley Park, grazier
Kellock, Alexander George of Thistlebeds, grazier
Kelly, John Duncan of Hallett, grazier/farmer
Mackay, William of Kooringa, stationhand
Mattner, Reginald Frederick of Strathalbyn, farmer
Mattner, Wesley Maitland of Waikerie, grazier
Millington, Paul of Spalding, dealer
Mules, John Hawkes of Mount Mary, sheep farmer
Schwier, Cyril Martin of Kooringa, sheep farmer
Scott, Thomas of Truro, grazier and farmer
Shattock, George William Dowden of Hallett, grazier
Shaw, James of Canegrass via Koomooloo, Kooringa, contractor
Simmons, Charles Evan of Yarcowie, farmer
Taylor, Frederick George of Boggy Flat, farmer and grazier
Taylor, Neville Joseph of Waikerie
Taylor, Robert Edward of Taylorville
Tiver, James George of Hallett, grazier
Ward, Albert of Kooringa, grazier
Warnes, Charles Back of Woolgangi via Kooringa, grazier
Warnes, George of' White River Station, Port Lincoln, pastoralist
Warnes, Reginald and his wife Winifred Brockis Warnes
Leslie Charles Warnes, Peter Thomas Warnes, Charley Cater Warnes, John Robert Warnes and William Bruce Warnes
White, James of Kapunda, land agent and stockholder
White, James Wharton of Kapunda
White, William St Clare Wharton of Kapunda
We have reminders of three of them in names used on Gluepot today in Woollacott, Birdseye and Kelly dams. Reg Warnes and his family held the leases for the longest period - from 1934 to 1961.
Getting there
Access to the area was initially from the west and north-west, particularly from Burra and Woolgangi, which the Warnes also leased. A telephone line into the area, initially a private party line in the 1930s, came from Burra. Today Gluepot is still connected via the Braemar Extended Zone telephone exchange north of Burra. Access from the south was also possible. Friends of Gert and Horrie Truscott, who lived at Old Gluepot from 1934 to 1940, came out from Waikerie for weekends. They enjoyed playing tennis on an improvised court. The Broads, Mattners and Taylors also came from the south via Taylorville and occasionally the Broads travelled from Booborowie in the north-west.
Transport
Early transport was by horse. The Finch brothers, Reg and Ken, after leaving school, stayed for a couple of years around 1930 when their father held the lease. Their work included riding around the unfenced boundaries. Ken once got lost on Birdseye but, remembering his father's instructions, took the bridle off his horse and let it bring him back to the hut. In the mid-1930s utilities and motorbikes became the main means of transport to, from and around the area. There were not many roads and the shortest route between places, especially dams, was the favoured route. Les Warnes recalled that in 1947 he and his father drove a flock of sheep from Woolgangi (70km away) to Gluepot by utility and pushbike. He said he "did a fair bit of walking". Today the Reserve may be reached from the south by two wheel drive vehicles along a graded track.
