Believed to be Tamworth's oldest business (established in 1885) and the first to be connected to the telephone, stock and station agents Garvin and Cousens have hit facebook in a big way with their regular feature of photographs from by-gone years.
This week the photo's of Big Ben, an eight-year-old Hereford/Jersey cross bullock, a milking cow's calf, bred by the Waugh family at Bergen-Op-Zoom, Walcha, and sold in August,1956 for $162.10 (81 pounds and one shilling) to the New England Meat Company.
The bullock's carcase weight was 816 kilograms (1795 pounds) and it's length was 3.28 metres (10 feet, nine inches) and a girth of 2.12m.
Eldest of Edde and Ruth Waugh's five children, Meg Ducker, Woodbridge, Tasmania, said she was close to 15 years-old at the time and her and her siblings were "cross" with their father for selling their pet. A brother of Big Ben was sold at four years weighing 567kg (1250lbs).
Mrs Ducker said the milking cow was a Jersey/ Milking Shorthorn cross while Big Ben was sired by a stud Hereford bull from the Bergen-Op-Zoom stud. The property is now being run by Meg's nephew, Oscar.
Phillip Hetherington, a partner in Garvin and Cousens said the weights were enormous compared to the times when bullocks were usually weighing 550kg-plus.
In early 1900s the company ran weekly horse sales, as Mr Hetherington explained, horses were the transport mode then.
- Have you old stock photos about the house or office. If so, send them to us at The Land and we can publish them with an accompanying story.
