James Tyson

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James Tyson (April 8, 1819 - December 4, 1898) was an Australian pastoralist. He is regarded as Australia's first self-made millionaire. His name became a byword for reticence, wealth and astute dealing.

His mother, Isabella, was a convict, sentenced to transportation for theft. His father, William, and his eldest brother, also William, came with her. Receiving a grant from Governor Lachlan Macquarie in the Narellan area, the Tysons set themselves up as small farmers, later moving with their growing family to East Bargo. As a youth James commenced work for neighbours such as Major Thomas Mitchell, and John Buckland who contracted him to take cattle to the north-eastern border area of the colony of Victoria (Australia). Then, with his brothers, he took up squatting licences in western New South Wales. Eventually they settled on land at the junction of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers, in the reed-beds which had defeated John Oxley’s exploration in 1837. He travelled much about Australia, but eventually made his principal home at Felton station on the Darling Downs.

In 1893 he became a member of the Queensland Legislative Council but did not take a prominent part in its proceedings.

The legendary Tyson fortune was founded on success in butchering on the Bendigo goldfields. It was extended by canny buying, knowledge of cattle and of stockroutes, pastoral lending and the judicious selection of enormous leaseholds to provide a chain of supply which stretched from North Queensland to Gippsland and which fed beef to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It is on record that on one occasion he offered the Queensland government a loan of £500,000 towards the cost of constructing a proposed transcontinental railway, and in 1892 at a time of economic depression he took up £250,000 in treasury bills to assist the government.

At the time of his death his estate was the largest in Australia to that time. However he died unmarried, childless and intestate. His estate was sold off, realising about £2.36 million, which was divided among his closest relatives.

[edit] Trivia

Banjo Paterson (in T.Y.S.O.N.), Breaker Morant and Will Ogilvie (Australian writer) all wrote about him.

Among his purchases was the house in Heyfield, Victoria, that had been built by the town's founder James McFarlane. Some years later, Mary Grant Bruce started writing her Billabong series of books while staying at the same house.