George Allan McMillan
1832-1903

George Allan McMillan was a fine old-fashioned squatter of a kind common enough forty years ago, but now extinct, and as he was a sort of godfather of mine in sheep management (my others were O. Scott Thomson of Mt. Peel, and John Carmichael, my head shepherd at Glentanner), I may perhaps, as an act of piety, give a longer description of him than would otherwise be suitable to these notes.

McMillan began life as a shepherd in Ross-shire, and, as he was proud to tell, arrived in New Zealand in 1859 with less than £10 in his pocket. He engaged himself as a boundary keeper with the Hon. William Robinson at Cheviot Hills, and by his ability and merit worked up to be head shepherd and then manager there. When his savings were large enough he bought the Lakes, a small station at the head of the Hurunui, and when he had made a success of the Lakes he sold it and bought Mesopotamia with 18,000 sheep. He bought Mesopotamia some time before the bad times had got to their worst, and though deeply involved, by good management he weathered the storm much better than most people. When he died he left three unencumbered stations, which his executors sold page 127for over £80,000, and this was before station property had reached the high value it afterwards did.

On all occasions and at all times he wore clothes of exactly the same colour and pattern. He wore the newest in town, the next when travelling and country visiting, and so by successive gradations to the oldest which he kept for work in the woolshed and sheep yards, but all apparently cut from the same piece of cloth.

When I first knew him he had given up doing much actual shepherding and his only dog was a half broken one kept for companionship rather than work, but with ' Chevy ' I have seen him take a mob of 1200 merino ewes and lambs away from Mesopotamia yards in a way that was a pleasure to watch.

In several years' close intimacy I rarely heard him begin a conversation except on the subject of sheep, stations and the people connected with them, but when occasion demanded, he talked of men and things in general with great shrewdness. He had an apt way of expressing his conclusions. For instance he said that only three kinds of men should go on the turf, those with a thousand a year more than they can spend, experienced trainers and jockeys, and infernal rascals. When I asked his advice about selling Glentanner Station at a good profit, he said, ' I think the Glentanner hills will be standing long after your pile of money has melted away.'

He was not the least purse-proud or pompous, but always modest and unassuming—a staunch and generous friend to rich and poor alike.

When he died he arranged that his executors should bury him in the home paddocks at Cracroft.