The Cattle King

by Ion L. Idriess

This engrossing story by famous Australian author Ion Idriess is an inspiring tribute to the remarkable life of Sir Sidney Kidman - the Cattle King. At the age of 13 Sidney Kidman ran away from home with only five shillings in his pocket. He went on to become a horse dealer, drover, cattle buyer and bush jockey and he also ran a coach business. Above all, Kidman created a mighty cattle empire of more than a hundred stations, fighting droughts, bushfires, floods and plagues of vermin to do so. His enterprise and courage won him a huge fortune and made him a legend.

Genres: Biography, Australia, Nonfiction, History

341 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Ion Llewellyn Idriess, who won the Order of the British Empire was a prolific and influential Australian author.He wrote over 50 books between 1927 to 1969. Idriess was able to convey an image of Australia that few of its nationals could recognise but that all of them could love and be proud of. From the pearling ships off the port of Broome, to the mighty Inland of Australia where all of Western Europe could fit several times over, Idriess experienced all of these places and attempted to convey to the reader the wonder and love he felt for his wild country.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another in depth, narrative biography from Ion Idriess - at which he excels. This time it is Sir Sidney Kidman (1857 – 1935), known as 'The Cattle King'.

Kidman ran away from home at 13 with little money and broken down, one eyed horse. He is a boy with drive and determination, tremendous will power, and an ability plan out strategic moves in advance. He appears to have some sort of photographic memory - or at least the ability to retain vast amounts of detailed information for retrieval later.

From the very start he was able to recognize that in the act of carrying out some work, or even a conversation he was able to take the knowledge and apply it to a longer term outcome - he absorbed prodigious amounts of information and used them to inform his decisions - in how he went about his work, lived his life, or to give him a business advantage. Examples of this was he very early decision not to drink booze - due to witnessing a lack of judgement by a drunk - he quite earnestly said to himself - why would I want to drink booze and make bad decisions? (Don't we all think we might have done sightly better in life if we were so able?) A second example was when he trained himself to remain calm and not get angry - again after witnessing a man getting furious with his horses which were uncooperative - he recognized that having approached the situation more calmly would have had a better result. Easy to say, but to have the self control and determination to live your life by these types of rules in quite incredible.

As a basic outline - and it isn't really a spoiler - Kidman sets about earning enough to buy horse and a wagon, picks up work to raise capital, buys stock and sells at a profit and eventually buys a station. From there he does deals, buys stations and buys and sells stock for the rest of his life, accumulating so much land that at one point, after Australia becomes a Commonwealth, he is quoted at 'owning more land in Australia than Britain' - which may not have been an exaggeration.

This quote summed things up well - P328:

[Kidman] made life a fascinating game of chess. The board was Australia; the pieces were station managers, land, drovers, stockmen, bore contractors, tank-sinkers, water conservers, money, energy, thought, organization, markets, transport, distances, stock routes, water, grass, cattle, sheep, horses and camels. His opponent was drought, now slowly allying itself with erosion. It was a wonderful fight, lasting sixty-five years. Eventually the man won all along the line, though still fighting at the end.

Kidman was a visionary, an entrepreneur and a legend in his field.

A great read - 5 stars.

[Lea Davey · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favourite books, so it was lovely to re-read after so many years. The Cattle King tells the classic Australian story of Sir Sidney Kidman who runs away from home at the age of 13 on a one-eyed horse. His life story gives us an insight into the hardships and adventures of the pioneering cattle men and women of Australia and reminds the reader of how the early settlers once lived. A story from another time and place about a man whose legacy still lives on today.

[Matthew Hodge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rather old-style biography, complete with some artistic licence on the dialogue and descriptions and some sections (especially regarding Indigenous Australians) that would be phrased quite differently today.

But, despite all that, assuming you can wade through an awful lot of descriptions of cattle stations, at its heart, The Cattle King, is a tale of an early Australian entrepreneur, Sidney Kidman.

Kidman became famous in the late 19th / early 20th century for his astounding knack of knowing the Australian countryside well enough to move vast herds of cattle across some pretty uninhabitable areas, while having a brilliant head for business.

At the height of his career (and he never really had a downside), he owned chains of cattle stations that allowed him to shift cattle over such vast distances as Queensland to South Australia.

Ion Idriess is a bit of a yarn-spinner, so Kidman comes across as a wonderful guy who did right by everyone and never put a foot wrong in his entire career. I feel today we might view him a bit more objectively, but part of the charm of the book is how much this sort of story would have appealed to a young country in the 1930s, looking for heroes to worship.

[Sarah Fairbairn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased this paperback on the 4th July at the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame at Longreach.

When we entered the museum we watched a documentary and Sir Sid Kidman was mentioned. I thought “wow he sounds like an interesting fella”. So when we got to the gift/sourvenieer shop and there was a book about him, I just had to buy it.

Once we got back to our camp that afternoon I immediately started reading it. The first few pages gives us a brief history of Angus and Robertson, then a brief history on the author, followed by the author’s note. I was buzzing by this point as I’d already found these first pages fascinating and I hadn’t even started to really read about Sir. Sid Kidman yet.

Kidman’s life was truly amazing. I read this while we were travelling through some of the places mentioned in the book, so that added an extra special kick to my experience. The Silver City aka Broken Hill was mentioned quite a lot and it gave me the extreme urge to go there, but alas it didn’t work out with the rest of our camping trip.

Some times when I read a YA dystopian or fantasy novel I get a bit “Oh yeah right, as if a 16 year old could do that”. But the thought struck me while reading this book, that if thirteen year old Kidman could do the things he did, than they probably aren’t that far-fetched. Go back 100 years or more and you were a child, than an adult – None of this teenager crap. You had a job at thirteen and where out working with the men. At Thirteen Sid had saved up a years’ worth of earrings and ran away from home.

Sid, a thirteen year old, in unfamiliar bush saved himself and a fellow drover from dehydration and starvation. He had a kind heart and a brilliant mind. The man was a genius. His brain was a sponge. He traveled all over the place listening to and learning from anyone who would talk to him, from anyone who would show him. At a time when Whiteman feared and hared the Blackman, Sid was leaning all they were willing to teach him about the land. Thirteen year old Sid was able to do things that a thirteen year old today couldn’t even contemplate.

So yes, Kidman’s life was fascinating. The book was a bit dry at times, a bit like a high school history textbook and I felt like I was going to choke on all the statistics. But still Kidman shined.

Kidman grew to own more Australian land then the British Empire at one point. He was growing his empire while the Kelly boys were raising hell. He put an enormous amount of his own resources into Australia’s WW2 efforts. The man was a true blue Australian legend and sadly one I don’t remember ever hearing about in school. I think his story is inspiring – Someone today’s little spoilt teenagers should aspire to be like.

During his life time Idriess wrote a large number of Aussie themed books and I intend to somehow get my hands on a few of them.

[Bryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook biography

I have travelled some of same trails by horse and car as Kidman did although a lot later working as a Stockman and a revegetation nurseryman. His home was also near places that I’ve lived so could identify with the country in Kapunda. It was a pleasure to read about a sincere man who helped others in his life‘s journey.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully produced audiobook, with Australian bush sounds, of the life of Sir Sidney Kidman, 1857 – 1935, an Australian pastoralist who owned vast tracks of land in Australia and in his lifetime and saw extensive changes in a landscape that went from expert Indigenous people management to the destruction wracked on the land of introduced stock and feral animals.
From exceptionally poor beginnings, he left his home near Adelaide at age 13 with only 5 shillings and a one-eyed horse that he had bought with his savings. The horse was swindled out of him by two men and it's said in the biography it left an impression on him to always be fair in his dealings.
This is a glowing biography and it's told almost like folk-law in the vernacular of when it was first published in 1935. Apparently when it was written Ion L. Idriess had no help from Sidney Kidman.
Very hard to know if it is an accurate representation but it is a testament to Idriess' love of the land and harshness of the outback way of life during those times.

As an aside, I've been reading about the fascinating nocturnal native Long-haired rat in The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat: A Rodent History of Australia by Tim Bonyhady and this biography is mentioned in that book. Idriess, had no love of the rat and the vast numbers that roamed the inland country after good rain. While indigenous people considered them a feast when they were in great numbers.

Only 4ish hours in length, this audiobook is time well spent.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had over the years heard a great deal about Ion Idriess but had never come across any of his works. Apparently some of his first editions are highly collectable. So I was really pleased to locate a copy of the Cattle King. Finally I could see what all the fuss was about.
The Cattle King is a somewhat fictionalised account of Sidney Kidman's life from young man to significant land owner in Australia. We meet Kidman as a teenager, learning the craft of being a bushman and the craft of business. Kidman traverses Australia so many times, for so long, that the recounting of the journeys wanted me to pull out a map and mark where he was going.
Idriess is quite adept at capturing the lingo of the time and the ambience of the bush. It should be noted that the lingo, includes words that are now out of favour and for good reason. After a while I found his writing style of recounting every town, how many head of cattle, how many acres of land a bit monotonous after awhile.
Kidman is portrayed as almost a saint, who was generous, hard working and successful. There is not a negative word said against him. I do not know enough about Kidman to confirm or dispute this. This really is a book of it's time and I enjoyed the read. I am surprised that this has not been turned into a mini-series or a movie.

[Dave Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rags to riches biographical story of Australian cattle baron Sid Kidman. Fascinating reading, he appears to have foreseen that overgrazing would cause collapse in the stations that allowed it, whilst being all too aware of the cyclical droughts that affected the continent, and tried to mitigate for that by having series of stations across vast swathes of Australia, that when linked allowed for animals to be moved to wherever the food and water was. Of course, this book is also marked by it's time, especially in reference to the aboriginal Australians, but if the reader is able to move past the 1930's language and attitudes, there's a charming story there all the same, and as someone who has tramped across some of the places described, and even visited a few stations past Wilpena Pound and flown over lake Eyre, it bought back many happy memories of South Australia.

[Paul Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book on the kid that made his dreams come true and built a cattle empire in Australia

[Lorraine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Idriess was asked by Kidman to write his life story and much of the story comes from Kidman directly: the detail is impressive. There was one detail that Idriess in his chauvinistic orientation to men and their glorious affairs, thought not worth recording - anywhere- not once in the book and that was the name of Kidman's wife. It is so pointed that he only refers to her as "the Scotch teacher", (scotch is a drink, Scots is the nationality) or "the little wife" that one wonders what she could have done to deserve this slight. More egregiously, Idriess' refers to the Aboriginal peoples on whose country Kidman practiced his smash and grab capitalism consistently as the "blacks" and "niggers". He never names the people individually or collectively even though this was known to Kidman, even in the three rivers, corner country where his empire was cantered. As this is a "hero" story, Idriess also leaves out facts and details about massacres and brutal treatment of Aboriginal people by his white managers and stockmen and particularly the rape of girls and women and the spread of venereal disease that run rampant through the country, leading to the infertility that helped in what he referred to as the inevitable fate of the dying race. He only refers to the destruction of the environment by over-stocking the impact of cattle and sheep on the fragile top-soils in a chapter near the end but but he gives it more time than the destruction of Aboriginal society. This book will make you angry and sad, while recognising that Kidman was unique in building the largest single land-holding in Australian History. But he did so on the backs of Aboriginal stockmen and domestic labourers whom he never paid a penny to in his entire life but worked like slaves.

[Peerce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice biography of Sidney Kidman, a man who possesses all the traits you would expect of a successful individual, with a lesson of Australian history embedded within his story. I found myself thinking about Poor Charlies Almanack, The Lessons of History, Meditations and Fastenal throughout reading this book. Kidman was a stoic, disciplined individual who surfed the wave, used second-level thinking, was always on the hunt to better understand his industry, applied technology and treated his men exceptionally well. If he set his mind to something he was to do it and developed a reputation of being a man of his word. It was evident throughout the novel that Kidman clearly found what he loved to do, thinking about cattle and his stations at every waking moment. There we're however some verbose passages on the topography and shrubbery of Australia that I found it particularly difficult to get through. It was impressive to see traits that are written about by so many different people embodied in one individual.

Favorite Quotes/Takeaways:
“Life was a fight and the harder one fought the bigger the end would be”

“He had only to ask and the information was his”

“Frequently he knew more about certain properties than the owners themselves”

“his bank was in his head, he would gain yet more experience, and grow stronger and stronger”

“He had long schooled himself never to waste regret over a loss”

"He decided to sell his team and engage in some activity that would carry him along with the tide"

[Todd Cheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

A life struggle towards legacy.

I sought this book title as a respected and well read friend mentioned it was one of his favorite books. The story provides a good mix of virtues, risk management, Australian histories, struggle, and understanding of environmental impacts of invasive species.

It is a fast read on a good topic.

The books is not a typical biography as there is much creative art to the dialogs of discussions that I doubt could have been as clearly captured, but it provides a icon like vision of a man. He treats family well, does not drink, helps the poor, cares about the environment, cares about the nation.

[Robin Hargreaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a story and so interesting for someone who grew up in a cattle raising environment. Sir Sid Kidman who ran away on s one eyed horse with 5 shillings and bed roll and came to own stations across Australia that covered over 100,000 sq miles. More than the area of England, Scotland and wales.
The mist mind boggling part is the distances ridden on horseback to buy cattle, hundreds of miles through the bush alone… for years. And then the distances cattle were driven to markets and rail heads. Hundreds of miles taking a year or more sometimes.
Very interesting segment on environmental degradation that could have been written this year not in 1936.

[Gigha · Rating 1 out of 5]

I recently travelled through Central Australia and read this upon returning home to NSW. I don't think this book has aged well and struggled to get to the end. Having seen the land upon which this man decided to raise his cattle empire, I question his being labelled a 'bush-legend'. The impact on the native flora, fauna and local people that he and his ilk caused were always on my mind as I read this. I felt sorry for the cattle mentioned in the book and that I witnessed on my trip. The book and my trip have left me with concerns about our beef industry and my eating habits.

[Edna Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

An all time favourite which I have recently read again after a number of years.
Must say that I am an Ion Idriess fan and his treatment of the life of Sidney Kidman with all the ups and downs of his life is well done.
This book is a 'must read' for all those who want to know what life in the early days of Australia's grazing industry was all about. From the hardships endured to the good times, it's all there in this book.

[Sunshine Biskaps]

"The Cattle King" by Ion L. Idriess

I borrowed a copy of the audiobook and could not hear any of the text with the background sounds that were added in to create the scene. I can only recommend that no one borrows or buys this audiobook. I will be searching for the actual physical copy of this book in the future as I'd like to learn the story of this boy and his life on the farm after he rain away from home.

[Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

When we think we do it hard and travel remotely, it’s nothing compared to how these cattle musterers had it in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The cattle king conquered the frontier lands and made himself a real life aussie battler, rags to riches story.

[Stephen Aylward · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read giving you an insight into the lives of the Australian bushman of the 19th century.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great yarn.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating narrative of Sidney Kidman's and (Australia's) story in the late 19th and early 20th century. Should be read more as a tall tale than straight facts. Would recommend!

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sidney Kidman may have run away from home aged merely 13 with only five shillings in his pocket, but his foolishness ended there. This story of his life is amazing. He was clearly intelligent, ambitious, tough and calculated, but also demonstrated a very kind heart. Some of today's most successful businessmen could learn a thing or two from Kidman's legacy. I must pick up another of the fifty books Idriess wrote in his lifetime. This one was excellent.

[Michelle Waterford · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's interesting to have descriptions of the way of life when Australia was really only just getting a sense of itself. But it became a series of transactions which distracted me from engaging with S.K as a person. In the end I started to think of him as a bit of a know it all and got bored. Disappointed that I didn't enjoy it more.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

A classic, but not very in depth. Idriess was always going to write a heroic tale, and of course, it is, with droughts, clever thinking, crooks, shysters, love - really the whole panoply of human endeavour. Still, Kidman's life was pretty amazing, but this audio version seemed a bit light weight.

[Joan Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

enjoyed this book as I have just visited many of the places mentioned. Makes history more interesting.

[Lee Belbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great early history of the Kidman empire

[Chava · Rating 2 out of 5]

a biographical account of Sidney Kidman, an Australian land owner who accumulated a huge amount of land and cattle in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

[Dwight Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sid Kidman Cattle King in Australia - a famous person.

[Okys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story - Australian classic