History
1838
Within 50 years of British settlement the sheep had moved into every colony, the annual wool clip was over two million kilograms, and Australia was challenging Spain and Germany as the main suppliers of wool to England. Japan had become the second biggest buyer of Australian wool after the UK.
1840
Adelaide held a wool auction, but it did not become an annual event until 1870.
1843
Thomas Mort, set up the first regular wool auctions in Sydney. Hitherto nearly all Australian wool had been shipped to England for sale in auction rooms or by private deals.
1848
The first wool auction in Melbourne was conducted by Richard Goldsbrough.
1850
Between 1830 and 1850 the value of wool exports increased from £2 million to £41 million
1852
French and Belgian textile companies were anxious to organise direct sales with Australian wool producers and, they began to send representatives to the colonies. Wool-trading companies such as Leroux, Masurel, Caulliez and Mathon-Bertrand eventually established permanent offices in Australia.
1860 - 1880
Australian sheep-breeders re-created the short-stapled Spanish Merino to meet the demands from the new industrialized combing, spinning and weaving machines of the industrial revolution. This move effectively saved the wool industry, whose products were being ousted by cotton and the increasing use of cotton in wool and worsted blends. The result was cheaper, lighter, and higher quality fabrics - in both woolen and worsteds, and not just because of stronger, lighter yarns, but because the fine and soft Merino fibres now replaced the increasingly strong harsh English long-wools in the worsted trade. This constituted the greatest revolution in animal linked-industrial engineering in mankind’s history.
1870s
Victoria, with the aid of a duty against imports from every part of the world, became the centre of woollen manufactures in Australia. It remained the hub even in the 1970s, when the industry reached its peak as an employer.
1870
Australia became the world’s no.1 producer/supplier of wool surpassing the quantity produced in Britain. The Australian sheep flock reached 41.6 million, having more than doubled in 10 years. For the last quarter of a century wool prices had been rising. A golden age for many wool producers, they built grand mansions in country or city. Australia’s richest men at this time were pastoralists, some of whom owned hundreds of thousands of sheep.
1872
The Suez Canal began to offer a shorter route for steamships carrying Australian wool to London. But most wool exports still went in sailing ships that crossed the Pacific and passed Cape Horn before entering the Atlantic. As wool was a valuable cargo, much money - or interest - was saved if the voyage to market was rapid.
1879
Western Australia, the last of the six colonies to succeed with sheep, now had one million sheep. A century later it was to rank second to NSW in its sheep population.
1889
Tom Roberts painted his famous ‘Shearing the Rams’.
1892
During the long pastoral boom the sheep in Australia had increased from 40 million in 1879 to 106 million.
1910
The Ermenegildo Zegna group was founded in Trivero, a small town in the Biella Alps by Ermenegildo Zegna. The young entrepreneur strove to create high quality fabrics for men’s clothing and his strategy was focused on the selection of the best raw materials from their markets of origin and innovation in product. He pioneered, with his buyer Giovanni Schneider, the large volume purchase of fine, high quality Australian wool into Italy. The Ermenegildo Zegna group now stands as the world leader in luxury men’s clothing.