The Davis Family Selection

I shall never set soft magic In my moment, like this wife. From the farmland cup she gave me I drank all time and life. ‘The Farmer’s Wife,’ David Rowbotham


The selection acts of 1868 were aimed at recovering land from the squatters and encouraging closer settlement. Arthur Hoey Davis' father Thomas pioneered the original 160-acre Davis selection from 1870.

Davis came to the selection with his parents in 1875 and grew up here before gaining work on surrounding properties as a teenager and then taking up a public service position in Brisbane. He attended the nearby Emu Creek State School from 1875-1880 and represented it as the Vinegar Hill State School in Memoirs of Corporeal Keeley (1912).

The selection is approximately 30 kilometers south of Toowoomba along the New England Highway. It represents the setting for many of his famous Dad and Dave stories, which were initially published in the Sydney Bulletin before being collected for book publication and later adapted for radio, stage and screen.

Davis later returned to the Cambooya region and took up a farm of his own, 'The Firs', not far from the current Nobby turn off. He became the first Chairman of Cambooya Shire in 1914.

The replica of the Rudd family home on the original selection was constructed by the members of the Cambooya Rural Youth Club in the 1980s. The site was further upgraded with a Federation grant in 2000.

Submissions and suggestions for places not yet included can be sent to leec@usq.edu.au