Family networks and the Australian pastoral industry: a case study of the Port Phillip District and Victoria in the late nineteenth century

This article highlights the important function of family and kinship networks in the pastoral industry o f the Port Phillip District and Victoria, Australia, during the nineteenth century. Using the core case study o f the extended Cameron family—or the Cameron “clan” from the Scottish Highlands—in the Western District o f Victoria, it demonstrates how family networks assisted in the accumulation and consolidation o f large pastoral properties and enterprises and thus aided the agricultural entrepreneurialism of migrants who saw greater commercial opportunities throughout the Empire than at home.