BILL McKechnie was a giant of a man, and his big frame and big heart cast big shadows across the north-west during a lifetime of commitment to the Moree district.
McKechnie was a civic leader, loyal to his town.
He was a council alderman in the 1940s and endorsed as Liberal candidate for Barwon in 1950, the same year the WJ McKechnie Ward was opened at Moree District Hospital.
Those close to McKechnie say the Moree hospital was his greatest hobby – his ‘baby’.
The shearing contractor, born at Barraba in 1891, was hospital board president for more than a decade and never ceased to find ways to improve the facility.
Up until the late 1940s, Moree and surrounding villages were serviced by two private hospitals as well as the public hospital.
Fairview Private Hospital was at the eastern end of Albert Street, where the Albert Motel now sits, and Aubrey Private Hospital was mid-way along Calgorm Street.
Both closed in 1947. The closures caused overwhelming anxiety in the community.
Big Bill McKechnie. Many say Moree Hospital was his greatest hobby.
In 1963, Moree District Hospital board member Norm Webb recalled the closures.
“Considerable agitation was caused in Moree when the two private hospitals closed because they were uneconomical to administer,” Webb said.
He said McKechnie, the then-chairman of the hospital board, lobbied hard to rectify the problem.
“Bill made representation to the Hospitals’ Commission for one of the closed private hospitals to be taken over by Moree District Hospital,” Webb said.
“As a result, early in 1948 arrangements were made to lease Aubrey Private Hospital for use as a maternity unit.”
The takeover allowed expectant mothers to have their babies in Moree, rather than travel great distances for healthcare. Cottages alongside the hospital were also leased and used for staff accommodation.
With the help of a £2370 grant, the building was given a fresh lick of paint and fitted out with new beds and medical equipment.
The Aubrey maternity unit, under the watchful eye of Matron Dorothy Scannell, was officially opened on December 12, 1948 by Roy Heferen, the NSW member for Barwon.
“The re-opening of the maternity hospital will bring great relief to the people of Moree and district,” Heferen said.
The former private hospital was leased for a three-year term, with rent fixed at £5 a week.
Moree Hospital in 1953.
In late 1949, a humidicrib was installed at the maternity unit, honouring nurses Audrey Archibald and Gwendoline Godber, who were killed in a tragic car accident near Mia Mia Creek, midway between Moree and Pallamallawa.
The nurses, both from New Zealand, had only been in Moree for a few weeks when the car in which they were passengers struck a tree.
Also killed were locals Dan Daly and Les McNamara, and former Pallamallawa resident Joyce Sutton.
Joyce’s husband, John, survived the crash.
As Moree District Hospital board president, Bill McKechnie was obligated to make the calls across the Tasman and inform the parents of both girls.
The tragic accident and circumstances surrounding the gut-wrenching telephone calls McKechnie reluctantly made that chilly August morning in 1949 left indelible scars on an entire community.
After the accident, Big Bill hitched his strides, took a deep breath, and went about making sure Moree residents had the very best health facilities.
The Aubrey Hospital tenancy continued well after the lease expired in 1951, but the handshake arrangement soured seven years later when the owner placed all three buildings on the market.
Moree District Hospital was thrown a lifeline, however, when Big Bill bought the buildings and leased them back to the hospital.
He simply couldn’t bear to see Moree go without a maternity unit.
The rent set by McKechnie barely covered council rates and interest charges on the capital outlay.
“Rents were very low by Moree standards, and often in arrears,” Norm Webb recalled.
William John McKechnie – Big Bill – was born at Burindi Station, near Barraba, on June 12, 1891, one of eight children to Jack and Edith McKechnie.
He fathered 14 children from two marriages. He married Eileen Brett at Barraba in 1911 and the union produced five children. However, Bill and Eileen divorced in 1928.
The following year McKechnie wed Kit Hamilton at Tamworth. His second marriage produced nine children: Wilma June (1929); Lois May (1931); Megan (1932); twins Elizabeth Anne and Kathleen Mary (1938); Toni Edith (1939); Catherine Enid (1941); William John (1944); and Robert Francis (1947).
Sadly, twins Elizabeth Anne and Kathleen Mary passed away just five days after birth.
McKechnie, of Scottish descent, was raised in the Tamworth-Barraba region.
His grandparents, William and Jane McKechnie, arrived in Moreton Bay, Queensland, on the William Miles in January, 1855.
They were married in Edinburgh in 1854 and by the 1860s were at Wellingrove, near Glen Innes. They later moved to Inverell, where William died in 1901.
McKechnie’s carpenter father, Jack, married Edith Etheridge at Barraba in 1886 and the family later moved to Moree, where Jack died in 1935. His body was returned to Barraba for burial.
Around this time, Bill McKechnie had established himself as one of the biggest shearing contractors in the north-west.
His longest-serving contract was Midkin Station, about 12 miles north-west of Moree, where it was not uncommon to have 80-100 men working the season.
Bill McKechnie with a 10-day-old foal by Spear Chief from Brilliant Orb.
McKechnie was an astute businessman and mover and shaker, despite just three months’ schooling during his formative years.
He freely admitted to “not reading and writing very well”.
Most of his childhood was spent doing the hard yards on building sites with his old man, where he learned everything he needed to know about life and, more importantly, survival.
In the very early 1930s, when the Great Depression was at its worst, shearers’ strikes and shed disputes beleaguered the industry.
“Although many sheds have suffered considerably through the strikes, I am pleased to state that I have a very good team of shearers and shed hands now carrying out work at Midkin Station,” McKechnie told the Moree Gwydir Examiner and General Advertiser.
“With a full board of over 80 men in all, shearing operations are being carried out in a most successful manner. Friday last (July 25, 1930) was my first full day with the new team, when over 2800 sheep were shorn by 33 shearers. I am turning down a large surplus of shearers and shed hands who are seeking work by telephone and telegram daily and we will cut out at Midkin in less than three weeks.”
McKechnie held the shearing contract at Midkin Station for more than 30 years. During one season in the late 1920s, 92,000 head of sheep were shorn and in 1932 the tally was 78,000.
By the 1940s the average clip was around 50,000.
In 1942, when labour shortages caused by the call-up for World War II gutted the industry, 9366 sheep were shorn at Midkin during the first two days of the season by 38 shearers.
Incredibly, there were 5173 fleeces laid out the first day.
“This constitutes a record for any one day of shearing during the 22 years I have been associated with Midkin Station,” McKechnie said.
“The highest individual tally for the first two days was 201 and I anticipate bigger tallies when the men get into the swing of things.”
In 1951, with 50,000 head to go through the Midkin shed, a legend was born.
Mick Thomas arrived in town that year from Queensland and sheared 278 sheep in one day.
The incredible feat prompted McKechnie to offer a £1000 bonus to any shearer that could better the tally.
The bonus was never collected.
In 1950, McKechnie was endorsed as Liberal candidate for the seat of Barwon in the NSW State election, the first time for many years a Liberal candidate had contested the seat.
Also in the running was incumbent member Roy Heferen, who contested the seat as an independent Labor candidate. Heferen had held the Labor seat for a decade but was disendorsed by the Labor Party after allegedly breaking caucus solidarity during an indirect election of the New South Wales Legislative Council.
The seat was won by Country Party candidate Geoff Crawford, a position he held for the next eight elections.
Jockeys Noel Colvin (left), Peter Burnett (centre) and Carl Deamer. Colvin and Burnett were on the receiving end of some hefty slings from big-betting owner-trainer Bill McKechnie over the years.
Away from the sheds, Bill McKechnie’s sporting passion was horse-racing.
He owned some top gallopers over several decades and was known to mastermind several hugely successful betting plunges.
In the late 1950s he enticed emerging jockey Noel Colvin to Moree – and another legend was born.
McKechnie’s son, Bob, well remembers the day Colvin was given his first ride for the big-betting stable.
“Noel rode his first winner for dad in 1957. It was a horse called Last Sound, and they won a maiden at Moree. It was backed from 10-1 into 6-4,” McKechnie recalled.
“Dad had two runners in the race and put Ernie Walmsley on the favourite, Willie’s Sister, and Noel on Last Sound. Ernie was the leading rider at the time and no-one had heard of Noel Colvin.”
Willie’s Sister was a full-sister to Willie’s Choice, a winner of 50-odd races from Sydney to Brisbane and just about every racetrack in between. Bookmakers rightfully posted Willie’s Sister a 6/4-on favourite. Stablemate Last Sound, with the “unfashionable” and unknown Noel Colvin on top, was rated at double figures.
“Dad was walking around the front of the bookies having £60 to £40-on Willy’s Sister while mum and a couple of her girlfriends were going along the back and having £1000 to £100-against Last Sound and, of course, Last Sound bolted in.
“Noel had only been in Moree a fortnight and told me that he’d already banked £200 – he’d never seen so much money,” McKechnie chuckled.
Colvin’s “sling” was the equivalent of about $6500 in new millennium dollars.
Colvin once said that there were three things McKechnie did well: train racehorses, shear sheep – and fleece bookmakers.
McKechnie’s long association with the racing industry didn’t go without incident, however.
He twice faced Australian Jockey Club inquiries on separate matters concerning the same horse but was cleared both times.
In 1946 McKechnie, along with Moree trainer Laban Reynolds, jockey Jack Thompson and Terry Hie Hie owner Edwin Mitchell, was rubbed out for 12 months over the running of top-class galloper Plymacre at Newcastle in July of that year.
The horse, under the care of McKechnie at the Newcastle meeting, was disqualified for the same term.
After drifting in betting from 2-1 to 7-2, Plymacre finished a close-up third behind Blackmore and Warana.
Jack Cassidy KC appeared before the AJC committee on behalf of the appellants, McKechnie, Reynolds, Thompson and Mitchell. The men were cleared of any wrongdoing and all appeals were upheld.
Plymacre was permitted to resume racing but again landed in hot water when winning a flying handicap at Newcastle on September 2, 1950, when trained by Mick Smith.
Plymacre returned a positive swab to morphine.
The fact McKechnie nominated Plymacre on behalf of owner Edwin Mitchell was enough to implicate the Moree Hospital board president.
Trainer Mick Smith was disqualified for five years however the penalty was reduced to 12 months on appeal.
Stipendiary stewards alleged McKechnie gave false and misleading evidence at a subsequent inquiry.
However, the Australian Jockey Club committee took no action against McKechnie.
AJC Chairman Alan Potter told the shearing contractor: “You have been a most unsatisfactory witness, and the committee regards the whole of your evidence with very grave suspicion. But suspicion is not sufficient to convict you of this charge. Accordingly, you will be given the benefit of the doubt.”
There were far more good times than bad on racetracks across the north-west – McKechnie spent more time in the committee room toasting winners than in the stewards’ room answering questions.
He owned some exceptional horses over the years, including Willie’s Choice and Willie’s Sister, Brilliant Manners, Killara Bay, Gold Tilla, Bobby’s Wonder and Burundi, named after McKechnie’s birthplace.
“Dad got a lot of money out of Bobby’s Wonder one day at Esk,” Bob McKechnie recalled.
“Peter Burnett came up from Newcastle to ride the horse and they got 11-2 about him. Bobby’s Wonder won easily, and I remember at the motel we were staying afterwards, dad laid all the money out on the bed – I’d never seen so many ten-pound notes.
“Peter Burnett’s sling for winning was £500, and a week later dad went down to Newcastle and bought him a new car. ‘Here’s the rest of your sling’, he told him,” McKechnie said.
Big Bill’s love of the turf didn’t stop with him – daughter Lois Reid was a long-serving Moree Race Club committee member in the 1980s and 1990s and son Bob, a former jockey, strapped champion two-year-old Snippets in the late 1980s for Newcastle maestro Max Lees.
But the one constant in the life of Big Bill McKechnie was his devotion to the Moree District Hospital.
In late May, 1950, the WJ McKechnie Ward was officially opened by NSW Hospital Commission Officer Arthur Rutherford and Narrabri Hospital Board President Henry King.
The ward was completed in less than six months and came in well under budget.
“The daily admissions average at Moree Hospital has increased from eight patients to between 75 and 80 in recent years,” Rutherford said.
He said hospital redevelopment across NSW had been hampered by a severe shortage of building materials.
“Only 15 per cent of all production is currently made available to hospitals and other government departments, excepting the Housing Commission,” he said.
Several months earlier, a delegation headed up by McKechnie and Moree Mayor Reg Simpson, told Rutherford they could have the new ward completed in six months. They requested a £10,000 grant to fund the project.
Incredibly, there was £2200 to spare when the ribbon was cut.
“I did not believe it could be done,” Rutherford said.
“However, the work has been completed and it is a tribute to the driving force of Mr McKechnie and the skill of the foreman and all staff.
“This new ward now means that 200 additional patients can receive treatment at Moree Hospital each year,” he said.
Bill McKechnie passed away 12 years after the opening of the hospital ward named in his honour.
He was 71.
Words: Bill Poulos
Images: Supplied
A bit of trivia…..My brother, Gary Roy William Reginald Baguley, was the first boy born in the Aubrey Maternity Hospital on 15/12/1948. The Board at the time (I believe) was Roy Hefferen, William McKechnie, Reginald Cummins so Gary was given their first names to celebrate the Life Insurance Policy to celebrate his birth. I believe the first girl born was Terri Patch, grand-daughter of the owners of Patch’s Clothing Store in Balo Street.