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  In 1891, a decade after John Robertson's death, his Struan legacy was described in a government summary as an "estate". Totaling 74,162 acres, it was spread over 4 Hundreds in the County of Robe: 21,277 acres in Robertson, 38,803 acres in Joanna, 9,201 acres in Jessie, and 4,871 acres in Comaum. [LG MacGillivray, 1982, 'Land and People: European Land Settlement in the South East of South Australia, 1840-1940', PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, Appendix 8] The significance of this figure lies in more than just its size. Struan was certainly large. But the acreage accumulated by Robertson also reveals a plan. His was a methodical, disciplined approach to acquiring freehold title, maintained over 3 decades. Of an initial 89,827 acres occupied under Pastoral Lease No. 169 in 1851 (Struan) and an additional run of 23,680 acres taken over in about 1858 (Wrattonbully), approximately 65% had been converted from leasehold to freehold by 1880. Crown Land, bought from th...

  The rise and fall of the Robertsons of Struan was relatively swift. Their pastoral dynasty 'achieved' in two generations what took others three or four. Between moving the first of the brothers' cattle and horses onto the New Country in 1844 and his death at Struan House in 1880, John Robertson forged a squatting enterprise that had few equals. Left to his four sons, John, Alec, William, and James, it shrank to a few thousand acres and a grand homestead taken over by the government in 1949. To fully appreciate the enormity of its collapse, it is necessary first to chart its growth in the nineteenth century -- to examine the economic factors that contributed to John's progress towards prosperity. His was a lifetime's work of 35 years, but he bequeathed a legacy that could not be sustained. Without access to the original 'station books', assuming that they even existed in the early days of the run, it is not possible to be precise. Information can only come ...

      "The story has it, that in attempting to gain the lease on further land, the Robertsons found themselves opposed to the well-established Hentys. Little warning was given of the hearing of their case before the Lands Commissioner at Portland and John is reported to have left his work in the paddock to ride to Portland, arriving just as his wealthy competitor drove up in his carriage to the hearing. Their submissions made, the judge decided in favor of Robertson, saying, by way of a moral, that he felt it right to 'help the poor man'. The joke was repeated far and wide, and John Robertson became 'Poor Man Robertson'. Considering the extent of his properties at the time of his death, one feels that this to be a poverty many would gladly experience. This story is confidently attributed to John Robertson of Struan by his descendants. However, it is also attributed to John G Robertson, the original owner of Wando Vale, by other historians. A check of the dates of t...