People: William Kent I - A man before his time

Only in recent years has there talk in government circles of a social engineering concept that is considered revolutionary -- the idea of paying women a wage to enable them to stay home and look after the family. This is not a new idea -- it was put into practice on Jondaryan back in the nineteenth century.

William Kent I may or may not have been a man before his time, but he was certainly an extraordinary man of his time. He was a great believer in human relationships and did all that was within his power to promote the best possible relationship with all those he dealt with. It was said of him, "he was his employees most benevolent patron".

He felt the same kind of responsibility towards his long-term employees, as he did towards his family members. If they needed his help in any way, then he was prepared to assist them in whatever way it was within his means to do so. This made him one of the most loved persons on the Downs of his time. It was said in his obituary:

"The loss to the district is almost irreparable, so widespread were his bounties, so exhaustless were his efforts to effect social and material improvements."

His popularity both within the Jondaryan community and throughout the Downs was much in evidence, with more than 800 mourners being present at his funeral. Of these, around 500 were residents of the Downs and the rest were his employees, or past employees.

William Kent I was not only a very compassionate man, but he was a very practical man. He was a strong believer in the family unit and carried this through to the operation of his pastoral enterprise. Wherever possible he employed families and gave work to any member of the family that wanted it.

This was a very astute and practical move on his part, for in those times when it was difficult to obtain and hold on to good reliable workers. A married man and members of his family, were most likely to be more stable and conscientious employees than a single person. By offering work to all members of the family, including the children, he not only helped to hold the family together, but also encouraged the work ethic from an early age.

Undoubtedly the most far-seeing and revolutionary policy instituted by William Kent I was to pay the wife a substantial wage (that of a housekeeper) to keep house for her family. This not only recognised the value of the woman in the family unit, but in helping to keep the wife happy and contented, contributed to the stability and contentment of the whole family unit and made them more likely to remain on the station.

Encouraging and assisting the families that he employed, was not the only radical human relationship policy that William Kent I instituted. In an endeavour to make all his employees happy and contented, thereby making them remain longer and give of their best, he introduced choice in the way they could be employed, for all his employees. Each employee had the choice of working on a set hourly, daily, or weekly pay rate, a yearly salary, or working on a set-piece work rate, or on a negotiated contract to carry out a specific task. This applied to all types of work, from the most menial task to the most complicated job. A job well done was always rewarded with a bonus at the end.

William Kent I instilled his human relationship philosophy in his nephew Charles Williams, who he trained from an early age, to be the manager of Jondaryan and in his children, who would have a controlling interest in Jondaryan, through the family partnership and later through the family company.

It was however through the management of Charles Williams and on his death, the management of William Kent III, that William Kent I's principals and philosophy on human relations, really came to the fore, with the resulting excellent employer-employee relationship. Only on one occasion did that relationship temporally break down, when Edward Wienholt intervened in the management of the station, resulting in the shearers strike of 1890, but that is another story.