A.J. and P.A. McBride still looking far beyond Faraway after more than 100 years in South Australian merino wool
A.J. and P.A. McBride chairman Keith McBride, looking forward to expansion beyond the wool company's 100-plus years. Inset: The company's former head office in Franklin Street, Adelaide, named Faraway House after the company's original Faraway Hill sheep station near Burra.
Inset image by Johnny von Einem
Australian merino sheep have remained the lifeblood A.J. and P.A. McBride, a South Australian family company that’s weathered droughts, bushfires, price crashes and market changes for more than 100 years.
All 100 shareholders of the A.J. and P.A. McBride company are descendants of Albert McBride, who bought the group’s first Faraway Hill sheep station near Burra in South Australia’s Mid North in 1902. Its portfolio now includes five pastoral and four grazing properties in South Australia along with a mixed farming and grazing property on the South Australia/Victoria border.
A.J. and P.A. McBride’s 10 properties range from its 507,300 hectare station Wilgena, that was bought in the north of South Australia in 1924 and was once the largest fenced sheep property in the world, to the smaller the 7354ha Ashmore property in the southeast, producing wool, prime lamb and beef cattle.
Diversifying its interests has helped A.J. and P.A. McBride survive. It has introduced beef cattle, has properties in different climatic regions and also has interests in vineyards and commercial properties in the city of Adelaide. This includes investing in Bleasdale Winery in the Langhorne Creek region of South Australia and Faraway vineyard on the Limestone Coast.
Now headquartered in Grenfell Street, Adelaide, the company was based for many years in tiny Faraway House building in Franklin Street, named after the founding property.
In 2020, A.J. and P.A. McBride aimed to boost annual wool production from 6400 to 10,000 bales through innovations to increase wool yields and more complementary land purchases. Company chairman Keith McBride saw the nature fibre of wool as having an even more important role with global warming. He said continual improvement in the quality of wool and flocks also had been key to the company’s success.
A book, Faraway, 100 Years of Wool by Kristin Weidenbach, tells the story of the pioneering McBride family.
