Herbert Hughes' tinned meat from Booyoolee in South Australia possible origin for the name 'bully beef'
Besides the Booyoolee contender, other theories for the name for tinned “bully beef” include it being adapted from the French “beouf bouilli” (boiled beef) by soldiers on the western front during World War I.
South Australia has its contender to solve the origins of “bully beef”. Could it derive from Booyoolee, a 19th Century sheep station, in South Australia’s mid north, where Herbert Bristow Hughes set up a canning factory to export tinned meat to England in the 1870s?
Hughes's canned meat didn’t sell well in England and his hopes for a tinned beef export industry were dashed by refrigeration being invented in 1882 for meat shipping.
But the concept of tinned meat didn’t die. It was a way of feeding millions of troops on the European western front in World War I. This has led to unresolved theories such as “bully beef” being adapted from the French “beouf bouilli” (boiled beer).
Herbert Hughes, arriving from Liverpool in 1843, and his brother Bristow started Booyoolee station on the Rocky River near Gladstone (near a government town called Booyoolie in 1875). Hughes’ wife Laura (they wed in England in 1854) gave her name to another nearby town. Booyoolee sheep were bred from stock from Bundaleer station, started by older brother John, and from Anlaby station, with rams from Germany. This cross breeding produced a lighter-fleece animal, better suited to dry country.
Herbert Hughes, who took over Booyoolee when brother Bristow returned to England in 1858, came up with the tinned meat idea after setting up boiling-down works to make tallow for candles, using his glut of sheep in the 1870s. His canning factory was later sold to Dean and Laughton and moved to Port Adelaide and
Booyoolee was eventually switched to wheat farming. Hughes also was a horse breeder, importing stud horses from England. He later moved to live at Athelney in the Adelaide suburb of St Peters. He also owned paddocks at Netley near the Adelaide Airport.
