Dog on the TuckerboxPrint Page

The Dog on the Tucker Box has been described as `Australia`s best-known pioneer memorial`.

Gundagai was established in December 1842 with the sale of town allotments. Many years later, it is claimed, Jack Moses, wine salesman, poet and traveller `immortalised` Gundagai with his poem `Nine Miles from Gundagai`. He later wrote a poem inspired by an exhibit at the Gundagai Pastoral Show concerning the activities of `The Dog on the Tuckerbox` nine miles from Gundagai. Another poem of doubtful origin ` Billy the Bullocky` places the dog five miles from Gundagai as does the song by Alf and Jack O`Hagan written in 1938 and concerning Mabel who ' waits underneath the bright blue sky.'  During the Great Depression the Gundagai newsagent, O.A. Collins, suggested a memorial to the pioneers of the district. The Gundagai Hospital Board undertook to raise the necessary funds, estimated at 65 pounds.

More than 3000 people were present at the official unveiling yesterday by the Prime Minister (Mr. Lyons) of the pioneers' monument recently erected in honour of the district's early settlers. The monument, which represents a dog and tucker box, was the gift of the committee of the Back to Gundagai week. Extending a welcome to the Prime Minister and Mrs Lyons, Mr W C. Stribley, chairman of directors of the Gundagai and District Hospital, said that the monument was the first of its kind erected in Australia "We might well take a lesson from the Pioneers," he said.

Replying, Mr. Lyons said that he appreciated the great honour of unveiling a monument which had been erected to the pioneers. Thanking Mrs. Luff for her gift, he said that a few of that splendid band of early settlers had been spared, and were able to reap some of the benefits of modern civilisation. He trusted that the monument would not only express a tribute to the pioneers, but would prove an incentive to the youth of to-day.
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW), 29 November 1932.

Location

Details

Dedication