Jackie Howe was born at Canning Downs station in 1861, on the
Darling Downs. In 1892 an Australia wide competition was held to see who was the greatest shearer in the land. Two gold medals were offered as prizes and Jackie was determined to claim both. On 10th October 1892, at Alice Downs station outside
Blackall, Jackie set the record for hand shearing 321 sheep in just seven hours and forty minutes.a faster tally than anyone had before achieved. In the week beforehand, Howe also set the weekly record, shearing 1,437 sheep in 44 hours and 30 minutes. Howe's daily record was beaten by Ted Reick in 1950, but Reick was using machine shears, while Howe's hand shears were little more than scissors. Howe's weekly record stands unbeaten.
Jackie Howe was the subject of a book, Jack Howe: The Man and the Legend, by Barry Muir, and a bronze statue, on display in
Blackall.
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He wore a flannel undershirt while shearing. The flannel had short sleeves covering the biceps and absorbed the shearer’s sweat. In addition, it was reputed to protect the shearer’s back from ‘. . .getting a chill’, something no shearer could afford.
Shearing was, and still is, a backbreaking job.
He found the sleeves of his flannel restrictive so one day he tore out the sleeves and wore his flannel with no sleeves. Finding it much more useful with the sleeves out, Jack then got his mother to convert all his flannels into ‘singlets’ and later she started making them especially for Jack.
The ‘fad’ caught on and, before long, all the shearers were wearing sleeveless flannels. One of the manufacturers ‘cottoned on’ and started making lighter cotton singlets especially for the wool industry. It was not too long before the lighter singlet became popular with all men in all industries and so the ‘Athletic Singlet’ was born. That garment is still sold in its thousands daily in department stores around the world and they are worn by most Australian males.
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Jack’s father became a stockman and married a girl who had accompanied the Leslies in pioneering the
Darling Downs in South East Queensland, a rich wheat belt. Jack Howe began shearing in the 1880s, beating the ringer at Langlo Station by shearing 211 merinos in one day for a bet - a feat that made him a legend along the Barcoo River.
He bought a pub at
Blackall in 1901 and bought Sumnervale Station in 1919 but died the next year, aged 59.
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In 1983
Warwick remembered this famous son by establishing a Jackie Howe Memorial at the Jackie Howe
Rest Area on the corner of Glengallan Road and the Cunningham Highway. It is notable for the large shears at the top.
.