With 125 million sheep spread across the country, and 90 thousand tons of lamb and 3 million tons of wool exported annually, Australia truly rode to prosperity on the sheep’s back.

This is an excerpt from the film Men and Mobs, produced by the Department of Information for the Commonwealth Department of Commerce and Agriculture in 1947.

Men and Mobs relates the growth of Australia’s sheep flocks, starting with the few Spanish Merinos that John Macarthur mated to the progeny of Indian sheep brought to Australia by Captain Arthur Phillip on the First Fleet in 1788.

Using song and anecdote, the film builds up the story of the men and mobs of sheep that provide fleece for our textile mills and materials for clothing a nation.