The River Murray: Renmark Town Reach.

This lithograph is from the series made to show case the possibilities of irrigation in Australia by the Chaffey’s which would create the township of Mildura and establish the irrigation from the river. In 1884 Alfred Deakin as Minister for Public Works and Water Supply accepted the new position of President of a Royal Commission for irrigation in Victoria. As part of his research Deakin travelled to the United States where he met brothers George and William Chaffey, two Canadians who had created an irrigation colony in California, which was both technically and commercially highly successful. He convinced the Chaffey’s to come to Australia and set up a similar scheme on the Murray River.