History Notes - Ironbark Station

History Notes

Well what a great weekend Barraba had with so many things on. There was a well stocked market, an art show and several side events as well as a visit to the Ironbark cemetery to just name a few events - it certainly was not a quiet weekend for Barraba citizens.

The trip out to lronbark started with a coffee party which grew quite considerably as several people who were unable to go out to lronbark came to say hello to the visitors.

Some of the older Barraba residents may remember Jack or JSL Spencer and his family when they lived at lronbark. JSL, as he was often called, was a great townsman helping out with events such as the Barraba Show and the Races.

Michael Spencer, Mitch, as we knew him was JSL's only son and he grew up helping his father on lronbark as well as enjoying a social life with friends of his generation including water skiing, and the Saturday night films after dinner at Sofis's cafe.

As the years went by Michael realized that he was not 'cut out' to be a grazier and when his father sold Ironbark and moved to Gunnedah, Michael explored this state and Queensland for many years.

Eventually he came back to Barraba for a few years before realizing that age was catching up with him and he moved to Queensland to be near younger family members. Sadly, after enjoying a few years residence in Woodford his unit was destroyed by fire, ending his life in March this year. He was almost 84 years old. His ashes have now been placed in the lronbark Cemetery with many of his family members. There are about 30 graves in the cemetery, many unmarked.

The Spencer family came to the Barraba area in the 1840's after a short time residing in the Hunter Valley. There were two brothers and a sister with their growing families and at times many of them resided at lronbark. The original William and Elizabeth had four children -two boys and two girls. William always lived at lronbark and his younger brother, John, took up Nangarah with his wife Maggie nee Williams. One of the sisters married and moved to Queensland - the other always lived at lronbark. There is a series of 5 A4 size books, written by a descendent of the Ironbark Spencers and although there were 3 lots of them delivered to Barraba, the whereabouts is known of only two - where are the other 13 - please return them to the museum if you find them so that the History is not lost.