Langloh Parker
Langloh Parker was station manager of Bangate Station during much of Lightning Ridge’s early history.
Born on 23 January 1839 at Deloraine, Tasmania, he was the son of Jabez Parker and Elizabeth Morris. In the 1850s, Langloh and his brothers were sent to New South Wales under the care of their uncle Augustus Morris, managing his cattle stations at Yanga Lake and Paika. Langloh’s career included a partnership at Retreat on the Barcoo in Queensland, and later ownership of Sandringham Station.
By the late 1870s, Parker had acquired Bangate Station, near Angledool, which he converted from cattle to sheep. The property covered over 215,000 acres in 1887, including 4,000 acres of freehold land, with a 38-kilometre frontage on the Narran River. Parker’s time at Bangate coincided with busy times for the district. He was a founding member of the Walgett Show Committee in 1887 (alongside Robert Moore of Angledool Station), a Justice of the Peace, and a member of the Bench at Angledool. That same year, the property was under financial pressure, and Parker’s friend, the wealthy cattle farmer James Tyson, foreclosed on the mortgage. Despite this, Parker remained at Bangate as manager and retained a share in the property.
Langloh’s wife, Catherine “Katie” Parker (nee Field), whom he married in 1875, would become a notable author and early recorder of Aboriginal language and folklore under the name K. Langloh Parker. Together, they continued to manage Bangate until the turn of the century.
In 1903, Parker joined a syndicate of investors, grubstaking prospector Charlie Nettleton to sink a shaft on what would later be named McDonald’s Six Mile.
Langloh Parker died of cancer on 21 July 1903 in Sydney and was buried at Waverley Cemetery.