Paringa station, Murray River

Distant view of Paringa Station homestead built on a cliff top overlooking the Murray River.

Frederick Needham was born in England, and came to South Australia with his parents in 1857. His father, Rev. R.W. Needham, was the first Anglican minister at Mount Gambier in 1863 until his death in 1866. While living in the south-east of South Australia with his family, Frederick Needham devoted much of his leisure time to painting watercolours of his surroundings. In 1864 he showed several landscapes with the South Australian Society of Arts. He also drew on official expeditions for the South Australian Survey Department to which he was appointed surveyor in 1876.

Needham was listed as a shipping agent, artist and surveyor when he returned to the south-east early in the 1880s. Nine years later he moved to Renmark and worked as a contractor. In the 1880s he was engaged by the Chaffey Brothers to illustrate a large publication on the Murray River Irrigation Scheme. His landscapes accurately reflect the topography of the land.

Paringa is located 261 km northeast of Adelaide and 4 km from Renmark. Prior to European settlement the area was inhabited by the Naralte Aborigines, and the name Paringa is an indigenous word meaning land or place at the river. The first European into the area was Captain Charles Sturt who rowed down the Murrumbidgee and into the Murray in 1829-30. Paringa Station was originally acquired by Daniel Cudmore in 1858.

The area around Paringa became important in the late 1880s through the Chaffey brothers irrigation scheme. In the 1890s 'Breaker' Morant worked in the local area on the Paringa Station, before leaving for the Boer War.

Paringa Station occupies a significant point on the River Murray and has a long and colourful history. It has a bridge and a punt, where cattle used to cross, and was flooded in the great River Murray floods of 30 June 1956. The town was proclaimed in 1916 and today Paringa's chief appeal is in its easy access to the River Murray.

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