Waterloo Plains massacre
massacre in New South Wales, Australia
The Waterloo Plains massacre occurred in June 1838 when 8 to 23 Djadjawurrung Aboriginal people were killed in a reprisal raid for the killing of two convict servants and theft of sheep.
Background
In late 1837, the Barfold sheep station was established on Djadjawurrung country by William Henry Yaldwyn, when his station overseer John Coppock drove 4,000 sheep from the Goulburn area to a site along the Campaspe River, about 8 miles (13 km) north of Kyneton.
Coppock's men soon formed a habit of shooting the resident Indigenous people including women and children. Other colonists took up land around Barfold in early 1838 including Henry Monro at Spring Plains, Captain Charles Hutton at Campaspe Plains, Alexander Mollison at Coliban, Charles Ebden at Carlsruhe and William Bowman at Sutton Grange. Bowman shot at every black person he saw on his run, while Hutton believed in punishing the tribes wholesale and exterminating them completely.
In April 1838, conflict between the British pastoralist invaders and the neighbouring Taungurung people from the Goulburn River region resulted in the Faithful Massacre of eight British stockmen near the present site of Benalla. Subsequent reprisal raids killed up to 100 Aboriginal people.
The upsurge in violence spread to the Barfold region where in May 1838, two of Coppock's convict workers, a hut keeper and watchman, were found dead, and 1200 sheep missing.
Massacre
Coppock summoned about 20 convict men from Barfold and surrounding stations owned by Charles Ebden (Carlsruhe station), Dr William Bowman (Sutton Grange) and Henry Monro (Spring Plains).
The armed and mounted party tracked the Djadjawurrung people to their camp in a gully (now known as Waterloo Plains).
The public source identifies “Waterloo Plains massacre” as massacre in New South Wales, Australia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Waterloo, Plains and massacre.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 14, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q85814623. Authority coordinates are -30.645, 150.850. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1838, 1837 and 1200.
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This entry incorporates text from “Waterloo Plains massacre” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.