Previously unseen archives reveal history of Australian merino wool
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- Sheep farmer Peter Small has recovered a significant archive of research from the late Australian scientist Harold Burnell Carter.
- The collection includes 10,000 microscope slides, a wool sample from 1828, and unpublished notes on sheep genetics and wool growth.
- Carter's work, particularly on skin wrinkles and flystrike resistance, is considered foundational to modern wool science, though much of it remained unpublished and overseas until recently.
Sheep farmer Peter Small has successfully retrieved a vast collection of research materials belonging to the late Australian scientist Harold Burnell Carter, a move that has excited the wool industry.
It was all a bit of a mystery until we opened the box.
After a nine-year pursuit, Small opened "the box" earlier this month, revealing 10,000 microscope slides, a wool sample dating back to 1828, and unpublished notes. Carter, a prominent wool scientist at CSIRO in the 1940s and 1950s, focused on how the genetic makeup of sheep skin influences wool growth and susceptibility to flystrike. His findings have been instrumental in the industry and remain in use today.
Carter left Australia for the UK following a dispute with colleagues, taking his collection with him. He passed away in 2005, and his extensive archives, including over 1,000 kilograms of skin and wool samples, papers, books, and technical drawings, remained overseas until their recent shipment back to Australia in early 2026.
It was beyond my expectations, and the wool scientists were just over the moon with how fantastic it was.
Textile scientist Paul Swan, part of the team that opened the crates, described the contents as extraordinary and foundational to the modern understanding of wool. "Every box you opened, there was something new, something unexpected," Swan stated, calling Carter "one of the gods of sheep science."
He was really hunted out of Australia by competitive scientists who had other ideas about breeding sheep.
Farmers across Australia collectively raised the $14,000 needed to ship the archives home. The collection is now housed at the Rural Industries Skill Training Centre in Hamilton, Victoria. While the archives arrived in early 2026, scientists could only begin examining them in June when they traveled to Victoria. Much of Carter's work was never formally published, and some samples were not stored in ideal conditions, making this recovery a significant event for Australian agricultural science.
It was a very nasty event.
DistantNews Editorial
Originally published by ABC Australia. Summarized and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.
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