{"id":40235,"date":"2026-06-28T22:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T22:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40235\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T22:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T22:31:10","slug":"farmers-push-to-return-lost-csiro-archives-reveals-200-years-of-merino-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40235\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmer’s push to return lost CSIRO archives reveals 200 years of merino history"},"content":{"rendered":"

For nine years, sheep farmer Peter Small chased a scientist’s life’s work across the world. Earlier this month, he finally got to open “the box”.<\/p>\n

Mr Small has relied on the late Australian scientist Harold Burnell Carter’s findings throughout his on-farm career in Coleraine, in Victoria’s south-west.<\/p>\n

Dr Carter’s research into how the genetic makeup of sheep skin shapes wool growth and vulnerability to flystrike gave the industry tools that remain in use today.<\/p>\n

Inside Dr Carter’s crates were 10,000 microscope slides, a bag of wool from 1828, and the unpublished notes of a man some consider one of the greatest wool scientists Australia ever produced.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Peter Small has worked with sheep all his life and knew Harold Burnell Carter personally. (Supplied: Peter Small)<\/p>\n

“It was all a bit of a mystery until we opened the box,” Mr Small said.<\/p>\n

“It was beyond my expectations, and the wool scientists were just over the moon with how fantastic it was.”<\/p>\n

Saving a legacy\"A<\/p>\n

Harold Burnell Carter discovered that sheep with less wrinkled skin were less vulnerable to flystrike. (Wikimedia Commons: Benito Cartero<\/a>, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Dr Carter was a leading wool scientist at the CSIRO in the 1940s and 1950s who left for the UK after a dispute with colleagues.<\/p>\n

“He was really hunted out of Australia by competitive scientists who had other ideas about breeding sheep,” Mr Small said. “It was a very nasty event.”<\/p>\n

His collection of Australian merino specimens went with him, and remained overseas until he died in 2005.<\/p>\n

In June, more than 1,000 kilograms of skin and wool samples, papers, books and technical drawings by Dr Carter were opened in Australia for the first time.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The contents of Harold Burnell Carter’s research archives were unknown until they were opened by scientists. (Supplied: Peter Small)<\/p>\n

Some samples had been stored at his children’s homes rather than in a climate-controlled environment. Much of the work was never published.<\/p>\n

Farmers from across Australia raised the $14,000 required to ship the collection home.<\/p>\n

It is now stored at the Rural Industries Skill Training Centre in Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\"Six<\/p>\n

The archives were shipped to Australia in early 2026, but could not be opened until wool scientists travelled to Victoria in June.\u00a0 (Supplied: Peter Small)<\/p>\n

Research missing for decades<\/p>\n

Textile scientist Paul Swan was part of the team that opened the crates and said the work was foundational to the modern understanding of wool.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Swan says modern sheep research stands on the shoulders of innovation by Harold Burnell Carter. (Supplied: Paul Swan)<\/p>\n

“Every box was extraordinary. Every box you opened, there was something new, something unexpected,” Dr Swan said.<\/p>\n

“Harold was a big name in a bit of a boutique industry, but to me he was one of the gods of sheep science.”\"Several<\/p>\n

Harold Burnell Carter was known for spending most of his time doing field work. (Supplied: Peter Small)<\/p>\n

The boxes contained textbooks, CSIRO documents, transcripts of meetings with French and Russian scientists, notes from early experiments with skin grafts, and 10,000 microscope slides.<\/p>\n

Scientific competition<\/p>\n

When Dr Carter was working in Australia, wool made up 56 per cent of the gross value of all Australian agricultural production.<\/p>\n

He joined the CSIRO at the outbreak of World War II, but post-war funding brought more scientists and more competition.<\/p>\n

\"Books<\/p>\n

Paul Swan says Harold Burnell Carter pioneered animal histology. (Supplied: Peter Small)<\/p>\n

“The work that Harold was doing and the conclusions that were drawn stepped on some toes,” he said.<\/p>\n

“In an industry that was very politically important at the time. There were some forces that disliked what he was doing, particularly about how sheep could be selected against a disposition for things like flystrike.”<\/p>\n

Dr Carter left Australia in 1955 and continued academic work in the UK until he died in 2005.<\/p>\n

Hopes for continued discovery<\/p>\n

The future of these archives is still undecided.<\/p>\n

Dr Swan said he hoped they would be used in research and to inspire young scientists.<\/p>\n

“It’s about keeping things alive and a legacy, but also making it available to others,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Harold Burnell Carter travelled across Australia collecting sheep skin samples the size of a fingernail. (Supplied: Peter Small)<\/p>\n

“Who knows what they will find, particularly with modern analytical techniques.<\/p>\n

“I know that if I was starting out my time again, this would be fascinating to get my teeth into.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For nine years, sheep farmer Peter Small chased a scientist’s life’s work across the world. Earlier this month,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,9689,32507,32509,32510,32508],"class_list":["post-40235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-csiro","tag-dr-harold-burnell-carter","tag-paul-swan","tag-sheep-science","tag-wool-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}