Even before the 1890s depression, some dairymen who had prospered in the southern part of the (then) colony of NSW, had begun to move to the wilderness area between the Richmond River (which ran through Lismore) and the Tweed River (which ran through Murwillumbah). In the 1890s both the government of George Dibbs (which held office until 1894) and the government of George Reid (which followed) saw an emphasis on dairying as a partial remedy for the 1890s depression. Once the commercial slump of 1890 had seriously set in, both the northern and southern parts of coastal New South Wales benefited from this development of the.
