Manny Pottinger honoured in Someva Renewables project naming

By Kimberly Grabham

The information used to create this article was sourced from the website of Liesl Malan Landscape Artists, Edward River Council website, and Someva Website.

Manny Pottinger, an icon of Conargo Shire and surrounding districts, has been honoured in a renewable energy project.

Someva Renewables, a specialist renewable energy developer operating in Australia, has named its local project, Pottinger Energy Park.

Someva quotes on its website interesting views of the time windmills were new technology, ‘Without this vision to embrace a new technology of the time it would have been little short of murder to turn sheep loose into those paddocks’ - Terry McGoverne, the Wool Barons.

It is a touching connection and acknowledgment of the area in which the project is occurring, to name their local project Pottinger after the Pottinger family and the district windmill prodigy Manny Pottinger, who over two generations, installed and maintained windmills in the region from the early 1900s till 1982.

Left: Manny Pottinger, was invaluable in his work in the Conargo district and surrounds. He was still performing construction and maintenance duties on windmills until shortly before his passing. He was 82 at the time this image was taken.

Image credit: Liesl Malan Landscape Artists.

Pottinger Park in Conargo provides a history of the windmill in the region and its importance to growing the Merino industry.

Manny’s real name was Lionel, but he preferred to go by Manny.

A quiet modest man, who went about his business with a minimum of fuss, his windmill repair skills were known throughout the Riverina.

Manny was working for the Falkiner family at Zara station, when Les Falkiner said to him, ‘You want to get yourself a utility. I’ll keep you in work’. So, Manny bought a Chevrolet in 1927 for 205 pounds.

He remained with the Falkiner family for 20 years, before going out on his own.

Manny started working on windmills in 1903, and continued to work on them almost until the day he died in 1986, at the age of 82.

Manny’s great grandparents owned both the original Conargo Inn and the Billabong Hotel. In later years, his father closed the Conargo, and renamed the Billabong, The Conargo Hotel.

The peppercorn trees on the site were planted over a hundred years ago by Manny’s mother Flora, outside the original Conargo Inn.

Manny and Jean Pottinger were married in 1927. They lived in the house near the Conargo Church for 58 years.

Manny and Jean were both widely known and respected.

They quietly got on with what was needed. Jean cared for the church most of her life. Manny restored the Drop Log stables, where he and a mate had once earned a shilling a week for rounding up horses for the stage coach journey between Jerilderie and Deniliquin.

Pottinger Park is the centre of Conargo Village, with the Store on one side and the old Conargo Pub site across the road.

The village sits on the crossroads of the original stock routes and has been a familiar intersection for regular travellers on the inland route since early settlement days.

Pottinger Park was the former Conargo Shire Council’s last project and Edward River Council’s first park.

It is a tribute to the late Manny Pottinger, Conargo’s resident windmill repair man.

Pottinger Park was one of the projects outlined in the Village Masterplan completed for the Shire in 2009.

Central to the design is a windmill which pays tribute to one of the village’s favourite residents. Pottinger Park is dedicated to the unsung heroes of the wool industry Manny represented.

For over half a century, he climbed the rungs of almost every windmill in the district to ensure a reliable supply of water for stock.

A boulevard of Jacaranda trees was chosen by community members to reference the trees Joyce and Manny planted in their garden, next door to the park.

This story was originally published in The Riverine Grazier on November 29, 2023.