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Story: Timekeeping

Shearing rules

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Shearing rules

When people worked in large groups, standard times for starting and finishing became necessary. Even on Teviot sheep station in Otago in the 1880s, the rules for shearers laid down precise times for work and for ‘smoko’.

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How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, Timekeeping – Time and society, 1870s–1930s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/document/6700/shearing-rules (accessed 10 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 2 March 2009.