N 1884, AFTER debilitating droughts, the Victorian government began investigating large-scale irrigation. Future prime minister Alfred Deakin was appointed Chairman of the Royal Commission on Water Supply and travelled overseas to research existing irrigation systems. On an 1885 trip to western USA he met the Chaffey brothers, Canadian entrepreneurs who’d created an “irrigation colony” on the Cucamonga Plains near Los Angeles. Enticed by Deakin’s Australian irrigation potential, George Chaffey travelled to
