 The seventh of ten children , Blamey was born on 24 January 1884 in Lake Albert , near Wagga Wagga , New South Wales . He was the son of Richard Blamey , a farmer who had emigrated from Cornwall at the age of 16 in 1862 , and his Australian @-@ born wife , Margaret ( née Murray ) . After farming failures in Queensland and on the Murrumbidgee River near Wagga Wagga , his father Richard moved to a small 20 @-@ acre ( 8 @.@ 1 ha ) property in Lake Albert , where he supplemented his farm income working as a drover and shearing overseer . 
