The lease was first taken up by John Withnell and William McLean in July 1886. The Mackay brothers, along with Donald and Roderick Louden, took up a holding in 1887. The Mackays' lease consisted of three parcels of each. In 1890, George Dudley and Alfred Howden Drake-Brockman took up land on what is now Mount Edgar Station. Howden selected the Corunna Downs land and named it after the Battle of Corunna. The leases of the Withnells and Mackays were registered to Dalgety &amp; Company and worked by the Brockman brothers.