Ring the Bell Watchman worlds and music was published in Australia in 1868 (3 years after it was composed by Henry Work) by R.J. Paling in Melbourne and W. H. Paling in Sydney. From then on it was a popular concert piece to be sung or played as a tune.

Before Click Go the Shears in 1891 there were at least two other parodies of the song published in Australian newspapers.

The painting "Shearing the Rams" by Tom Roberts has the date 1890 (I think) and shows the shearing taking place in a wooden shed

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Roberts_-_Shearing_the_rams_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Through Tom Roberts' eyes we see

a shearer dragging a ram through the his gate
the ringer in front with his hand shears (just before he turns to find he's been beaten by a blow by the shearer behind him?)
the boss of the board keeping an eye in things noting whether the fleece is took off clean
the tar boy with is tar stick

This boys and men in depicted in the painting are as close as you could hope to the narrative of the song and taken together the song and painting show how important the intricacies of shearing were in Australia at that time.