James Crabb Verco an early builder of South Australian colony and patriarch of medical and dentisty dynasty

James Crabb Verco and Ann Verco with their children in Adelaide in about 1864 (from left): John, William James, Richard, Thomas Benjamin and Joseph Cooke.  
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

Young Cornish stonemason James Crabb Verco, arriving in South Australia in 1840, contributed in his own right to the huge impact that his family would have on the colony and state.

With a colourful background from his time in Texas during and after its revolutionary break from Mexico in the 1830s, James Verco arrived in South Australia with his new wife Ann on the Brightman in December, 1840. On the ship, he’d connected with future Adelaide businessman Philip Santo, South Australia’s third premier-to-be Robert Torrens (of Torrens land title fame) and George, young brother influential pioneer, landowner and politician John Morphett.

James Verco used his skills as early Adelaide stonemason and master builder, with architectural input, on important South Australian colonial buildings before 1850. His adventurous side took over in the early 1850s when he joined the gold rush to Victoria with Philip Santo and Thomas Fisher.

James Verco returned to Adelaide and served its community, including as a city council member and a justice of the peace. In 1862-65, he was elected to the seat of Hindmarsh in the South Australian House of Assembly, with Emanuel Solomon as his colleague. He was chairman of the Imperial Building Society, a director of the South Australian Insurance Company and the failed Commercial Bank of South Australia. James Verco was a long-time active member of the Church of Christ in Kermode Street, North Adelaide.

He had arrived in Adelaide in 1840 with his brother John, They were later joined from England by his mother Philippa and sisters Elizabeth and Catherine. Elizabeth would marry Thomas Magarey and start another prominent Adelaide dynasty.

James and Ann Verco’s children were William James, John, Richard, Joseph Cooke and Thomas Benjamin. Joseph Cooke Verco would set off the towering influence on medicine, dentistry and the University of Adelaide beyond the next 100 years,