John Darling becomes Australia's grain king from the 1870s, milling, taking South Australian wheat to the world

John Darling (at right), one of John Darling and Son's wheat stacks (top left) at the South Australian mid-north farming town of Terowie in 1911 and the Excelsior, one of ships the company had built or chartered to take wheat around the Australian coast or overseas.  

John Darling founded a business dynasty in Adelaide with a wheat merchant and flour milling company that became Australia’s largest. Born in Edinburgh, Darling left the George Heriot free school at 11 after his father died.

He was apprenticed to an typefounder but, with few prospects later, decided to follow friends, including Alexander Dowie and Joseph Ferguson, later owner of The Register, to South Australia. He arrived in 1855 with his wife and two sons and, four days later, he was working in the Rundle Street, Adelaide, store of Berry & Gall.

Next was a job with baker Robert Birrell of Grenfell Street. After two years, he tried working as a contractor with a horse and cart and helped start his wife in a store next to the Stag Inn on Rundle Street. This failed, so they built Millbrook Store on Glen Osmond Road that became profitable.

Darling learned the wheat and flour business during five years with James Smith of Giles & Smith, Waymouth Street, who had a flour mill on West Terrace, Adelaide. In 1865, Darling left to trade independently. Two years later, he took over the Waymouth Street, Adelaide, grain stores of R. G. Bowen (later the factory of D. & W. Murray) and, in 1872, brought his son John into the business.

With branches in South Australia's wheat belt, John Darling & Son invested in many agricultural properties and flour mills, bought grain from growers and exported extensively to eastern Australia. When Victoria became self supporting in grain, Darling turned to international markets. He travelled overseas in 1871 and was soon shipping cargoes to many European ports.

In the 1880s, he started another main office in Melbourne and, after another visit to America and Europe, became the “grain king” as Australia’s biggest wheat shipper. By 1890, the firm had major interests in flour milling and shipping, and a large London office.

Darling, who served in the South Australian parliament, was an early investor in Broken Hill Proprietary Company. He retired in 1897, leaving John Darling Jr. as sole proprietor.