John Bristow Hughes contributor to ideas for early South Australia on back of his wealth from Bundaleer station
Bundaleer sheep station in South Australia's mid north, started in 1841 by John Bristow Hughes (bottom left). Bottom right: A dedication to Hughes from parishioners of St Margaret's church at Woodville that he funded in 1854-55.
Main image courtesy State Library of South Australia
John Bristow Hughes exerted his influence on South Australia on the back of wealth from his Bandaleer sheep station, started from 1841 in South Australia’s mid near near Jamestown and Spalding, on 312 square miles.
Born in Kentish Town, London, Hughes was employed at 13 in the office of a merchant who sent him to Calcutta where his health was badly affected. John and his brother Herbert Bristow Hughes came to South Australia in 1840 by way of Tasmania. By 1841, he was running Bundaleer on the River Gilbert with between 3,000 and 5,000 sheep. His lease included the adjoining Booyoolee and Gnangwea areas that were developed by his brothers Bristow and Herbert Bristow Hughes.
By 1850, John Hughes had a house at Walkerville, Adelaide, and was writing often to the press on matters of public interest. He was an lifelong promoter of St Peter's Collegiate School. Hughes made major improvements to Bundaleer and was interested in the welfare of his workers’ families. Hughes expanded Bundaleer north before selling at a big profit to Charles Brown Fisher in 1854 for £31,000 and, by 1864, it was carrying about 80,000 sheep worth more than £40,000.
Hughes, in 1854, had bought the St Clair mansion built by S.R. Clarke. Hughes expanded the mansion to one of Adelaide’s largest. Onto the existing outside buildings, Hughes grafted the essence of an English village, adding a railway station, shops, schoolroom, more housing and a church.
Built of freestone, rather than cheaper local bricks, Hughes intended to call the church St Margaret’s, dedicated to his wife. This idea wasn’t acceptable to Adelaide's Anglican bishop Augustus Short. This meant the building was used for a while by Wesleyan Methodists. (Hughes may have been comfortable with this as a strong anti-ritualistic, opposed to high-church tendencies. Although a fervent lifelong supporter of Adelaide’s St Peter’s college, he took the Dissenter Protestant line in supporting independence of church and state and opposing state aid to churches.) Hughes and Short reached the compromise by dedicating the church to St Margaret of Scotland and its first Anglican services were in 1855.
Hughes stood successfully in 1855 for the East Torrens seat in the original Legislative Council (when a third of members was nominated by the South Australian Company) and helped write the colony’s constitution. He stood successfully for the Port Adelaide seat in the first House of Assembly elections in 1857. He supported the Torrens property title proposal and served as treasurer in premier Robert Torrens’ government.
In 1858, Hughes resigned his seat to visit England, hoping to recover from chronic health complaints. In London, he wrote to The Times denouncing the prospectus of the Great Northern Copper Mining Co. and in 1860 gave evidence in South Australia before the government's inquiry into the scandal.
Daunted by South Australia’s 1858 Land Act, Hughes moved in 1860 to Victoria where he took up properties near Echuca and Coleraine. His cattle were badly hit by pleuro-pneumonia and about 1873 he returned to South Australia. In Adelaide, Hughes failed to win a seat in the House of Assembly but continued to air his views in the press on subjects including St Peter's, railways, finance and anti ritualism. At Adelaide in 1876, he published South Australia: Its Position and Prospects—Letters by J. B. Hughes, Esq., on Railway Extension, Mr Boucaut’s Proposed Addition of £3,000,000 to its Public Debt, and on Payment of Members. He was prominent in the South Australian church association.
In 1881, Hughes visited the western district of Victoria and drowned without trace while swimming at Point Lonsdale.