Clare Museum, S.A.

Pastoralist

Impressive explorer John Ainsworth Horrocks first owned the land on which Hughes Park is built, which Watervale founder David Davies had named Dalore (pronounced Dalorie), a Welsh name for 'best field,' and a very appropriate name for the  beautiful spot now named Hughes Park.

In 1861 Walter Watson Hughes bought Dalore from Davies.

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For some years Captain Hughes searched for copper in the Watervale district, without luck, but bought the farmland land east of The Peak, now called Hughes Park, near Watervale. 

Hughes Park is now a large historic property of 7,000 acres of land, leased by Hughes in 1845 and the homestead built by Hughes around 1860.

Using his own capital, he also bought land at Macclesfield and stocked it with sheep purchased from Edward Burton Gleeson for 5s a head.

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He was to become, however, one of the many victims of the financial crisis during Governor Gawler's regime. and later he trudged back to Adelaide on foot from Macclesfield with the same sheep; these were sold by the Government auctioneer, Bentham Neales, for 2s 6d a head.

He had salvaged enough from the wreck of his fortune to buy another flock before prices rose dramatically, and with these sheep he went north. 

• In 1843 he also took out a leasehold run of 16 square miles near Wilmington with a flock of 6,000 sheep.

• In 1846 he took out leasehold lands by the Hummock Ranges and across to the Broughton Plains.

• In April 1846 he acquired a new leasehold at Hoyleton along the edge of the Clare Hills called The Peak west of Skillogalee Creek.

 

He lived in the neighbourhood of Macclesfield for a number of years, and then bought the lease at Wallaroo. The workers on his Macclesfield property were all the former sailors of the Hero.

• In 1857 he took over the Wallaroo run there from Robert Miller adjoining the Point Riley run held by Edward Stirling.

• He then organised a great trek of his flock, his workers and their families from Macclesfield to Wallaroo. 

• Wallaroo was managed by his brother-in-law, Captain John Duncan, as Hughes mainly resided at The Peak. 

• “He owned other land in the Watervale area and lived in a mud hut known as ‘The Peak’ out on the Hoyleton plains,” Andy Duncan said. “Then he built this home, which was single storey, and called it Hughes Park.”

 

Wallaroo

The land on which Wallaroo stands was first held by Robert Miller from 1 July 1851 (lease no. 147) over 104 square miles, stretching from a point 3 km south of Point Riley, South -East beyond Kadina, thence south to include Moonta, finally rejoining the coast at Tiparra Spring.

In 1857, Miller surrendered the lease when it was taken up by W. W. Hughes.

So with his brother-in-law, Captain John Duncan, who had married his sister, Joan, Walter Hughes took up Wallaroo Station which originally extended from Tiparra Springs to Tickara Springs, and from Wallaroo to Greens Plains. We know that wife Sophia also lived there, from a story about her horse, a mare, with a tendency to bolt, ridden by William Austin Horn.

 

On noticing that tree roots sometimes burned with a green flame, Hughes instructed all his shepherds and boundary riders to keep a sharp watch for any signs of copper ore.

 

One of the shepherds, James Boor, found a small mound of green carbonate of copper outside the burrow of a marsupial rat, but forgot about it until some days later when he mentioned it to Hughes' brother-in law, John Duncan, who was manager of the out-station.

 

Duncan told his fifteen-year-old son, also John Duncan, to take the news to his uncle, so the boy set off with samples of ore and an Aboriginal companion. It was 130 kilometres to Watervale where Hughes was then living at The Peak near Hughes Park, but because of severe drought the horses were in such poor condition that the journey took a week. 

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Copper

Hughes immediately identified the ore as copper and engaged four Cornish miners from Burra Burra to test the site. Young John Duncan drove these men, Walter Phillips, William Pascoe, Richard Walter and Richard Turren, back to Wallaroo, and in true Cornish fashion one of them swung a pick round his head and immediately began to dig where it landed, striking, as luck would have it, the main source.

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When Captain Hughes first found traces of copper on his pastoral run in the early 1850s, he was short of funds and simply sat on his find while nurturing a valuable relationship with Edward Stirling, one of four directors in Elder, Stirling & Co.

Edward came to South Australia after receiving £1000 from his father, Archibald, who had been a slaveholder on four estates in Jamaica. (Edward Stirling was the illegitimate son of Archibald and a Creole woman) - Wikipedia

Edward Stirling (c. 1808 – 2 February 1873) was an early settler of South Australia. He established several pastoral properties and was a co-founder of what became Elders Limited, also serving two terms in the South Australian Legislative Council.

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"Unfortunately for Hughes, when shepherd Patrick Ryan could not (find him to) report the discovery directly to him, he called upon Hughes’ nephew (John Duncan), who turned him away believing his claims were due to his drunken state.

Turning Ryan away set him on a series of events whilst in an alcoholic stupor, that included making two other legal and binding agreements on his way to the Adelaide Land Office, including one in the Black Bull pub in Hindley Street. 

When Ryan arrived at the office on 24 May 1861 with one of his new chums, publican Joseph Johnson, he was so drunk that when he was unable to describe the place of discovery, his first application was refused." - 'Fraud - Walter Watson Hughes & the Moonta and Wallaroo Mines', by Patricia Sumerling - also summarises the court battles ensuing

(Read more about Ryan in the sidebar at left)

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Hughes promptly pegged mining leases, and invited Adelaide merchants Thomas Elder, Robert Barr Smith and Edward Stirling, to put up capital. Patrick Ryan received a pension for life.

Hughes also had Ryan sign an agreement with him. Hughes then registered a further 26 buffer zone mining rights as well. Some later claimed Hughes had no moral or legal right to these Moonta mining rights but after years of court appeals and legal fighting the Privy Council in England ruled in favour of Hughes.

During the legal fight Hughes returned to live in England from 1864 to 1870, when the Privy Council finally dismissed a challenge to the ownership of the mines, and Hughes returned to S.A. 

 

So the Wallaroo Mine Company, in which Hughes was the largest shareholder, was finally and legally formed. With profits from this venture, the other shareholders formed the pastoral firm of Elder, Stirling and Company.

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​For many decades Elder and Smith (now Elders) were pioneers of the pastoral settlements and were also stock and station agents in the state of South Australia.

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Read more: Clare Museum: Spirited Sir Walter Hughes

  SA History Hub: Sir Walter Watson Hughes