Angaston. The pretty Gothic offices at Lindsay Park estate. Probably built in the late 1850s or 1860s.
Image by denisbin
Lindsay Park.
This house was built in the late 1840s as a home for George Fife Angas with the architect being his son-in-law Henry Evans. Henry Evans had married a daughter of George Fife Angas and he was the one who designed Collingrove homestead and Lindsay Park homestead for the Angas family. Henry’s wife was so opposed to alcohol and wine making that she made Henry have his grape vines grafted with currents rather than grapes for wine. Thus, almost by accident Henry Evans founded the dried fruit industry in the Angaston district! When George Fife Angas came out to SA Henry Evans and his family moved to Keyneton a mile or so away. From 1851 Lindsay Park was used as the family home of the “founder of SA” George Fife Angas. It was extended several times. After George Fife Angas’ death the house and property remained in the Angas family until 1965 when the last inheritor of the Lindsay Park, Sir Keith Angas, sold the property to horse breeding trainer Colin Hayes. It was then developed into the preeminent horse training facility and breeding stud in Australia. Even Queen Elizabeth visited there on one of her trips to SA. When Colin Hayes retired in 1990 the stud and training facility was continued by his son David Hayes. David Hayes sold his share of Lindsay Park facility to his nephew and business partners in 2008 when he moved to Euroa in Victoria. The property was then sold to winemaker David Powell for million in 2013 to become an exclusive tourist resort. Recently in 2023 this property has been sold to the Brendan Smart family from Keith who want to return the property to its original use as a sheep and cattle property. The mansion is not visible from the road. Both George Fife Angas and his wife and John Howard Angas and other family were buried in the family vault at Lindsay Park estate. There is no public access to this private family vault of one of the main pioneering families of South Australia or to the estate.
Flaxman Valley Special Surveys and the Father of South Australia.
Charles Flaxman was the Chief Clerk of George Fife Angas. After Angas had invested £20,000 in financing Pastor Kavel and four ship loads of German Lutherans to South Australia in 1838 he wanted to protect that investment. Around six hundred German Lutherans were transported to SA and at first they rented land from Angas at Klemzig. Angas had purchased 208 acres at Klemzig. Charles Flaxman sailed on one of the ships with Pastor Kavel as Angas’ agent in SA. The German Lutherans later purchased surveyed land at Bethany and elsewhere. This came about because Flaxman over reached his authority and committed George Fife Angas to buy seven Special Survey in 1839 for £28,000.
The special surveys covered much of the Barossa Valley. They included all of the headwaters of the North Para River which rises near Eden Valley and turns southward near Truro back towards Tanunda and Bethany. The surveys also follow every creek and river east of the Barossa Valley such as the North Rhine and the Keyneton to Springton districts. Bethany and Tanunda are near the southern end of the surveys. The widest point is ten miles across from near Sheoak Log to Eden Valley. Basically the main highway from Sheoak Log in a straight line to Truro was the western boundary of Angas’ special surveys. North to south the special surveys ran nearly 15 miles from Truro to Mt Crawford Forest.
The £28,000 required for the surveys nearly bankrupted Angas. He had to get a loan for the first time in his life, sell off his shares in the Union Bank and to sell his lands and other assets. Flaxman purchased part of the Barossa Special Survey towards Mt Crawford in his own name and he stayed on in SA after 1843 when John Howard Angas arrived. Flaxman later moved to Victoria and died there in 1869. Flaxman valley was named after him. Angas went on to become the largest individual landowner in SA in the 1840s and 1850s when others, especially the early pastoralists held all land as leasehold land only with just one 80 acre section freehold around their homestead. Thus Angas was regarded as the major freehold land owner in SA.
But why was he regarded as the “father of South Australia”? There were several reasons but he was certainly not the only “father” of this colony. Others who surely could claim that title include Robert Torrens, Robert Gouger, William Light etc. George Fife Angas worked on creating South Australia from 1830 and became involved with reformers like Edward Wakefield and the SA Land Company from 1832. The SA Land Company for investors disappeared but once the SA Colonization Act was passed in Britain in 1834 Angas became a devotee of the idea of a new colony. As an amount of land to the value of £35,000 had to be pre sold before settlement, according to the terms of that Act, Angas bought 13,000 acres himself to help the Colonization Commissioners meet that requirement. He became one of the Colonization Commissioners and helped form the South Australian Company and he was its first Chairman. Without the SA Company obtaining pre colonization land sales the colony would not have been approved by the British parliament so he was the father of SA in a very significant and pragmatic way. Partly because of the work of Angas the SA Company was offered banking rights for the new colony and this bank was very successful and under pinned some for the SA Company’s success. This bank was separated from the SA Company in 1841 and became the SA Bank. Angas then spruiked the colony after 1836 into the 1840s to encourage English farmers to make the big move across the world to become pioneers. After 1839 he became the largest freehold land owner in the colony with the seven Barossa Special Surveys – 28,000 acres. Once his son John Howard Angas was in the colony George Fife Angas continued to buy more and more land in many locations. He then contributed to the colony with his legislative work and his philanthropy. Although he was generally respected and afforded the “father of SA” title as his motives and ideals were ethical he was not popular with many because of his dictatorial style on committees. But was not a dictatorial style expected of all fathers in the Victorian era?
George Fife Angas. 1789 – 1879
George Fife Angas was born in Newcastle into a business family. His father ran a coachbuilding business. In 1804 George was made an apprentice in his father’s business and in 1808 he was made the secretary of the Newcastle Sunday School Union. He married Rosetta French in 1812 and began his philanthropy with the Baptist Church before he moved his growing family to London in 1824 where he established his own enterprises. He started his own shipping firm and became involved in banking and finance simultaneously with continuing his philanthropic and missionary work. He remained a devout Baptist in London. As soon as he arrived in London, the political centre, he began working to free slaves. Recent attempts have been made to besmirch the reputation of G F Angas. Some websites say he was a slave holder with 121 slaves in British Honduras. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is listed in slave records as he acted as the London agent for several Honduras slave-owners who were seeking compensation, which they were legally entitled to, from the British government after it abolished slavery in Honduras (now Belize) and elsewhere in 1833. Around 300 Indian slaves in Honduras were freed in 1824 directly at the behest of Angas and he worked with the Earl of Bathurst to get legislation enabling this through the House of Commons. Angas’ company and shipping business worked extensively with Honduras agents for mahogany timber which did use slave labour. But he never owned slaves and these incorrect websites would have done well to consult a 1929 publication to learn that. In that 1929 publication on SA by Sir Grenfell Price he says “Angas was concerned about the miseries of slaves and Mayan refugees in Honduras. He promoted missionary work there and was an associate of British reformers and abolitionists like William Wilberforce who spear headed the 1833 British Act to abolish slavery internationally.” Angas never received one penny directly from slave holding but like so much early 19th century British trade it was dependent on slave labour. In 1826 he formed G. F. Angas and Company and after his father’s death in 1831 he took over all his father’s companies and shipping and formed, with his cousin, the National Provincial Bank. In 1832 he joined the committee of the SA Land Company. Two years later when the SA Colonization Act was passed in Westminster Angas stepped in to buy up land in the new province as the Act required since sales were slow. He bought 13,000 acres which he transferred to the South Australian Company when it was formed in 1836 and he was the director of it. In March of 1836 he despatched three ships to the new province before the Governor on the Buffalo and Colonel William Light on the Rapid set sail for the province. At this time he also met with Lutheran Pastor Kavel from Hamburg and negotiated to loan money for the transportation of Lutherans to the new province which was to eschew Anglican dominance and to entice non conformists from Britain to the province. Angas did not look favourably at Catholics. He also founded the South Australian School Society in 1836 which led to the first schools in SA. In 1841 in London Angas established the South Australian Banking Company which helped finance the colony and in 1843 he sent his son John Howard Angas to look after his investments in the colony. At this time in the 1840s Angas travelled extensively in southern England promoting the province and urging people to sail to the new lands. Angas was always a shrewd businessman and he found fortune by selling the lands he acquired for £1 per acre at £10 per acre to the German Lutheran settlers. It had cost Angas £20,000 to bring out around 700 German Lutheran settlers. He believed that his wealth was given to him to do the Lord’s work.
Angas finally migrated to the colony arriving in January 1851 where he continued his philanthropy and pastoral and banking interests and he soon became a member of the Legislative Council for the district of Barossa for fifteen years from 1851 to 1866. He had his rural mansion built on his lands at Angaston and the house was named Lindsay Park. He purchased a town house at the corner of Torrens Road and Fitzroy Terrace as his city home in 1865. This enabled him to attend legislative Council meetings easily. His Prospect Hall as it was known was sold to John Howard Angas before his death and George Fife Angas died at his beloved Lindsay Park in 1879 where he was buried in the family vault on that property. George Fife Angas was strongly opposed to horse racing and gambling so it was somewhat ironic that when Lindsay Park was sold out of the family in 1965 it went to a horse racing magnate. After his death the only biography of Angas was published in 1891 by Edwin Hodder who liaised with John Howard Angas about his father’s life. Some say it presents an overly favourable and biased impression of George Fife Angas. One other commentator says George Fife Angas was often known as “philanthropy plus ten percent.”
