Watervale. Hughes Park estate. Established 1845. The grand house for Sir Walter Watson Hughes was a single storey house. Enlarged with second storey in 1900 when owned by his heirs the Duncan family. Western facade.
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Hughes Park near Watervale. The first white pastoralist to have a leasehold over the land on the western edge of the Clare Valley was Walter Watson Hughes in 1851 called the Peak. His grand estate Hughes Park was established near Watervale and Skillogalee Creek in 1861. Hughes searched for copper in the hills on the edge of the Clare Valley but without success. The property he bought near Watervale was called Dalore which Hughes renamed. A fine stone cottage was on the property dating from the 1840s but Hughes was a wealthy man and so he had a grand mansion built here around 1862/3. Hughes built a large single storey dwelling with 72 acres of clipped lawn and a four acre clipped olive hedge garden. After Hughes’ return to England his nephew John Duncan lived here. In his youth Duncan had received part of his education at Stanley Grammar School in Watervale. In 1875 Hughes Park was given to John Duncan to occupy and Duncan enlarged and added a second storey to the mansion in 1900 with fine stone work and a three storey tower. John Duncan inherited Hughes Park in 1887 when Sir Walter Watson Hughes died. An ancestor of John Duncan still runs Hughes Park as a sheep property and wedding venue. The original stone cottage built at Hughes Park around 1845 is now available from bed and breakfast guests. John Duncan and his brother Walter Duncan inherited the grand Gum Creek estate beyond Clare too. Hughes placed his nephew Sir John Duncan in charge of Gum Creek (as well as the finances of the Moonta and Wallaroo mines) and Duncan eventually inherited the station of 50,000 acres in 1888. In 1871 Hughes donated £1 for every £2 raised by the Bible Christians of Watervale to pay off the mortgage for the erection of their church in 1867. Hughes also allowed the Adelaide Hunt to sometimes use Hughes Park for their hunt meeting. Sir Walter Watson Hughes owned Torrens Park House for some year which is now Scotch College. He gave the initial donation of £20,000 to found the University of Adelaide. He was a generous benefactor to other institutions too as he made a fortune from his Wallaroo and Moonta copper mining companies and smelters. Walter Watson Hughes and his wife Sophia never had any children of their own. Consequently when he died Hughes left his South Australian freehold lands – Hughes Park at Watervale and Gum Creek station near Booborowie and parts of his fortune to his nephew in South Australia – Sir John Duncan the son of Hughes’ sister who was married to John Duncan. Sir Walter Watson Hughes was buried near his London home in Chertsey, Surrey as was his wife Sophia who died in 1885. Hughes died on New Year’s Day 1887.
Sir Walter Watson Hughes.
Walter Watson Hughes was born in 1803 in Scotland in Pittenweem near St Andrews in Fife. He was one of seven children of humble origins. According to family legend his parents had run out of boys names so when the post man came they asked his name. He said he was Walter Watson so they named their new son Walter Watson Hughes. He started life as a fisherman and in his early teens he went to sea, worked hard, saved well and eventually bought his own ship the brig Hero in Calcutta in 1829 when he was just 26 years old. He then traded in Asia including the opium trade from Calcutta to China. He established close bonds with his group of sailors on the Hero. He settled in Adelaide in 1841 and married Sophia Richmond later that year and assisted his crew from the Hero to return to England, gather their families and emigrate to SA. Whilst working for a mercantile company he began sheep farming in the Adelaide Hills and amassed some money and a flock of sheep. The workers on his Macclesfield property were all the former sailors of the Hero. 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. In 1851 he also took out a small mining lease on Yorke Peninsula as he had been running sheep there with his brother-in-law John Duncan. 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. He instructed his shepherds to look for minerals. Wallaroo was managed by John Duncan as Hughes mainly resided at The Peak. One shepherd John Boor discovered copper at Wallaroo in 1860. Hughes took out mining leases but others soon rushed to the area and also took out mining leases, especially in the area that became Kadina. Hughes became the largest shareholder in his Wallaroo Mining Company which was originally known as Wandilta Mines. In June 1860 the first ship load of copper ore was taken to Port Adelaide at a cost of 8 shillings a ton. By comparison transport of ore from Burra cost 50 shillings per ton at that time. The Wallaroo ores were 20 to 30 % pure copper but some ore were up to 50% pure copper. Bricks and mining equipment was unloaded at Wallaroo for Hughes in September 1860 and over 20 men were working his mines. In August 1860 Hughes visited Burra to entice Cornish miners to Wallaroo. By November 1860 the mine was being worked in conjunction with Elders Stirling and Company (Thomas Elder, Robert Barr Smith, John Taylor and Edward Stirling). Hughes’ early start was not popular with other mining lease holders. Then to further sully Walter Watson Hughes’s reputation another shepherd Patrick Ryan in May 1861 found copper on Hughes leasehold run at what was to become Moonta. This was the mine that produced great wealth and saved and made the fortunes of Hughes and Elder Smith and Co as many believed the Wallaroo mine alone would have bankrupted them all.
Was Walter Watson Hughes the father of 19th century Aboriginal leader John Sansbury? Walter Watson Hughes worked on leaseholds on Yorke Peninsula from the mid-1840s. He also took out leasehold runs in 1851 at Hoyleton and then Wallaroo in 1857. He never built a substantial homestead on his Wallaroo run which was run by his brother-in-law John Duncan as he lived at The Peak. According to Narrunga oral genealogy John Sansbury who was born in 1854 to “King Tommy” and “Queen Mary” leader of all the clans on Yorke Peninsula was actually the biological son of Walter Watson Hughes but it was more likely he was the biological son of his alcoholic and renegade brother who was in the colony on Hughes Yorke Peninsula runs for a few years in the 1850s before Walter Watson Hughes sent him back to Scotland. Walter Watson Hughes never acknowledged any biological descendants. When John Sansbury married in a church in 1874 he only listed his father as King Tommy. Presumably this church was at Point Pearce Aboriginal Mission which was established in 1868. A group of nondenominational missionaries led by the Moravians had started mission work with the Aborigines near the copper mines of Moonta in 1867. Walter Watson Hughes gave a pension for life to King Tommy as compensation for his lands and King Tommy’s help in the discovery of copper. There is a poor quality photograph of John Sansbury in the 1870s which show some resemblance to Walter Watson Hughes or his brother, but we will never know if this is merely accidental. The Hughes name was also taken up by other Narrung people which was very common in the 19th century when Aboriginal people adopted the name of any white person that they worked for. We do know that Walter Watson Hughes and his wife Sophia never had any children of their own. Consequently when he died Hughes left his South Australian freehold lands – Hughes Park at Watervale and Gum Creek station near Booborowie and parts of his fortune to his nephew in South Australia – Sir John Duncan the son of Hughes’ sister who was married to John Duncan. Sir Walter Watson Hughes was buried near his London home in Chertsey, Surrey as was his wife Sophia who died in 1885. Hughes died on New Year’s Day 1887. He was knighted in 1880 for his services and philanthropy to South Australia. Apart from the University he was a substantial donor to the Presbyterian Church which was in Flinders Street. His memorial window in that church donated by his nephew John Duncan was moved to Scots Church North Terrace after the Flinders Street Church was sold to the YMCA in 1956. In 1860 he also donated copper ore specimens to the Gawler museum. When Walter Watson Hughes and Sophia Hughes returned to England in 1874 they both had their portraits painted in London by Miss Margaret Thomas.
