A man of many hats: Alexander Hay

Getting started in South Australia

Alexander first worked for the South Australian Company on the Port Adelaide wharves, loading and unloading ships. Within two years he had made enough money to buy land near Gumeracha and begin farming. By 1845 he had saved enough money to open a general store at 17 Rundle Street near the Norfolk Arms Hotel – opposite today’s Myer building. Earlier that year he had married another Scottish immigrant, a bonnet maker named Agnes Kelly who bore him eight children, four of whom died in infancy. 

Newspapers and public affairs

In 1853 he became a proprietor of the South Australian Register. His career and reputation expanded with directorships in various companies, including insurance, banking and gas. He was heavily involved and well-regarded in public affairs and served with a range of civic and community organisations. These included the Adelaide City Council, Zoological Gardens, the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Caledonian Society. 

South Australian Register, 6 January 1853. NLA: Trove

His wealth grew with purchases of city and regional land, including pastoral properties in South Australia, and later, in other colonies. His political career began in 1857 when he was elected member for Gumeracha in the first South Australian House of Assembly. Over time he served as a Member of Parliament in both houses. He was known as a supporter of liberal land reform and a powerful proponent of secular, compulsory education and free primary schools.

His first home

In 1856 he bought a large property at Burnside and built a homestead which he named ‘Linden’ and later expanded into a two-storey mansion. Today two large Moreton Bay Figs at the top of Greenhill Road mark the site of the front gates, with a small lodgekeeper’s cottage beneath them. The Linden mansion was demolished in 1967. 

Alexander Hay died of heart failure at his second home, Mount Breckan at Victor Harbor, during a heat wave in 1898. Under the terms of Alexander Hay's complex will, 'Linden' had been left to eldest son James who later sold it to Gilbert Wood of Wood and Sons, later Anchor products. 

Read more about Alexander Hay and the house built for his second wife. > LINK TO STORY

More to explore

Alexander Hay - Australian Dictionary of Biography Online 

The Hays of Mt Breckan, 1982, by Anthony Laube