Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/360

 oo4 ADELAIDE AND VICINITY Hon. John James Duncan, M.L.C. IN bestowing the praise due to the pioneers who built up this Province, the names of their sons should also be held in remembrance. These successors have also supplied their share of the bone and sinew of the country. Such an one is the Hon- John James Duncan, a noted pastoralist of the Province. He was born at Anstruther. Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1845, and is the eldest son of the late Captain Duncan, who, with his family, came to South Australia in 1854. Captain Duncan became associated with Mr. (afterwards Sir) Walter Watson Hughes (his brother-in-law) in pastoral pursuits, and together these gentlemen acquired a sheep station which em- l:)raced what is now the Wallaroo and Moonta copper-mining dis- tricts. Both Mr. J. J. Duncan and his brother, Mr. Walter Hughes Duncan, M.P., spent some of their early years on this station. J. J. Duncan was educated first privately, then at St. Peter's College, at Bentley, near Gawler, and at the Watervale Grammar School. Before he attended a public school, and while resident at Wallaroo, the copper discoveries were made in that district ; and he it was who conveyed the news of the discovery to his uncle, Sir W. W. Hughes, who then resided at "The Peak," near Watervale. He also drove the first four miners, who had been engaged at the Burra, to the site of the Wallaroo Mine. When Moonta was discovered, he also drove the first workmen to that mine. After leaving school, Mr. Duncan had the advantage of three years' training in the mercantile ofiice of Messrs. tilder. Smith, & Co. He afterwards became attached to the smelting works and then to the mines at Wallaroo, charged with the financial administration. Subsequently he was given charge of some of the station properties of his uncle, and, on the death of the latter, succeeded him as the owner of the properties known as Gum Creek, near the Burra, and Hughes Park, near Watervale. It may be mentioned that Uighton, Photo