Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/423

 MrS'^"""'^ ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 397 years he reaped from his paddocks from 10,000 to 12,000 bushels of corn per year, for which he frequently secured los. and i is. per bushel. He established a large dairy on his property, and also became a sheepftirmer. Twelve years after going to Port Gawler, he let his land on lease, and retired from active business, taking up his residence in Prospect, near Adelaide, where he has continued to live for 28 years. Mr. Braund is still, however, closely associated with the interests of the producers of the Province, and has for many years been connected with the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society of .South Australia, of which body he has been on a committee of management for over 1 7 years. Almost immediately after his removal to Prospect, the residents of that part agitated for separation from the District of Yatala. Mr. Braund entered heartily into the movement ; and when a District Council for Prospect was constituted as the result of this movement, he was chosen its first Chairman. For 22 years he was a member of that Council, for several of which he filled the chair. During that period he actively promoted the development of the suburb, and its general satisfactory condition to-day is largely owing to his exertion. He has been frequently asked to stand for Parliament, but has always declined these requests. His name stands upon the list of Justices of the Peace. Mr. Braund has been a quiet builder of the State, a man of upright princi[)le and earnest purpose — one of the class which forms the best side of the national character. The late Mr. John Stokes Bagshaw THE clang of the hammer and the roar of the furnace in a new country are heralds of industry ; and industry is one of the main agencies in the moulding of history in the crucible of time. The clarion note of commerce thus rings out, and, in a manner of speaking, one part of history is begun when a man pioneers an industry in a land which has not a past to look back on, but has its big future before it. The late Mr. John Stokes Bagshaw can very properly be looked upon as a man who helped to shape the industrial career of South Australia, inasmuch as he was a pioneer in the manufacture of agricultural implements at a time when most of the Province's broad acres had yet to be furrowed bv the gleaming ploughshare. He was made of that indomitable stuff which goes to provide the bone and sinew of a coming country, develo[) her resources, and prove her potentialities. John Stokes Bagshaw was born in Chetwynd, Shropshire, Plngland, in 1808, and learnt the trade of a millwright and general mechanical engineer. Having ac(iuired a thorough knowledge of the trade, and being of an inventive turn of mind, he resolved to emigrate and try his fortunes in South Australia. He arrived here by the ship Eden in June, 1838. At that time industry was somewhat "cramped," as might have been expected, and for a time he had, perforce, to follow occupations not at all congenial to his nature. But he was not long at this before he launched in an unpretentious manner the Pioneer Machinery Works; and from a small beginning in 1839 it grew until, at the time of his retirement from business, it had assumed very large dimensions. With the primitive appliances at his command he helped to build the first water, wind, and steam mill, and he also constructed the first winnowing machine ever made in the Province. He was an ardent worker in the Ancient Order of Oddfellows, of which he was the founder in South Australia. He died on January i, 1888, and his loss was very keenly felt.