Robert Barr Smith had a genius for business. He was also a generous philanthropist, though his modesty dictated that much of the funding was dispensed anonymously.
Sarah Jane (Jeanna) Young (née Foster) (1866–1955), inspired by Catherine Helen Spence, became secretary of the Effective Voting League (1897), wrote and lectured on proportional representation and, with Spence, campaigned for eight weeks in Sydney to have the Hare-Spence voting system adopted in Federal elections. She would later run for parliament and receive an OBE.
Sir Charles Todd was a leader in the fields of meteorology, astronomy and communications, and is best remembered for masterminding the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line.
Philosopher, Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, and a teacher of economics, psychology and literature, Sir William Mitchell was nothing if not a polymath.
Thomas Hardy lectured and wrote on the wine business and olive growing, was a member of the Phylloxera Board, Wine Growers’ Association, South Australian Agricultural and Horticultural Society and the Chamber of Manufactures, judged local horticultural shows, published regularly in the local press and wrote two books, Notes on Vineyards in America and Europe (1885) and A Vigneron Abroad, Trip to South Africa (1899).
The term 'all-round sportsman' might have been coined for Victor York Richardson, who excelled at cricket, football, baseball, lacrosse, tennis and basketball.
William Gosse Hay was the son of a wealthy pastoralist, and a writer. Author of six novels which are stirring tales of noble heroes struggling to maintain moral honour in convict-era Tasmania. His unfinished work, ‘The Return of Robert Wasterton’, is set in 1890s Victor Harbor.