Alexander Hay (12 January 1820 – 4 February 1898) was a South Australian merchant, pastoralist and politician.

[1] Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, as a young man he gained free passage to South Australia when working as a "wharfer", arriving in May 1839.

After working for only two years for the South Australia Company, he could afford to purchase his own land to farm at Gumeracha.

He opened a grocery and hardware store on Rundle Street in the Adelaide city centre, specialising in supplying tools and equipment to the new copper mines and the booming building industry.

He was married to Agnes Kelly in Adelaide in 1845, with whom he had eight children (only four survived to adulthood, a son and three daughters).

[1] Except for a five-year break between 1861 and 1866 during which he took his family on a trip to England and had his Beaumont home, "Linden", rebuilt, he served the Parliament until 1890, being elected to the Legislative Council in 1873[4] and again in 1882.

He is particularly noteworthy for his role as proposer and chairman of the Select Committee on Education in 1868, which recommended a secular and compulsory system (which became law seven years later).