James Martin (South Australian politician)

James Martin (1821 – 27 December 1899) was an industrialist and politician in the early days of the Colony of South Australia.

James Martin was born in the hamlet of Foundry, in the parish of Stithians, Cornwall, in straitened circumstances, the seventh child of a woman whose husband had died a few months previously.

[citation needed] He worked at the local factory making steel shovels, as a millwright in Truro's flour mills, and as a fitter in the Tresavean copper mine, where he was involved in the installation of a large mine pump and a prototype of Michael Loam's "man engine", all the time gaining practical engineering knowledge.

[citation needed] He suffered from asthma, which was exacerbated by Cornwall's climate and the atmosphere of these workplaces, and decided for his health's sake to try his luck in South Australia, and emigrated on La Belle Alliance, arriving in July 1847.

[1] Although then a tiny village, Gawler seemed a likely spot for development as a waypoint between Adelaide and the mines of Burra, the farms of the Barossa Valley, the River Murray and the incipient wheatfields of the Lower North.

[citation needed] He rented a blacksmith's shop from John Calton and began building bullock drays.

[3] The copper mines at Burra presented the next opportunity, and soon the Phoenix Foundry was manufacturing all kinds of engines, pumps, crushing and winding gear.