James Rutherford (Australian pioneer)

[1] Rutherford arrived at Melbourne on the Akbar on 20 June 1853 and worked on the Bendigo goldfields for a short time before becoming a contractor timber-cutter near Ferntree Gully, Victoria.

[1] Rutherford then sailed to Brisbane and travelled overland back to Melbourne and on the way learnt a great deal about the country, and much about its horses, in which he traded for some years.

The coaching business of Cobb and Co., which had been founded by some visitors from America a few years before, was in 1857 in the hands of Cyrus Hewitt and George Watson, who employed Rutherford to manage the Beechworth line.

Extensions into Queensland were made in 1865, and the growth of the business was so great that by 1870 6,000 horses were harnessed each day and the coaches were travelling 28,000 miles a week.

Rutherford, who lived at Bathurst from 1862, began acquiring station properties, which he managed himself with the most up-to-date means, and in 1873, with John Sutherland, and others including ironmaster Enoch Hughes, he founded the Eskbank Ironworks at Lithgow.