John Barton Hack

John Barton Hack (2 July 1805 – 4 October 1884) was an early settler in South Australia; a prominent farmer, businessman and public figure.

In September 1836 he embarked with his wife, six children and younger brother Stephen (who was to become an explorer of some note[1] and father of Wilton Hack), on the Isabella, commanded by Captain Hart for the owner Griffiths of Launceston, Van Diemen's Land.

A surprise last-minute addition to the passenger list was Sir John Jeffcott, who had been appointed Chief Justice of South Australia, and was "slipping away" surreptitiously to avoid creditors.

[2] His purchases included nearly 400 sheep, six cows and a bull, ten bullocks, a large wagon and a dray, three horses and a Timor pony.

Another livestock importer from Launceston aboard the Isabella was Henry Jones (1799-1889), son of a prosperous London oil merchant, and, like Hack, an influential colonist.

[3] Arriving at Holdfast Bay (again on the Isabella, whose captain was the future South Australian Premier John Hart) in February 1837, his goods and livestock were unloaded, but by an oversight the sheep dispersed and were never recovered.

He set up the two prefabricated two-room "Manning's Portable Cottages" he had loaded at Portsmouth; one at Glenelg and one in Adelaide, on the site of the present Railway Station.

On 27 November 1837, guided by his stockman Tom Davis, Hack in company with John Morphett, Samuel Stephens, Charles Stuart (South Australian Company's stock overseer), and John Wade (a "gentleman from Hobart Town"), were the first Europeans to ascend Mount Barker.

In 1851 he went to the Victorian goldfields, where he was modestly successful and returned to South Australia, where he was engaged as mercantile manager for the solicitor Atkinson (who he left in 1852),[8] then with Hart and Hughes of Port Adelaide.

He donated land on Pennington Terrace, North Adelaide, and contracted for erection there of the Friends’ meeting house, a prefabricated wooden building from the same H. Manning, which is still in use.

[10] He was noted for his friendliness to Aboriginals and ex-convicts (notably one Jack Foley, who became a trusted employee to the extent of accompanying Stephen Hack to London in 1840), and as a temperance advocate.