John Darling and Son

[3] Several of his friends, including Alexander Dowie and Joseph Ferguson, later an owner of The Register, had emigrated to South Australia in 1851, and realizing the lack of opportunities for advancement in Edinburgh, decided to follow them.

This job lasted two years before he left to earn a living with a horse and cart, and at the same time helped set up his wife in a store adjacent to the Stag Inn on Rundle Street.

This failed to attract much custom so they built a shop "Millbrook Store" on Glen Osmond Road, which slowly became profitable.

Under John Darling, Jr., the company purchased the Eclipse flour mills, Port Adelaide, and the goodwill of J. Dunn and Co. in ???.

Around 2am the four-masted barque Norma, loaded with wheat, was lying at the Semaphore anchorage off Outer Harbor, awaiting a favourable wind, when it was struck by the steamer Ardencraig, inbound with merchandise from London.

Hours later, in broad daylight, the Jessie Darling, loaded with wheat from Smoky Bay, struck the wreck of the Norma and sank.

Thomas of the Ardencraig asserted that a sudden rain squall had obscured the Norma, and the crew backed his statement.

Years later a story emerged that the lights of the Norma actually had been seen but the Ardencraig could not be halted due to the topping maul (a mallet used for quick release of anchor chains etc.)

[9] An infamous South Australian wreck was that of the SS Clan Ranald in Investigator Strait west of Troubridge Point in 1909, when 30 men were drowned.

Educated at Prince Alfred College, he entered the family business of John Darling and Son, grain merchants, in 1903.

In 1929, when he gave £10,000 to found the Waite Soil Research Centre at Urrbrae, Adelaide,[16] he expressed regret that the gift had to be made public.

[19][20] In 1962 John Darling and Son (Aust) Ltd. was acquired by Allied Mills, which was taken over by Fielder Gillespie Davis Limited in 1986.