[2] and found employment as reporter and sub-editor for James "Dismal Jemmy" Allen's newly launched Adelaide Times.
He came to public attention when he assisted the widow and orphan children of a fellow journalist, who died at sea after a long illness, leaving her destitute.
[3] He gave the theatre-going public a taste of his play-writing talents with musical sketches or plays: Quite Colonial, and Romance and Reality at several of the concerts given by the Nelson family[4] while that troupe was in Adelaide May–August 1853.
[a] On 15 October 1853 he launched a newspaper, South Australian Free Press, which failed to thrive and ceased publication with the issue of 1 April 1854.
Subsequently, he wrote fourteen pantomimes; one of his burlesques, the Siege of Troy, running for sixty nights, and Knights of the Round Table also popular, both starring Richard Stewart and H. R. Harwood with scene painting (in those days as much a drawcard as the acting) by John Hennings.