Walter Hughes (pastoralist)

[1] Hughes attended school in Crail and was apprenticed to a cooper for a short time - he then entered the merchant service and became a master, including whaling in the Arctic for several years.

One property, Spring Vale estate near Watervale, he planted with grape vines — Rhine riesling, Pedro Ximénez, temprano, shiraz and grenache.

[3] Hughes passed Spring Vale to his nephew James McKinnon Richman, and there C. A. Sobels began making wine, which was marketed in Adelaide by Hermann Büring.

Around this time he formed a partnership with P. B. Burgoyne, who was building up a market for fine Australian wines (notably Tintara) in London, and was in dire need of capital.

He began a relationship with an Aboriginal woman (Mary Jane Narungga) who gave birth to Walter Hughes' son John Sansbury in 1854.