Wilton Hack (21 May 1843 – 27 February 1923) was an Australian artist, traveller, pastor, lecturer and utopist with interests in Theosophy and Eastern cultures.
The colony of South Australia had just gone through a financial crisis during which Stephen and his brother John Barton Hack lost their considerable fortunes.
He returned to Australia in 1865 to assist his father with his sheep station on the Long Desert, and took up a selection which he named Pinnaroo,[3] but was forced off it by the drought of 1865 – 1867.
They were involved with the Rising Sun nd Nagasaki Express newspaper, and founded a Sailors' Club,[4] but the mission made little impact, which they attributed to insufficient financial support.
He settled on a farm at nearby Clarence Town, New South Wales, deriving an income from painting, instruction in drawing, and development and sales of a stump extractor "Little Demon" which he patented in 1884.
)[11][12] In 1893 at a time of high unemployment, he seized on the idea of a communal settlement and procured land at Mount Remarkable, South Australia, his plan being to settle 300 people on 5,000 acres.
[19] This interest in Eastern philosophy coincided with an involvement in two educational establishments in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka): On returning from England to Australia around 1892, Hack visited the Buddhist girls' school run by Mrs Marie Musaeus Higgins in Colombo (its first principal was a Victorian, Kate F. Pickett, who died shortly after taking up the position[20][21]), and was sufficiently impressed to promise funds for a more suitable schoolhouse than the mud hut they were using.
[23] He returned to Glenelg early in 1900 and became active in the local community, as organiser of a Benevolent Society,[24] vice-president of the United Labor Party,[25] and served as a magistrate.