John Brain – Wheat Farmer

This short story is about John Brain, Malachi and Louisa Brain’s second eldest son. John left the Clare

Valley in 1877 to become a pioneer of the drought-prone pastoral lands near the town of Quoin

under the shadows of the Flinders Ranges.

I became aware of the value of John’s contribution to the Brain family’s story when I read a report in

the 15th September 1933 edition of the Quorn Mercury. A reporter wrote that John Brain had

recently walked into the Quorn Mercury’s office where the staff:

elicited the fact that [John] had celebrated his 87th birthday and that he was one of the oldest

farmers in the north. Mr Brain is stooped with the weight of years and slow of speech, but in

conversation we found that all his faculties remained unimpaired.

During the course of John’s conversation with the reporter, he disclosed that his father Malachi had

arrived in the colony in 1840 “when the colony was very young, and farmed land in Sturt, now a

suburb of Adelaide”. John added that when he was still a boy, his family moved north to Redhill and

in 1875, he [John] took advantage of the South Australian credit purchase scheme and “took up land

in the Hundred of Pitchi Richi”.

John (or the reporter) omitted that Malachi and his family left Redhill (which is between Snowtown

and Port Pirie) in about 1847 to settle in the Skillogalee area, a considerable distance to the south-

east. John grew up in the Skillogalee area and pursued a farming career probably with Malachi at

Skillogalee before taking up his own wheat farm at nearby Hoyles Plains in about 1874. John married

Mary Adelaide Badcock at the Bible Christian Chapel in Watervale in 1868. The couple ’s first three

children, Edith Jane (1869), Florence Hayda (1870) and Alice Selena (1872) were all born in

Skillogalee. The first two boys, John Albert Malachi (1874) and Henry (1876,) were both born in

Hoyles Plains.

By the mid-1870s, both John and his elder brother George Masters Brain resolved to abandon their

father’s elysium to take advantage of closer settlement schemes introduced by most of the colonial

governments to break the squatters’ far-reaching monopoly over pastoral lands. John travelled north

west to Boolcunda near Quorn; George, as will be revealed in a forthcoming essay, travelled in the

opposite direction - initially to Melbourne and then to the Riverina.

In May 1877 John purchased 623 acres of farm land in the Hundred of Boolcunda at a cost of £1 an

acre. He at least partially funded his purchase by selling Skillogalee land he had owned through his

elder brother’s benevolence. When Malachi died intestate in 1865, he owned in excess of 1,500 acres

mainly in the Skillogalee area. George inherited Malachi’s real estate through the operation of the

legal principle of primogeniture and subsequently transferred most of his inheritance to his siblings.

According to a contemporary newspaper advertisement, John had arranged for a public auction on 5

March 1877 to sell 677 acres and 2 roods of land.

It appears John relocated his family to Boolcunda shortly after Henry was born at Hoyles Plains in

1876 because in his newspaper interview with the Quorn Mercury, John said that in 1878 he reaped

14 bushels per acre of wheat “which was considered a remarkably good crop in those days, and he

never reaped a better”. Within two years however, drought struck. As explained by historian

Maureen Leadbeater on her website:

In the north poor rains, attacks of the fungus red dust and locusts ruined the crops. Winds blew

away the cultivated soil. Many selectors had not yet harvested a paying crop. Farmers in the

north of the colony reaped so little grain that they had no seed wheat for the next year ... As the

poor seasons continued, Goyder’s Line was accepted – the lands beyond being best for

pastoralists grazing sheep.

By 1880 however, it appears that John’s prospects had improved; he and Mary produced another

two boys - Walter Charles, born in 1880 and William George, born in 1881. Sadly however, tragedy

struck in early 1887 when John and Mary’s eldest daughter Edith died after being bitten by a snake

while lying in her bed.

Three of John and Mary’s children, Florence, Alice and Walter appeared to have spent most of their

lives in the Quorn area. John Albert Malachi and William moved to Pingelly in the wheat belt of

Western Australia while Henry moved to Broken Hill. While John Albert married and started a family

in Western Australia, William joined the Australian Infantry Forces in 1917 but after almost a year of

active service at the Western Front, he was subsequently declared medically unfit for overseas

service and sent back to Australia. According to the electoral records, William, apparently a

committed bachelor, returned to Quorn where he found employment as a mechanic.

The electoral records reveal that Florence and Alice lived in Quorn all of their lives; their occupations

were consistently recorded as “Home Duties”. In 1922 the sisters both jointly purchased four town

allotments in South Pinkerton, a small community just north of Quorn. They probably built a home

on one of the allotments and perhaps developed and rented out the remaining properties. Alice died

in 1953 at the age of 80 and title in the land passed to Florence. When Florence four years later aged

86, she left the land to William who was obviously less organised than his sisters – he died intestate

at the age of 77 in 1959 and the land was ultimately transferred to a non-family beneficiary.

Amanda and I recently visited Quorn with some friends on the way to Wilpena Pound. We sampled

some specialty dishes such as scones with quandong jam at the Quandong Cafe before visiting the

much celebrated railway station during a long walk around the town. Quorn is characterised by very

wide streets, very large Victorian buildings and is well known as the location for some very popular

Australian films including The Sundowners, The Shiralee and Sunday Too Far Away.

Railway Station

One of the locals entertained us with a story about two multi-story buildings directly across from the

railway station – one building was a hotel, the other, a department store. Evidently some of Quorn’s

newer female residents were perplexed by the unusual amount of time their menfolk spent at one of

the many pubs in town. Their mystification soon turned to outrage when they discovered that there

was a discreet doorway on the top floor of the hotel providing access to a bordello in the

neighbouring building.

“Quornucopia Store and Austral Inn Hotel

After visiting the local Council chambers to obtain a grave map of the Quorn Cemetery, we drove the

short distance south of the town and located our ancestors’ graves. We discovered that four

members of John’s family were in two essentially unmarked graves. John, Mary and Alice had been

buried in the same grave the surface of which had started to deteriorate presumably with heavy

rains. There was a small white rectangular piece of metal on the grave that bore someone else’s

name. Heaven knows why it was placed where it was. Florence was buried in the neighbouring grave

on which someone had taken the trouble to leave a bunch of artificial flowers.

Mary, John and Alice’s Grave (foreground) next to Florence’s Grave, Quorn Cemetery

We also discovered that Walter and William shared the same grave which was identified by a

headstone consisting of a rusting steel sheet hand painted with the names and relevant dates. Once

again, someone had taken the trouble to place some artificial flowers at the base of the headstone.

Walter and William’s Headstone, Quorn Cemetery

The following is a transcription of an article in the Quorn Mercury of 27 May 1832 at page 2:

Wagging It From School

Wagging it from school and swopping lies on the seat in front of Easther ’s Corner Store on Thursday, May 26 were:Vass Martin 88 yearsJohn Brain 86John Brewster 82Geo. Wells 71Jack Brennan 64

An enquiry as to the whereabouts of John Knox elicited the reply that he was either playing marbles or flying a kite.

I will end this story while the warmth generated by the Mercury’s article still lingers.

Bibliography

1. South Australian Chronicle and Weekly Mail, 17 February 1877.2. Quorn Mercury, various editions.

3. Maureen L. Leadbeater, Credit Selection of Land South Australia, http://www.familyhistorysa.info/sahistory/land.html.4. Ancestry.com, Australian Electoral Roll records.5. Findmypast.com, South Australian Birth Death and Marriage records.6. South Australian land records accessed through the SAILIS website.7. South Australia Birth, Death & Marriage Records accessed through Family History South Australia.

Darryl Massie© 13 May 2023