Hampton Carroll Gleeson

Hampton Carroll Gleeson (31 August 1834 – 10 April 1907) was a pastoralist and politician in the young colony of South Australia. He was later involved in the business of brewing beer in the neighbouring colony of New South Wales.

Hampton was the eldest son of John Hampton Gleeson, who with his brother Edward Burton Gleeson and their families emigrated to South Australia from Calcutta on the Emerald Isle, arriving in July 1838. The voyage was organised by the Australian Association of Bengal, and besides the two Gleeson families and a few other settlers (notably Judge James Donnithorne) and their servants, the ship carried a number of Indian coolies, a large quantity of Indian merchandise and horses, including "Abdallah", an Arab stallion brought out by E. B. Gleeson for breeding purposes. There were (unspecified) problems with the Emerald Isle and her master. The Association's other ship, the Guillardon, was wrecked at the mouth of the Ganges in 1840, and no further ships were despatched.

The Gleesons established a pastoral property north of Penwortham, on which Edward Burton Gleeson developed a township, naming it Clare. John Hampton Gleeson died in 1840, when his son was barely six years old.

Somehow he received on excellent education and developed a keen business sense, perhaps at his uncle's property "Inchiquin" near Clare. In 1860 he took a business trip to India, bringing back as a curio several pairs of "mangouste" or "ichneumon" (mongoose), which he presented to Mr. Elliott (his landlord at the Globe Inn) and to the Botanic Garden. He secured a contract to supply a consignment of horses to India and in the same year entered into partnership with W. D. Kingsmill as station agents, with offices in Gilbert Place, Adelaide.

He was active in a number of mining ventures in the northern Flinders Ranges: New Cornwall Mineral Association Ltd. in 1861, Duryea Mining Company in 1862, and was managing director of the Daly and Stanley Mining Company in 1868. He secured an Auctioneers licence in 1864.

In 1869 he was appointed Justice of the Peace. He was elected to the S.A. Parliament as Member for Flinders, serving from April 1870 to December 1871, his colleague being Alfred Watts.

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