Wilton Hack

Wilton Hack (21 May 1843 – 27 February 1923) was an Australian artist, traveller, pastor, lecturer and utopist with interests in Theosophy and Eastern cultures.

He was born in Echunga, South Australia the son of Stephen Hack and Elizabeth Marsh Hack (née Wilton). 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. Unlike his brother, whose various business ventures never amounted to much, Stephen was able to attain a modest level of affluence. Wilton studied at J. L. Young's Adelaide Educational Institution in 1855 and 1856, then (perhaps because of the promise he had shown) was sent to his Quaker grandparents in Gloucester, England to further his education at Sandbach Grammar School in Cheshire and the University of Heidelberg, Germany. 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, but was forced off it by the drought of 1865 – 1867. He found employment as a drawing teacher at his old school Adelaide Educational Institution, at Prince Alfred College, Thomas Caterer's Norwood Grammar School and Frederick Caterer's Glenelg Grammar School.

He married Anna Maria Stonehouse, daughter of the Rev. G Stonehouse, on 10 May 1870. He joined the Baptist church, and served as pastor at Hilton and "The Stockade" (Yatala Labor Prison). He was ordained minister in 1871.

He left for Nagasaki, Japan as a Baptist missionary on the "J. H. Jessen" in November 1873 with Alfred J. Clode, John D Clark and T. L. Boag. They were involved with the Rising Sun nd Nagasaki Express newspaper, and founded a Sailors' Club, but the mission made little impact, which they attributed to insufficient financial support. While there, he acted as an envoy of the South Australian Government to sound out the Japanese Government's attitude to Japanese nationals settling in the Northern Territory. (In February 1877 he was sent to Japan to continue this dialogue, but the Satsuma Rebellion was occupying Tokyo's attention and his approaches were rebuffed or ignored.)

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