Sussex Squire – The History
Joseph Robert Sussex Hackett (1911 -1998)
My Grandfather ‘Rob Hackett’ established the first Angus Beef Stud in the Clare Valley South Australia in 1943 and for over 50 years bred award winning Angus Beef cattle well before Angus Beef was a marketing brand of beef. His standard attire was a jacket and beret and he kept a high standard in his pastures and his animals. His heritage from his ancestors in Sussex, England set the path for his life on the land.
“Every man is, in the old phrase, the son of his own works…and where a family has for many generations borne a prominent part in national life, and where its records have survived, the past influences the present, not only through inherited qualities, but through more direct impression. Successive generations are conscious of their ancestry, and follow known traditions in their principles and tastes, their actions and pursuits. It is only by having regard to the strains that mingle in a person that one can get a clue to his/her personality.”
JRS Hackett
“Land of Hope”
Rob Hackett’s Grandfather was Walter Hackett (1827 – 1914) (pictured) who was born at the Sussex Farm ‘Summerdale’ to Champion Hackett and mother Sarah Ball, he migrated to Australia in 1852 at the age of 25 in search of gold in the Victorian gold fields aboard the ship ‘Francis Henty’. He then travelled across to Adelaide where he joined his brother Elisha who had arrived on the ‘Amity’ in 1850 and they expanded Elisha’s small shop to set up E & W Hackett’s, a large Seedsman, Nurserymen and Grain Merchant business in Rundle Street in Adelaide. They were very successful in developing new strains of seeds and grain crops and in 1862 Walter represented the business at the International Exposition in London and won Gold Medals for his exhibits of Australian cultivated seeds and in 1881 exhibited at the International Exhibition in Melbourne and again won a gold medal. Walter was Vice President (1867-71, 1875-78) of The Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society and a committee member for 46 years and appointed life member in 1909. Rob Hackett’s father Joseph (1880 -1958) became the accountant at E&W Hackett’s after starting work there at an early age, he worked there until they sold the business in the late 1920’s.
Rob Hackett after leaving school (St Peter’s Collegiate School) in 1928 wanted to be a jackeroo and worked on Mundi Mundi sheep station in NSW. He returned back to South Australia in 1932 to work his own father’s property and homestead ‘Nyora’ near Mintaro in the Clare Valley. In 1936 Rob purchased land near Sevenhill on the Mintaro road and set about clearing and developing the land for means to run stock on the property. After his returned from Armed Service in WWII in 1943 he founded one of the first Angus Beef Studs and began breeding premium black & red Angus Cattle on the property. Wyndham Park Angus Beef are still farmed today by the 3rd and 4th Generation of our family and the herds of black and red Angus cattle provide a contrast to the surrounding vineyards in the Clare Valley.
