People Australia

Alexander Buchanan (1810–1865), merchant and station manager, was born on 3 November 1810 in Glasgow, the only child of Alexander Buchanan (1783–1813), a Scottish coffee planter in Jamaica, and his wife Jean (Jane) Logan (1787–1823), who were married in Glasgow that same year.[1] Both parents were originally born in Glasgow. Alexander’s father jointly owned coffee plantations and enslaved people at Newport and Ivermay with his brother.[2] They were recorded as owning 132 enslaved workers across their two properties, increasing to 163 enslaved people by 1811. After Alexander Buchanan senior’s death around 1813-1815, his widow became executrix until the estate passed to Alexander senior’s brother, Robert Buchanan. From 1834, the estate passed to Robert’s children, John and Margaret Buchanan, who were described as ‘children of colour’.[3]

Buchanan’s birth came shortly after his parents returned from Jamaica to their home country. He was educated at Glasgow Grammar School. In 1832 he established a mercantile and importing business in Toronto, the first to directly import goods to Toronto from the United Kingdom.[4] He briefly returned to Scotland before leaving for South Australia where he arrived on the Welcome on 3 April 1839.[5]  

Buchanan married Penelope Anne Haddrick (1819–1854) on 22 January 1848 in Adelaide.[6] Penelope was the daughter of Penelope Ann Page (1793-1872) and Thomas James Haddrick (1791-1875), a carpenter and cabinet maker from Lambeth, London.[7] They had four children: Alexander (1848–1930), John Bryce (1853–1939), Edith (1854–1855), and Thomas (1854–1855).[8] Three years after Penelope’s death at age thirt-five, and sixteen days following the birth of twins, Buchanan married her sister, Cecelia Haddrick (1828–1903).[9] The couple had five children: Cecilia (1858, died aged six days), Frederick Dutton (1859–1900), Cecilia Eleanor (1861–1863), Penelope Annie (1862–1935), and Alice Kate (1864–1941).[10]

Buchanan was a well-known and respected member of the community in Hamilton, South Australia, where he worked as a station manager for Frederick Hansborough Dutton (1812–1890), one of the first pastoralists to bring sheep to South Australia from New South Wales.[11] He began his employ with Dutton as an ‘overlander,’ moving flocks onto Ngadjuri Country, approximately forty kilometres north of Adelaide, from New South Wales. A diary of his journey from Sydney to Adelaide with five thousand of Dutton’s sheep in 1839 provides detailed documentation of the systematic violence that characterised colonial expansion, recording multiple armed confrontations with First Nations people defending their Country and people.[12][13]

The most serious such encounter occurred at the Darling River crossing on 15 November 1839, when First Nations people attempted to prevent the overlanders from crossing. According to Buchanan’s account, ‘the blacks made an attack upon the men putting the dray into the punt’ and when they ‘waved their spears the men fired upon them... and killed the old chief... There were five or six killed and a good many wounded. We then broke up their canoes and took all their nets and burnt them.’[14] This was not an isolated incident: Buchanan’s diary records the killing of Aboriginal people on at least four separate occasions during the journey, including the shooting of a man ‘seen in some reeds’ who Buchanan claimed ‘had come there with no other intention but to spear sheep.’[15] The overlanding party also engaged two First Nations children, aged approximately eleven and fifteen, whom Buchanan described as ‘two blackboys that we persuaded to go along with us... [we] mounted [them] on horseback, and rigged them out with blue shirts, flushing trousers and boots and pipes.’[16]

Buchanan managed Dutton’s station ‘Anlaby’ until his death on 21 May 1865 following a ‘short but severe illness’.[17] Frederick Dutton and his neighbour Charles Bagot’s discovery of copper in the area led to the foundation of the Kapunda copper mine and enabled Dutton to expand Anlaby to more than 100,000 acres. A substantial home, outbuildings, and gardens were built for Buchanan, now listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.[18]

Buchanan’s inheritance from the slavery economy supported his business interests in Britain, and subsequently his participation in the colonisation of South Australia, as an overlander and pastoralist.

[1] ‘Alexander Buchanan,’ Legacies of British Slavery, accessed 1 June 2025,https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146646173; Jean Logan and Alexander Buchanan, marriage record, 21 January 1810, Glasgow, Old Parish Registers Marriages 644/1 280 119, pt.119 of 375. National Records of Scotland, via Ancestry.

[2] 1811 Jamaican Almanac, Jamaican Family Search, accessed 1 June 2025, http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/AL11Mary.htm.

[3] ‘Alexander Buchanan,’ Legacies of British Slavery; ‘John Buchanan,’ Church of England Parish Register Transcripts, 1664-1880, Jamaica, vol. 1, image 37 of 241, via Family Search

[4] Alexander Buchanan, ‘Diary of a Journey Overland from Sydney to Adelaide with Sheep, July–December, 1839,’ South Australian Geographical Journal 24 (1924): 51.

[5] ‘Alexander Buchanan,’ South Australian Passenger Lists, State Library of South Australia (SLSA), accessed 1 June 2025, https://passengers.history.sa.gov.au/node/578190.

[6] Penelope Haddrick and Alexander Buchanan, marriage record, 27 January 1848, Adelaide, South Australia, vol. 2, 187, South Australia Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, via Ancestry.

[7]  Thomas James Haddrick , Australia and New Zealand, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current, via Ancestry; Penelope Ann Page, England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975, via Ancestry; Penelope Ann Page, Australia and New Zealand, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current, via Ancestry; Thomas James Haddrick, London Metropolitan Archives, London, England, UK; London Church of England Parish Registers, Reference Number: DL/T/013/007, via Ancestry.

[8] Alexander Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842 to 1906, via Ancestry; Alexander Buchanan, death registration, South Australia Deaths 1842–1915, via Ancestry; John Bryce Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842 to 1906, via Ancestry; ‘Family Notices,’ Advertiser (Adelaide), 30 August 1939, 12; South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842–1906, via Ancestry; Edith Buchanan, death registration, South Australia Deaths 1842–1915, via Ancestry; Thomas Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842–1906, via Ancestry; Thomas Buchanan, death registration, South Australia Deaths 1842–1915, via Ancestry; Thomas Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842–1906, via Ancestry; Thomas Buchanan, death registration, South Australia Deaths 1842–1915, via Ancestry.

[9] Cecilia Haddrick and Alexander Buchanan marriage record, 9 April 1857, Adelaide, South Australia, vol. 30, 101, South Australia Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, via Ancestry.

[10] Cecilia Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842–1906, via Ancestry; Cecilia Buchanan, death registration, South Australia Deaths 1842–1915, via Ancestry; Frederick Dutton Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842–1906, via Ancestry; ‘Family Notices,’ South Australian Register (Adelaide), 8 May 1900, 4; Cecilia Eleanor Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842–1906, via Ancestry; Cecilia Eleanor Buchanan profile, via Ancestry; Penelope Annie Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842–1906, via Ancestry; ‘Family Notices,’ Chronicle (Adelaide), 21 March 1935, 44; Alice Kate Buchanan, birth registration, South Australian Births, Index of Registrations 1842–1906, via Ancestry; Alice Kate Buchanan, death registration, Australian Death Index 1787–1985, via Ancestry.

[11] ‘Frederick Hansborough Dutton,’ South Australian Register (Adelaide), 29 April 1890, 3.

[13]  Alexander Buchanan, Diary of Alexander Buchanan, July 11, 1839–December 10, 1839, D 7455/78(L), SLSA.

[14] Buchanan, ‘Diary of a Journey Overland from Sydney to Adelaide,’ 15 November 1839 entry.

[15] Ibid., 22 November 1839 entry.

[16] Ibid., 21 September 1839 entry.

[17]  ‘The Death of Alexander Buchanan, Esq.’ The South Australian Advertiser, 27 May 1865, 6.

[18] ‘The Late Mr. A. Buchanan,’ Kapunda Herald and Northern Intelligencer, 26 May 1865, 3; South Australian Heritage Register, ‘Anlaby Homestead (including main & bluestone dwellings, stables, grotto, courtyard & quarters),’ State Heritage ID 11018, Heritage Number 17616, Anlaby Road, Kapunda, registered October 21, 1993, https://maps.sa.gov.au/heritagesearch/HeritageItem.aspx?p_heritageno=17616.