The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Dutton, Francis Stacker

1372076The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Dutton, Francis StackerPhilip Mennell

Dutton, Francis Stacker, C.M.G., F.R.G.S., sometime Agent-General for South Australia, was the son of Henry Hampden Dutton, British consul at Cuxhaven, on the Elbe, and was born at Cuxhaven in 1816, and educated at Hofwyl, near Berne, Switzerland. From his seventeenth to his twenty-second year he was employed as a mercantile clerk in Brazil and Rio Janeiro. In 1839 he joined his elder brothers, William Pelham and Frederick Hansborough, in New South Wales. The former temporarily resided in Portland Bay, when engaged in sealing, from 1828 to 1838; and thus disputed with the Hentys the honour of having formed the first permanent settlement in the Port Phillip district. The other brother, Mr. F. H. Dutton, went largely into squatting pursuits in South Australia, and died in London in 1890, possessed of the famous Anlaby estate in that colony, and of personalty amounting to several hundred thousand pounds. The subject of this notice engaged in commercial pursuits in Victoria for two years; and in 1841 settled in South Australia, where his brother Frederick had preceded him. In 1843, when acting as overseer to the late Captain Bagot, he discovered the Kapunda Copper Mine, and in 1845 visited England, when he sold his interest in the mine to the East India firm of Cockerall, Larpert & Co., who made arrangements for working it. Mr. Dutton was a member of the mixed Legislative Council from 1851 to 1857, and of the Legislative Assembly from 1857 to 1865. He was Commissioner of Crown Lands and Immigration in the Hanson Ministry, from Sept. 1857 to June 1859, and in the Ministry of which he himself was Premier in July 1863. He formed his second Administration in March 1865, and remained in office till the following September, when he became Agent-General for South Australia in the United Kingdom. Mr. Dutton, who was an Associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and was created C.M.G. in Nov. 1872, died in London on Jan. 25th, 1877, whilst still occupying the position of Agent-General. He was the author of "South Australia and its Mines" (1846).