Edward Meade Bagot
Edward Meade Bagot (13 December 1822 – 28 July 1886) was an Irish-born Australian pastoralist and landowner who built and ran large properties in Central Australia.
Bagot was born in Rockforest, County Clare, Ireland, the second son of Charles Hervey Bagot and Mary MacCarthy. He was educated in Ennis and planned to join the East India Company, but health problems stopped him. He moved to South Australia with his family in 1840. He helped his father manage the Koonunga property, then worked as an accountant and store manager at the Kapunda copper mine. In 1850 he became a director of the South Kapunda mine.
He owned several big grazing runs, including Murthoo Run (from 1846), Ned’s Corner on the River Murray (from 1854), Kulnine, Wall Wall (Beefacres on the River Torrens, 1853–1864, now Windsor Gardens), and Mudla Wirra (from 1865). In 1872 he bought Northern Territory leases Undoolya Station near Alice Springs and, with his son Ted, his stepson James Churchill-Smith, and William Gilbert, built the first homestead. He leased Dalhousie Springs in 1873 and built a homestead there (now in ruins).
Bagot played a role in the Overland Telegraph Line project, contracting work overseen by Charles Todd and Benjamin Babbage. His son Ted died at Dalhousie Springs in 1881. The Undoolya property and other holdings were later sold; John Lewis bought the larger tract in 1896.
He dabbled in mining, creating the Golden Reef Company in 1874, but the claim proved worthless and was dissolved. Bagot was a Justice of the Peace from 1861 to 1876 and was reappointed in 1877 after his financial debts were settled, though he had to sell many assets to do so.
A noted cattle and horse breeder, Bagot’s stock earned many prizes. His horse Don Giovanni sired the Melbourne Cup winner Don Juan (1873), and his mare Cowra won the Adelaide Cup in 1866 and 1867. He was a committee member of the South Australian Jockey Club in 1880 and helped run a grazing area at Mile End used as a racecourse known as “The Barton Course,” where the first Adelaide Cup was held in 1864.
Bagot was also known for his eccentric dress—knee breeches, gaiters, a shooting coat, and a very tall bell-topper hat. He disappeared after a Hunt Club celebration at Magill and was later found dead at the bottom of a Dry Creek quarry, where he had most likely fallen.
He lived at a house on Brougham Place, which later passed to George Edward Fulton. Bagot married twice: first to Mary Pettman (d. 1855) on 1 August 1853, and then to Anne Smith (widow, 1830–1892) on 30 July 1857. Anne already had a son, James Churchill-Smith (1851–1922), from her previous marriage. Bagot had 13 children and 9 grandchildren.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 16:41 (CET).