W. R. Cave

William Rendall Cave (17 June 1842 – 6 July 1916) was a grain merchant and shipowner in the early days of South Australia.^[1]

He was a son of Charles Cave (died 1851) of Stoke-sub-Hamdon, South Somerset, and Susannah (1800 – 19 December 1862) who came to Adelaide in 1848 or 1849 and settled at Gumeracha. William found employment with John McKinlay at his cattle station at Lake Victoria, New South Wales. Next the Chambers brothers gave him a job at their northernmost cattle property, Beltana Station, and he remained there for several years, becoming an expert bushman.^[2]

He broke in most of the horses used by John McDouall Stuart's 1861 expedition across the continent to Port Darwin. He and John Chambers shod all their horses, and Cave made duplicate sets of horseshoes, possibly at Chambers' Bobmoonie Station where the explorers made their final base before pushing into the unknown.^[2] Despite his peripheral association with the Stuart expedition, he was prominent in the many jubilees held between 1883 and 1914.

Early on he went to Port Adelaide and took up stevedoring work for William Younghusband, loading the Solway with the first full cargo of wheat from South Australia for London (perhaps in May 1862^[3]), and the Thomas Brown for Acraman, Main, Lindsay, & Co. But after six months on the wharfs he secured a position as overseer of "Thursk", a cattle station near Overland Corner belonging to John White, where he was associated with Sir Jenkin Coles.^[2]

In business

After a year at "Thursk" he returned to the Port, working as a shipping and customs clerk with his brother-in-law, James Rawlings (1820 – 27 January 1896).^[4] From July 1867 they were trading as Rawlings & Cave, general shipping merchants.

In September 1873 Rawlings left the business, which continued to trade under that name until July 1874, but in October 1873 Cave founded W. R. Cave & Co., with offices at Port Adelaide and

The Ellen (also known as the SS Ellen) was a coastal freighter and trawler, which was wrecked in Gulf St Vincent at Morgan's Beach near Cape Jervis South Australia on Saturday, 12 December 1908.

He imported the trawler Simplon from England in 1909^[8] with the intention of starting a trawl fishing industry in South Australian waters. In 1914 he lent her to the South Australian government for the relief of people suffering the effects of the economic depression which was underway at the time.^[9]

Other activities

During the

He discovered several fossils on the banks of the Warburton River, which he presented to the Port Adelaide Museum.[11]

He was appointed a governor of St Peter's College in 1888.

He was a warden of the Marine Board from 1896 to 1901.

He was for many years a director of various marine insurance companies: Commercial Marine Insurance Company Pty., South British Fire and Marine Insurance Company of New Zealand and Imperial Fire Insurance Company, including periods as chairman and vice chairman. (There is a family connection here – from 1848 to December 1850 his father, Charles Cave, was vice-chairman of the Adelaide branch of Imperial Fire Insurance Company.)

He was appointed South Australian Consul for Chile (or "Chili" as it was then spelled) from 1903 to 1916.^[12]

Cave was a major sponsor of Joshua Ives' appointment as the University of Adelaide's first lecturer in music in 1885.^[13] It is also possible that he was a composer, as sheet music by a composer called W. R. Cave was published early in the 20th century. The National Library of Australia identifies the composer as William Rendell Cave (spelling the middle name's second vowel as an "e" rather than "a") (Due to a typing error in this library entry, the reference to his death year is inconclusive (given as "191")).^[14] Counter-evidence is the report in