Herbert Bristow Hughes (c. 1821 – 19 May 1892) was a pioneer pastoralist in the colony of South Australia.
Herbert Bristow Hughes was born in England, a younger brother of Timothy Bristow Hughes, a leading cotton trader in Liverpool for over fifty years, and John Bristow Hughes, who emigrated to Australia from India, and arrived in South Australia from Hobart aboard Porter in February 1841. J. B. Hughes took up land at Emu Flat, around 5 km SW of Clare. Another brother, confusingly named Bristow Herbert Hughes joined J. B. Hughes some time before January 1842. Envisaging a bright future in the new colony, they called for Herbert Bristow Hughes, who arrived in Adelaide aboard Davidsons in May 1843.
The Hughes brothers selected 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2) of land, stretching from Crystal Brook in the south-west to Yacka in the south-east, up to Mount Lock and Mannanarie in the north-east across nearly to Mount Remarkable and down the eastern side of the Flinders Ranges back to to Crystal Brook. They divided the country into three lots, J. B. Hughes taking the south-eastern portion, which he named "Bundaleer", and later sold to Maslin? in 1854 to Charles Brown Fisher; the middle section shared by Herbert Bristow Hughes and Bristow Herbert Hughes and named "Booyoolee" (often mis-spelled Booyoolie); the northern end taken by the White brothers (see below), a family with which they had a long relationship and whose sister Hughes was to marry. The White brothers had abandoned the Port Lincoln area after several years of fear and disappointment. They later sold their lease to George Tinline.
At Booyoolee station, which included some of the best land on the Rocky River, near Mount Remarkable and Gladstone, Herbert Bristow Hughes with his brother, who later retired, bred cattle, sheep and horses. He went further north, and founded Nockatunga station on Wilson's River, near Cooper's Creek in Queensland, near the SA/NSW border, from where he drove mobs of cattle to his lucerne paddocks in Netley to fatten up for the Adelaide market. Many of the properties he owned freehold, which proved an advantage when various governments began resuming the larger leasehold properties for closer development. He also owned the Kinchega run on the Darling River in New South Wales. As his sons grew up they took over management of his various properties. The eldest, Herbert White Hughes, took over Booyoolee Estate, where he had a fine residence. Arthur and Harold managed Kinchega cattle station, which they later diverted to running sheep. He was one of the first pastoralists to employ paddocking, using wire fences.