John D. Custance

John Daniel Custance FCS FRAS (c. 1842 – 14 December 1923) was an agricultural scientist, founder of Roseworthy College, South Australia, but was sacked by a Minister with whom he had mutual antipathy.

Custance was a Professor of Agricultural Science at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, and had been for a time appointed to the Imperial College, Japan.

The South Australian Government was concerned about the declining productivity of soils in the colony, where wheat had been grown for less than fifty years. Early in 1881 Sir Arthur Blyth, South Australia's Agent-General in England was charged with finding a suitable person to fill a newly established position of Professor of Agriculture with the University of Adelaide He selected Custance, who in June 1881 was appointed at a salary of £800 per year.

It was envisaged that an institution combining the functions of an Experimental Farm and Agricultural College be established. To this end, Custance, the Commissioner for Crown Lands Alfred Catt, Samuel Davenport and Sir Robert Dalrymple Ross chose a property near Smithfield, which had the merits of being close to the city and a railway station, but their choice was overruled on the grounds the land was too good, and that more useful experiments could be made on land that had been exhausted by wheatgrowing, and the property purchased in 1882 was Olive Hill Farm, of 720 acres (290 ha) at Kangaroo Flat, 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Roseworthy. He arrived unaccompanied, in late July on the s.s. Malwa which left Britain on 1 June.

He started his researches immediately, starting with visits to farms in the various wheatgrowing districts in the colony, but the Agricultural College did not get under way until 1884, and Custance was appointed Honorary Principal, but was hampered in his work by an unwillingness of Parliament to allow him more staff.

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