John Finlay Duff

John Finlay Duff (1 April 1799 – 18 May 1868) was a ship's captain and businessman in the Colony of South Australia.

Duff was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1799, son of John Duff and his wife Elisabeth, née Finlay, of a ship owning family. He qualified as a master mariner and first reached Australia in July 1835, when he captained the Africaine from London to Hobart.

On his next voyage to Australia, the barque Africaine left London Docks on 28 June, but without Captain Duff, who was to be married the next day at St Botolph's Aldgate. The newlyweds joined the ship, anchored in The Downs off Deal, Kent, on the following day. Witness to the wedding was his friend and business partner John Hallett, who with his family were among the Africaine migrants. The ship, which had been chartered by Robert Gouger and John Brown with around 60 emigrants and a considerable cargo bound for South Australia on what has been dubbed the "First Fleet of South Australia", had an uneventful voyage and on 1 November 1836 were off the coast of Kangaroo Island, near Cape Borda.

The Africaine left for the mainland on 6 November, Duff having decided not to wait any longer, encountered William Light's brig Rapid at Rapid Bay, and Light was welcomed aboard the Africaine, then moved on to Holdfast Bay, arriving before the Buffalo. Duff was immediately commissioned to set sail for Hobart for urgently needed supplies, incidentally making useful business contacts in Van Diemen's Land.

Duff and Hallett, who were both part-owners of the Africaine with Thomas Finlay (perhaps Duff's maternal grandfather), opened a store and shipping agency on Grenfell Street in 1837, one of the first in the Colony. Their residences were both on South Terrace, Adelaide, almost adjacent; Duff moved from South Terrace around the end of 1846.

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