William Paxton (Australian businessman)

William Paxton (1818 – 1 September 1893) was a South Australian colonist who arrived in 1840, became one of the investors in the Burra copper mines and returned to England in July 1855, a wealthy man.

Some sources give his birthplace as Whitby, Cheshire, or Whitby, Yorkshire but he was christened on 22 February 1819 in Claydon, Oxfordshire, a long way from either, and was a resident of Brighton, Sussex before leaving for Australia, and was a pharmacist by training.

He arrived in Adelaide on 11 August 1840 on the barque "Lalla Rookh".

In November 1840 he took over W. E. Bayldon's chemist shop "Apothecaries' Hall" at the west end of Hindley Street. He was joined by Dr. L. Moore, who had been the surgeon on the "Lalla Rookh". Paxton became embroiled in a criminal prosecution of a medical practitioner over a death from over-prescription of morphine. The medico, who had an alcohol problem, had clearly been negligent in his treatment of the patient (he was attempting a cure of a mental problem with an uncontrolled form of deep sleep therapy), but was exonerated over a technicality: that Paxton had supplied a different species of morphine from that which he prescribed. According to one account, for some reason he refused to pay the first corporation rates so a large jar of some drug was seized from his shop and sold at auction. In March 1844 he reopened as "Paxton's Medical Hall" opposite "Club House" in Hindley Street, with "Paxton Hall" emblazoned across its facade in letters of vitreous china. The business was taken over by his shop manager George Dale in February 1851 and renamed "Dale's Medical Hall",

Paxton was purchasing wheat for cash in January 1846 and was for a time in partnership with William R. S. Cooke in the flour milling business of Wm. Cook and Co, presumably as underwriter, and he was named that year as owner of the new steam mill (later the "Albion Mill") in Grenfell Street. The partnership was dissolved in January 1847. He showed his continuing interest after his return to England by offering a prize for the best British wheat grown from South Australian seed.

He was one of the founders of the South Australian Mining Association "The Snobs" in April 1845, purchasing 28 shares of £5 in the northern portion of the Burra Special Survey, afterwards known as the Burra Burra mine. At their peak, £5 shares were worth £225 each, and were returning a dividend of £40 per annum.

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