This is a list of "Old Reds", former students of the Uniting Church school Prince Alfred College in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
Rhodes scholars The Rhodes Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for study at Oxford University. As of 2026, PAC has educated 21 Rhodes Scholars throughout its 157 year history. Recipients who attended PAC include: Rhodes Scholar Yearawarded College at Oxford Ref (1914–2008) 1937 New College (1890–1965) 1913 Christ Church 1964 Magdalen Emeritus Professor Garry Brown, princeton.eduHonors Faculty Members, May 2011, princeton.edu 1933 Christ Church Hugh Trevor-Roper Theodor Siegfried Dorsch, "The Wartime Journals" (1934–2024) 1957 New College (1886–1959) 1909 BalliolSir (1907–1978) 1930 New College 1919 Christ Church (1882–1954) 1904 Balliol (1889–1947) 1911 Magdalen 2006 Merton (1927–1998) 1951 Christ Church Former Rhodes Scholar dies in Oxford, Adelaidean, Vol 7 No 2 (2 March 1998) pg.7 (1925–2005) 1948 Queen's (1896–1975) 1916 Balliol 1983 Magdalen (1940–2024) 1963 New College 1960 Exeter 2014 St Peter's 1982 New CollegeMax Kirkby2023MagdalenJoshua Lesicar2026St John's College
Academia and education
Herbert Basedow (1881–1933), Anthropologist, geologist, explorer, politician C. J. Coventry (1991–), social historian Harold Whitridge Davies (1894–1946), professor of physiology Frank Ellis (1886–1964), educationist Sir Brian Hone OBE FACE (1907–1978), Headmaster – Cranbrook School NSW and Melbourne Grammar School Vic David Horner (1948–), military and official historian Leslie Cyril Jauncey (1899–1959), Harvard Business School economist, Marxist and life-long friend of King O'Malley George Henry Pitt (1891–1972), librarian, archivist and historian, James Leonard Rossiter (1887–1962), headmaster and freemason grand master Russel Ward (1914–1995), Marxist historian Reginald Arthur West (1883–1964), headmaster of Adelaide High School Frederick William Wheatley (1871–1955), science and mathematics teacher
Business and agriculture
Sir Wallace Bruce (1878–1944), insurance broker and commission merchant, chaired the 1932 advisory committee on unemployment Hermann Paul Leopold (Leo) Buring (1876–1961), winemaker and councillor Arnold Edwin Davey (1862–1920), businessman and arbitrator Arthur Leonard (Art) Collins (1896–1969), pastoralist and sheep breeder Tim Cooper (1955–), CEO of Coopers BreweryTim Cooper , www.coopers.com.au Glenn Cooper (1952–), Executive Chairman of Coopers BreweryGlenn Cooper , www.coopers.com.au Harold Gordon Darling (1885–1950), CEO of John Darling and Son, chairman of the board of B.H.P, founding member of the Institute of Public Affairs. Sir Hugh Robert Denison (1865–1940), tobacco manufacturer, newspaper proprietor and member of the House of Assembly SA and NSW. Sir Herbert William (Bert) Gepp (1877–1954), mining metallurgist and manager, public servant, industrialist and publicist, Kenneth Edward (Ken) Gerard (1912–1993), businessman, electrician and philanthropist Robert Gerard, businessman, previously Chairman of Gerard Industries Hubert Harold Harvey (1913–1968), prolific businessman and key figure in Santos Ltd
Howard Frederick Hobbs (1902–1982), inventor of automatic transmission Sidney Edwin Hocking (1859–1935), newspaper proprietor Sir Edward Holden (1885–1947), Founder of Holden, vehicle manufacturer Sir Oscar Lionel Isaachsen (1885–1951), banker and anti-communist campaigner Norman William Jolly (1882–1954), forester William Stanley Kelly (1882–1969), agricultural industry representative Sir John Melrose (1860–1938), pastoralist Harold Waddell McGregor (1898–1978), woolbroker Sir James Robert McGregor (1889–1973), woolbroker John Lloyd Preece (1895–1969), bookseller and publisher Oscar Benno Seppelt (1873–1963), winemaker and viticulturist, CEO of Seppeltsfield, president of the South Australian Chamber of Manufactures (1930–32) and of the Associated Chambers of Manufactures of Australia (1933) Greg Siegele, Co-founder of Ratbag Games Pty Ltd Sir Eric Fleming Smart (1911–1973), wheat-farmer and grazier Harry Samuel Taylor (1873–1932), newspaper owner, Christian Socialists and White Australia advocate William Edward Wainwright (1873–1959), mining and metallurgical engineer, government adviser
Clergy Nicholas John Cocks (1867–1925), Congregational minister and early advocate for the Uniting Church Ernest Henry Woollacott (1888–1977), Methodist minister, president (1949–50) of the State committee of the World Council of Churches and a founder of Westminster School, Adelaide
Entertainment and the arts
Sir John Ashton, OBE, ROI (1881–1963), Painter and Director of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales Charles Baeyertz (1866–1943), publisher of The Triad, critic and broadcaster Chris Bailey (1950–2013), bass guitarist with ARIA award-winning Australian Bands 'The Angels' and 'GANGgajang' Gustave Adrian Barnes (1877–1921), artist David Basheer, association football (soccer) commentator and analyst Adolph Wilhelm Rudolph (Rudi) (1872–1950), horticultural sketcher and industrialist John Henry Chinner (1865–1933), caricaturist and PAC board member Norman Chinner (1909–1961), organist and conductor Sir Thomas Melrose Coombe (1873–1959), businessman, film exhibitor and philanthropist Bob Francis (1939–2016), radio presenter, FIVEaa Robert Hannaford, AM (1944–), portrait painter and sculptor Sir Ivor Hele (1912–1993), war artist and prolific portraitist Sir Robert Helpmann, CBE (1909–1986), Ballet dancer, actor, director and choreographer Laurence Hotham Howie (1876–1963), artist and teacher, president of the (Royal) South Australian Society of Arts in 1927–32 and 1935–37 Reginald Charles (Rex) Ingamells (1913–1955), poet and editor Graham Jenkin, poet, composer and historian Hayley Lever (1876–1958), painter Adam Liaw (1978–), lawyer and winner of 2010 MasterChef Australia Rex Heading (1929–2010), the creator of Humphrey B. Bear whose show won two Logies; former managing director of Channel NineCreator of our best-loved bear, Rex Heading obituary, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 October 2010Obituary, www.adelaidenow.com.au, 15 January 2011
Exploration Duncan Chessell (1970–), mountaineer Cecil Madigan (1889–1947), explorer, geologist, Rhodes Scholar, university lecturer Andrew Martin (1951–), marathon swimmer, first recorded solo crossing of the treacherous Backstairs Passage between Cape Jervis and Kangaroo Island
Judiciary, civic leadership and public service
Hugh Thomas Moffitt Angwin (1888–1949), engineer and public servant Harold Boas (1883–1980), Perth architect, town planner and Jewish community leader Edward Erskine Cleland (1869–1943), barrister and justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia Reginald Joseph (Reg) Coombe (1899–1985), magistrate Sir Russell John Dumas (1887–1975), public servant and engineer Allan Cuthbert Harris (1904–1996), forester, public servant, and government-enterprise manager Elliott Johnston (1918–2011), Justice of the South Australian Supreme Court and the only openly communist judge in Australian history, Commissioner of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1989–91) Alexander Melrose (1865–1944), solicitor, writer and patron of the arts Harold Bayard Piper (1894–1953), chief judge of the Arbitration Court 1941–47 Sir Herbert Angas Parsons (1872–1945), Justice of the Supreme Court of SA, member of the House of Assembly Sir Geoffrey Reed (1892–1970), judge in the Supreme Court of South Australia, first Director-General of ASIO
Politics
Federal
Cory Bernardi (1969–), Senator for South Australia from 2006 to 2020, member of the Legislative Council 2026 - present, leader of One Nation South Australia. Gordon Bilney (1939–2012), Labor member of the House of Representatives, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel from 1990 to 1993, Minister for Development Cooperation and Pacific Island Affairs from 1993 to 1996, OECD official, High Commissioner to the West Indies Grant Chapman (1949–), Member for Division of Kingston (1975–1983) and Senator for South Australia (1988–2008) John Chapman (1879–1931), Country Party senator for South Australia David Combe (1943–2019), National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party from 1973 to 1981. David Fawcett (1963–), Liberal Senator for South Australia, former assistant minister for defence Joel Moses Gabb (1882–1951), Labor then independent member of the House of Representatives Clive Hannaford (1903–1967), Liberal and independent senator for South Australia from 1950 to 1967. Charles Robert Kelly (1912–1997), politician, farmer and columnist, Nationals MP 1958–77, minister of works, minister of the navy Sir Philip Albert Martin McBride (1892–1982), member of the House of Representatives (1931–43; 1946–58), minister of defence 1950–58 Horace Keyworth Nock (1879–1958), Country Party member of House of Representatives Rex Pearson (1905–1961), Liberal senator for South Australia Nick Xenophon (1959–), Senator for South Australia from 2008 to 2017. Sir Harold Young (1923–2006), senator for South Australia, President of the Senate from 1981 to 1983.
State
Sir John Lavington Bonython (1875–1960), editor of The Advertiser, Lord Mayor of Adelaide (1927–1930) Francis Cotton (1857–1942), founding member of the NSW Labor Party, unionist, later Free Trade politician John Lancelot Cowan, Member for the District of Southern Districts (1949–1959) in the South Australian Legislative Council John Dawkins, President of the Legislative Council (2020-2022), Member of the Legislative Council (1997-2022) Fraser Ellis (1992–), Independent member of the House of Assembly Edward Allan Farquhar (1871–1935), Councillor, Alderman and Chair of Finance on the Port Adelaide City Councilhttps://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/PRG+280/1/33/252 Charles Glover (1870–1936), first Lord Mayor of the City of Adelaide (1919) Hermann Robert (1874–1964), member of the Legislative Council, two-time SA attorney-general, minister for industry Sir Shirley Williams Jeffries (1886–1963), SA attorney-general, minister of education, and minister of industry and employment. George Richards Laffer (1866–1933), minister and Speaker of the House of Assembly Nick McBride, independent member of the Legislative Assembly Sir Alexander Lyell McEwin (1897–1988), member of SA parliament 1934–1975, chief secretary, minister for mines, minister for health Major-General Sir Newton Moore KCMG (1870–1936), eighth Premier of Western Australia, World War I general, member of the UK House of Commons Sir Frank Tennyson Perry (1887–1965), member of the legislative council, industrialist, wartime public servant. Robert Thomson Robinson (1867–1926), WA attorney-general, minister for mines, minister for industry Crawford Vaughan (1874–1947), Premier of South Australia 1915–17 John Howard Vaughan (1879–1955), union leader and Attorney-General of South Australia Sir Frederick William Young (1876–1948), member of the South Australian House of Assembly 1902–05 and 1909–15, commissioner of crown lands and immigration in 1912–14, South Australian agent-general in London 1915–18, member of the House of Commons 1918–22.
Medical, mathematics, natural and social sciences
Herbert Basedow (1881–1933), anthropologist, geologist, explorer, politician Isaac Herbert Boas (1878–1955), botanist Roger Brissenden (1962–) Deputy Director, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Henry Brose (1890–1965), physicist, translator, pathologist, biochemist, academic, Rhodes Scholar Thomas Draper Campbell (1893–1967), professor of dentistry and anthropologist Donald Brook Cheek (1924–1990), medical scientist and paediatrician Charles Chewings (1859–1937), geologist and anthropologist Sir Raphael Cilento, medical practitioner and public health administrator Sir John Burton Cleland, CBE (1878–1971), Naturalist, microbiologist, mycologist, ornithologist, Professor of Pathology Sir Darcy Rivers Warren Cowan (1885–1958), medical practitioner William Andrew Dibden (1914–1993), psychiatrist