Plantagenet

Distinguished and Famous people from Plantagenet

🍇 Tony Smith

Tony Smith planted trial vines on his Bouverie property at Denbarker in 1968, helping establish Plantagenet Wines with two partners. Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon began a venture that contributed to the Great Southern’s developing wine industry. The work joined farming with a judgement about what the district’s cooler conditions could produce. Later commercial development and changes in ownership expanded the business beyond those first plantings. Smith’s connection is grounded in a particular property and practical experiment: grapes had to grow successfully before a regional reputation could be poured into a glass. The Denbarker beginning remains part of the company’s own account of its development.

⛪ George Egerton-Warburton

George Egerton-Warburton developed St Werburgh’s near Mount Barker and took a direct role in building the family chapel, consecrated in 1874. A gift from his brother in England helped furnish the interior, while local tradespeople worked on the structure. George undertook plastering and, with his sons, made ironwork in the family forge. The font had previously served as a household mortar, a strikingly practical transformation of a familiar object. The property also employed convict labour. Its buildings preserve the work and unequal relationships of a colonial estate, alongside the family’s effort to establish a local place of worship.