Distinguished and Famous people from Clare and Gilbert Valleys

🌟 Jim Barry

Jim Barry began working at the Clarevale Co-operative after training at Roseworthy, bringing formal winemaking qualifications to the valley. With his wife Nancy he bought property on Clare's northern outskirts in 1959 and developed the family enterprise that became Jim Barry Wines. He also helped establish the Taylor family's winery at Auburn in 1969. His local story runs through several businesses and vineyards, illustrating how skills and experience passed between enterprises while the district's modern wine industry took shape.

📚 C. J. Dennis

Poet C. J. Dennis was born at Auburn in 1876, where his father held the hotel licence. His education later included St Aloysius' College at Sevenhill. Newspaper work and moves interstate followed, leading to the colloquial verse that made The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke so popular. His Clare and Gilbert Valleys association belongs to birth and schooling, while much of the famous book took shape later in Victoria. Even an early book's glossary for genteel readers suggests the pleasure he took in bringing everyday speech onto the printed page.

⚖️ John Jefferson Bray

John Jefferson Bray attended Sevenhill Public School in the Clare Valley after his father took up an orchard there. He studied law at the University of Adelaide but maintained a deep interest in classics and literature. His career eventually included eleven years as chief justice and regular appearances at Writers’ Week. He preferred conversation with literary friends to a conventional legal social life, and continued publishing poems, essays and translations. His judgments were admired for clear language and historical reasoning. The same appetite for reading served both the poet and the judge.