Bruce Gray (alias Saltbush Bill)

Bruce Gray was born in 1889 on ‘Frogmore’ at West Beach. Growing up among horses, cattle, and sheep, he often watched Sidney Kidman’s mobs of cattle pass through the district. At eighteen, Bruce joined Kidman’s empire, working across the outback and developing his lifelong respect for station life, cattle work, and horses.

After returning from the interior, Bruce lived for a time at Seacliff before “camping” in surveyed but undeveloped parts of West Beach. He remained devoted to the open land, animals, and coastal breezes that reminded him of his youth.

In the 1960s he founded the Saltbush Riding School on waste land (later West Lakes). Some local residents complained that his premises were a nuisance, and in 1967 the Woodville Council evicted him when his lease ran out – although pupils of his appealed against the order, saying that he was ‘an excellent instructor, loved horses and dogs, and told wonderful tales’.

He was well known in Grange, where he went shopping with his ‘six-dog-power cart‘. The dogs had been taught to respond to a number of commands, and would not move until told to do so. “It is all done by kindness. You’ve got to understand animals.” he would say!

Bruce later retired to a farm at Bull’s Creek, living as a recluse until his death in 1978.

Adapted from an article appearing in the 1996 H&GHS Journal No. 18.

The feature image above shows ‘Saltbush Bill’ (Bruce Gray) and his dog-cart, near his home camp in the Reedbeds, now West Lakes, SA, c. 1960. Photo: Rae Marnham, published in S Marsden, A year-round holiday. The histories of West Lakes, 2015, p 161