Little is known of the early life and career of Charles Simeon Hare (1808 – 1882). He was born in America in 1808 and emigrated to England sometime before 1836. In London on 10 March 1836 he offered his services as personal secretary to John Morphett for a period of two years. Morphett accepted and both men sailed for South Australia in 1836 (Morphett in March on the Cygnet and Hare in April on the Emma). A series of correspondence with George Fife Angas throughout the voyage of the Emma suggests that Hare cared for the South Australian Company’s livestock on board. This, coupled with the fact that correspondence over Hare’s appointment to Morphett was found in the Angas papers in the archival holdings of the State Library of South Australia, suggests that perhaps a further arrangement had been made between Hare and the South Australian Company prior to the Emma’s sailing in April 1836. Indeed, Hare took up formal employment with the South Australian Company on Kangaroo Island in September 1836. Hare was 28 on arrival in South Australia and went on to become an important early colonist best known for an eccentric and rugged character which was said to have obscured his ‘warm and generous heart’.