Thomas Hudson Beare was employed by the South Australian Company as second in command and Superintendent of Buildings and Labourers. He sailed to South Australia in 1836 on the Duke of York with his wife, Lucy Anne, their four surviving children (William, Lucy, Arabella and Elizabeth), and his older, unmarried, sister, Charlotte Hudson Beare. When the family embarked on the Duke of York, Thomas was forty-four and Lucy Anne was thirty-three (and expecting another child), and Charlotte was 48. The Beare children ranged in age between two and ten.

With Thomas Beare employed by the South Australian Company on Kangaroo Island, the Beare family lived through all the dysfunction and lawlessness that had developed in the settlement on Kangaroo Island. Soon after arriving Charlotte Hudson Beare married the younger Samuel Stephens which was not viewed favourably by her brother. Lucy Anne Beare, who had not been well since arriving in the colony, died on 3 September 1837. Thomas left the service of the South Australian Company and by 1838 part owned the cutter Mary Anne that traded between Port Adelaide and Kingscote. However the venture was not successful and Thomas Beare started farming on the Mainland. Beare remarried in 1840 to Lucy Bull and they had nine children together. He died on 6 November 1861.