page_title: John Langdon Bonython
section_title: Public service and philanthropy
hierarchical_section_title: John Langdon Bonython / Public service and philanthropy
caption_attribution_description: The University of Adelaide's Bonython Hall at North Terrace campus.
context_page_description: Sir John Langdon Bonython KCMG, editor, newspaper proprietor, philanthropist, Australian politician and journalist, was a Member of the First Australian Parliament, and was editor of the Adelaide daily morning broadsheet, The Advertiser, for 35 years.
context_section_description: In 1883, Bonython was elected chairman of the Adelaide School Advisory Board. In 1889 he became the president of the council for the South Australian School of Mines and Industries, a position he held until his death. He often assisted the school with his own money, and provided the funds for the chemical and metallurgical laboratories there.
  Bonython became chairman of the council of the agricultural college at Roseworthy in 1895, and he held this position until 1902.
  He was knighted in 1898.
  He was appointed one of fourteen trustees under the soldiers' repatriation programme of 1916, and one of seven commissioners under the Australian Soldiers Repatriation Act 1917.
  Bonython joined the council of the University of Adelaide in 1916, and donated over £50,000 for the construction of a hall, and £20,000 to fund a Chair in law. From 1916 to 1926, Bonython was also the deputy chairman of the South Australian advisory council of education. He donated £100,000 towards the construction of Parliament House in Adelaide.
  In 1919 he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) "In recognition of service to the Commonwealth".
  Bonython was vice-president of the Royal Institution of Cornwall from 1900 until becoming president from 1932–33, succeeding Viscount Falmouth. Despite living in Australia, and being unable to visit Cornwall during his presidency, he became one of the most active and hard working presidents that the institution had had. In 1931 he gave £2,000 to the Royal Cornwall Museum building fund and the Bonython gallery on the ground floor was named in his honour.
  His wife, Lady Bonython, was also active in altruistic causes, notably the Kindergarten Union and State Children's Council, in association with Catherine Helen Spence and C. Emily Clark.
  Bonython Hall
caption: Bonython Hall (looking west)
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