Career
He started work as a builder, engaged on (among other projects) the earliest section of the Children"s Hospital. When gold was discovered in Victoria he joined the rush and had some success at Castlemaine. Architect James Cumming designed for him a two-storey Italianate villa in fashionable Brougham Place, North Adelaide, which was completed in 1878.
He was one of those who pushed for the purchase of Belair National Park.
He founded the firm Beaglehole and Johnston with brothers James and Andrew Galbraith Johnston, owners of the Oakbank Brewery. In 1884 he organised formation of the Lion Brewing and Malting Company and was elected chairman of directors.
He was a director of Broken Hill"s Junction mine from 1894 to 1899. He founded, with George Simpson, the Waverley Brewery at Broken Hill (it was later acquired by the South Australian Brewing Company).
He was one of the founders of the Grand Hotel in Melbourne, with other South Australians Doctor Cawley, Mr.
John Frew. Doctor Gorger, A. B. Murray, West. H. Simms and J. B. Spence. He devoted much of his spare time cultivating a 1,500 acres (610 ha) farm and orchard at Virginia.
He was the first on the Virginia plains to extract artesian water, with eight bores on his property, and was successful in fattening up lambs for market.
