Career
He joined McEwan and Company as traveller and storekeeper. He was one of the founders in 1869, with Clapp and Hoyt, of the Melbourne Omnibus Company, which after a merger became the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company, of which he was appointed a director Finding his lucrative Riverina wool-carting business losing to the cheaper and quicker (comparatively) river steamers, he founded a paddle-steamer shipping service West. McCulloch and Company on the River Murray in 1873 By 1877 it was one of the largest carriers on the Murray-Darling system, comparable with Francis Cadell"s River Murray Navigation Company
This trade was in turn overtaken by the newly emerging railway network.
He founded stock agents McCulloch, Campbell and Company with James Callender Campbell (1838–1916) around 1868, and were shortly joined by Joseph Major Pratt (1834–1917). These businesses were closely tied with Kirk"s Horse Bazaar, which was largely responsible for supplying horses to the omnibus company.
He acquired pastoral property around 1870 and bred "Bates tribe" shorthorn cattle, starting by importing the English bull "Rapid" in 1873, many more in 1879. He purchased Woodlands, which was to be his home and judged one of the biggest and best in Victoria, in 1889.
He bred racehorses (Pilgrim"s Progress and Caiman were notable sires, and his mare Bright Eyes had notable progeny)
He was involved in coursing.
From 1872 to 1877 he was a Melbourne City Councillor, representing the Lonsdale Ward. In 1880 he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council for Eastern Province, moving to Gippsland Province in 1882 and serving until his resignation in 1903. He was minister without portfolio (1894–1895), then succeeded F. T. Sargood as Minister for Defence (1895-1899, 1900–1901), a function which became redundant with the Federation, and Minister for Health and Public Works (1900–1902).
He was chosen as the representative of the State of Victoria for the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and arrived in London in late May 1902.
McCulloch married, in Scotland in 1860, Catherine Vans Agnew Christison, with whom he would have seven children. Elder son Samuel (ca1862 – 16 December 1933), was a lawyer of Crowlands and Woodend who died after a shooting accident.
Youngest daughter Catherine Vans Agnew McCulloch died 19 December 1936.
