John Richard Tindale was born in St Leonard, Shoreditch, London, England on 13 November 1809, the first child of John Poad William Tindale (circa 1789-1857) and Susannah Emma Manwaring (circa 1780-1828). He was baptized on 12 April 1810.

In 1811 his father was transported to Australia for forgery and his mother followed her husband (as a free settler) in 1812. In 1819 she returned to England to collect John and brought him back to Sydney in 1820.

By this time his father had been granted a conditional pardon (for servitude in working on William Cox gang that built the bridge over the Blue Mountains) and had become a publican (of ‘The Green Man’ in Sydney) and a landowner in western Sydney around what is now St Mary’s and Emu Plains. He built Hornseywood Estate in Penrith as well as several inns and donated land for St Stephen’s Anglican Church and St Nicholas of Myra Catholic Church.

When John was 20, he married his step-sister Mary Whybrow (1815-1882) on 6 April 1830, in Kelso, NSW, Australia – she was only 14 years old at the time and married with her father’s consent. Together they had 8 children: Clara (27 Jun 1831), Fanny Eleanor (13 Dec 1832), John "Thomas" (1834), Charles Richard Chapman (25 Jan 1836), William Henry (19 Mar 1837), Edmund Alfred (26 May 1838), Anthony Nesbitt (26 Aug 1839), and Albert Nichol (04 May 1842) who went on to settle the Bylong and Widden Valleys in NSW and develop reputations as breeders of outstanding livestock and race horses.

By 1830 John had begun to acquire land, and over his lifetime he built up quite an extensive portfolio of holdings in NSW - in Bylong, Rylstone, western Sydney, Bathurst and Mudgee. St Stephen’s Anglican Church in Bylong was built on land he donated. In 1849 he was the proprietor of Hartley Inn, Hartley Vale, NSW.

John and Mary separated around 1849 and by 1855 he was living with Caroline Sollis (1826-1911) who went by the name of “Mrs Caroline Tindale” though no record of a marriage has been found. They had 7 children: Clara (1855), John (1857), Edith (1859), Richard (1860), Mabel (1863), George T (1864), and Penelope (1866) all of whom bore the name Tindale and were specifically referenced in John’s will.

From about 1862 John suffered from heart disease and nervousness and by 1870 he and Caroline had moved to Tasmania where they lived at Clydeville House, New Town, Tasmania (which adjoins Mayfield House at 9-11 Stoke St). John died there on 6 June 1872 by shooting himself.