Lou Bussau

Sir Albert Louis (Lou) Bussau (9 July 18845 May 1947) was a farmer, a Victorian politician, and the Victorian Agent General in London.

Early years Bussau was born in Natimuk to carpenter and farmer Johann Joachim Heinrich Adolph Bussau, and Maria Ernestina, nee Rokesky. He attended Warracknabeal state school until he was 12 years old, after which he left to work for his father. With his mother's encouragement, he continued his education, first at night at a private college, and then by correspondence with the University of Melbourne law faculty, becoming an articled clerk. He was employed by the legal firm, J.S.Wright-Smith, attending to business in the Warracknabeal, Beulah and Hopetoun districts, travelling by bicycle to visit clients. He was later commissioned to open an office for J. S. Wright-Smith in Hopetoun. He read extensively, attended Labor Party meetings, and was a lay-preacher in the Baptist Church.

On 22 April 1912, he married Mary Scott Baird, a Ballarat teacher. They had no children.

In 1915, after a terrible drought, he bought 640 acres (259 hectares) of land north of Hopetoun to grow wheat and raise fat lambs, later extending the farm in partnership with share farmers. Attorney-General and Solicitor-General in the government of Albert Dunstan between 2 April 1935 and 1 April 1938, Bussau resigned to become Agent-General for Victoria in London from 1938-1940. In 1938, he visited Germany and observed their brown coal mines. During The Blitz of London in 1940-41, he was actively engaged in Fire Watch duties and was nicknamed as "the Mad Australian" for the daring he showed in that role. He became inaugural chairman of the Australian Wheat Board in 1945.

Bussau died at South Yarra in 1947.