History of Adelaide - European Interest

European Interest

British Captain Matthew Flinders and French Captain Nicolas Baudin independently charted the southern coast of the Australian continent. In 1802 Flinders named Mount Lofty, but recorded little of the area which is now Adelaide. In 1830 Charles Sturt explored the Murray River and was impressed with what he briefly saw, later writing:

"Hurried ....as my view of it was, my eye never fell on a country of more promising aspect, or more favourable position, than that which occupies the space between the lake (Lake Alexandrina) and the ranges of the St. Vincent Gulf, and, continuing northerly from Mount Barker stretches away, without any visible boundary".

Captain Collet Barker, sent by New South Wales Governor Ralph Darling, conducted a more thorough survey of the area in 1831, as recommended by Sturt. After swimming the mouth of the Murray River, Barker was killed by natives who may have had contact with sealers and escaped convicts in the region. Despite this, his more detailed survey led Sturt to conclude in his 1833 report:

"It would appear that a spot has at last been found upon the south coast of New Holland to which the colonists might venture with every prospect of success ... All who have ever landed upon the eastern shore of the St. Vincent's Gulf agree as to the richness of its soil and the abundance of its pastures."

A group in Britain led by Edward Gibbon Wakefield were looking to start a colony based on free settlement rather than convict labour. After problems in other Australian colonies arising from existing settlement methods, the time was right to form a more methodical approach to establishing a colony. In 1829 an imprisoned Wakefield wrote a series of letters about systematic colonisation which were published in a daily newspaper. He suggested that instead of granting free land to settlers as had happened in other colonies, the land should be sold. The money from land purchases would be used solely to transport labourers to the colony free of charge, who were to be responsible and skilled workers rather than paupers and convicts. Land prices needed to be high enough so that workers who saved to buy land of their own remained in the workforce long enough to avoid a labour shortage.

Robert Gouger, Wakefield's secretary promoted Wakefield's theories and organised societies of people interested in the scheme. In 1834 the South Australian Association, with the aid of such figures as George Grote, William Molesworth and the Duke of Wellington persuaded British Parliament to pass the South Australian Colonisation act, succeeding where two previous organisations had failed. Wakefield wanted the colony's capital to be called Wellington, but King William IV preferred it to be named after his wife, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. The British government appointed a Board of Commissioners from people nominated by the South Australian Association, with the task of organising the new colony and meeting the condition of selling at least £3,500 worth of land. The province and its capital were named, planned, advertised and largely sold before a single settler had set foot in their new home.

Free passage was given to "suitable" labourers, generally men and women under 30 years of age who were healthy and of good character, expected to carry out a promise of working for wages until they had saved enough to buy land of their own and employ others, a process taking at least 3 or 4 years. Land sales were encouraged by granting one acre (4,000 m²) of town land in Adelaide for every 80 acres (32 ha) of rural land sold. The largest buyer of land was the South Australia Company headed by George Fife Angas, which bought enough land for South Australia to proceed, and continued to influence the colony's future development.

With the British government's conditions met, King William IV signed the Letters Patent and the first settlers and officials set sail in early 1836.