The New Colony

The South Australian Association was formed in London on 27 Nov 1833 with the aim of founding a convict free colony on the south coast of the continent of Australia. Radical reformer Robert Gouger was a key player, becoming Secretary. The Association had an office in the grand Adelphi building just off the Strand and overlooking the Thames.

A public meeting the next June attracted about 2500 people to hear about the project and its principles, including no slavery, freedom of religion and the Wakefield systematic colonisation scheme. UK legislation to establish the province was passed in 1834 and its 'first fleet' of nine migrant ships arrived through the latter half of 1836.

The founding document for the new British colony of South Australia was signed by King William IV  on 19 February 1836.

The Letters Patent established a system of government for the only colony to be established by statute (1834) and precisely defined its boundaries. Interestingly, it also gave protection to Aboriginal lands, stating:

"nothing in these our letters patent contained shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any Aboriginal Natives of the said Province to the actual occupation or enjoyment in their own Persons or in the Persons of their Descendants of any Lands therein now actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives."

The original document is in the State Library of South Australia Collection .

The Deed of Settlement and Royal Charter of Incorporation of the South Australian Company is a key document in South Australia’s history: it highlights the difference between the manner in which South Australia was established and populated and the foundation of other Australian colonies as penal settlements. It also records British economic expansionism at its peak and illustrates the interconnections between British business interests, the Colonial Office, and social and evangelical activists. 

On 27 June 1836, the Deed of Settlement was signed by about 300 shareholders of the South Australian Company. The company played a pivotal role in the founding, early survival, and development of the colony, where the company built roads, bridges, ports, warehouses, and mills, and established agriculture, whaling, banking, and mining enterprises.2

The Deed of Settlement and Royal Charter of Incorporation of the South Australian Company is significant as a document representing the history of both imperial Britain and colonial South Australia. In establishing the rights and property of the South Australian Company, it demonstrates the extent of British government, business and social-evangelical interests in Australia.

All nine ships and landed at Kangaroo Island. But problems such a water supply forced the need for the alternate Adelaide plains site that was picked by surveyor-general Colonel William Light.

While Light and his team searched for an actual site for the city, the immigrants from the first seven ships camped in the sand dunes at Holdfast Bay, the site of Glenelg. This is where first governor John Hindmarsh proclaimed the province of South Australia on December 28, 1836.

When the pioneers moved to the new city site, they camped on the banks of the River Torrens, opposite the site of the future Newmarket Hotel and Town Acre 1. The grassy slopes between the hotel and the river became the railway yards and now the biomedical precinct.

From January-March 1837, migrants camped in tents and wooden huts in two camps named after two of the first migrant ships, the Buffalo and the Coromandel. When Light completed surveying the city, the town acres not purchased before settlement were auctioned in one-acre lots, and the temporary campers who could afford to buy quickly claimed their new town lands.

The first building material was wood from lands around the River Torrens. The Adelaide Aboriginal tribe, the Kaurna, earned income from selling timber. The use of timber was quickly made illegal but persisted covertly into the 1840s.

Legal timber cutting as an early industry was done in wooded areas beyond the city, particularly the Adelaide Hills. Timber getters – “tiersmen” brought their supplies to several merchants on the north eastern side of the cityThe Woodman’s Hotel in Grenfell Street, established in 1838 (later rebuilt and known as The Producers), was named after the large wood yards nearby. There was also another timber yard on the Botanic Hotel site.

His Excellency the Governor, accompanied by Lady Tennyson and Lord Richard Nevill, arrived at Victor Harbour in the viceregal car at 9.45 on Monday night, and were accommodated at the Grosvenor Hotel. The weather on Tuesday was dull, but several hundreds of people journeyed to the Bluff to witness the ceremony. The shops were closed, and Victor Harbour for the time being was almost deserted.

The Geographical Society was represented by;

• President (Mr. Simpson Newland),

• Assistant secretary (Mr. T. S. Reid), 

• Councilors  W. P. Auld, A. M. Simpson, and T. Gilland

• T. Piper

• David Lindsay. 

• Mrs. Newland, 

• Mr, E. B. Grundy, K.C., and Mrs. Grundy. 

• Mr. Owen Smyth (Superintendent of Public Buildings,

• Mrs.Smyth, Messrs. 

• Candidates for the District of Alexandra Tucker, von Doussa, McDonald, Blacker, Dumas

• Dr. A. Powell

• Robert Jager (who settled in the district in 1839)

• E. P. Pilgrim (whose mother was a niece of Capt. Flinders)

• David Bell

• W. B. Caw

• John Acraman

• Mr. and Mrs. G. Bundey

• The Rev. W. Penry Jones

• E. H. Cudmore

• W. Porter

• A. Battye

• S. W. Jackman

• G. Goodwin

• M. Rumbelow

• E. R. Bolger

• W. S. Reid

• H. B. Hughes 

• C. J. Weymouth