“The object is not to place a scattered and half-barbarous colony on the coast of New Holland, but to establish…a wealthy, civilised society.” Edward Gibbon Wakefield
Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796 – 1862)
The story of the free colony of South Australia began in Newgate Prison in 1827 with Edward Gibbon Wakefield. His revolutionary ideas influenced the founders of South Australia.
On March 7, 1826 Edward Gibbon Wakefield abducted Ellen Turner, a fifteen year old heiress. They fled to Gretna Green where they were married. Wakefield hoped her family would accept the marriage to avoid a scandal. They didn’t, and a very public trial followed. Wakefield was sentenced to three years imprisonment at Newgate Prison and narrowly avoided hanging or transportation. While in Newgate Prison he became interested in the theory of colonisation and studied all he could on the subject. In 1829, while he was still a prisoner, he wrote a series of letters about systematic colonization which were published in the London Morning Chronicle. The letters aroused such interest they were republished in book form edited by Robert Gouger.
His plan for systematic colonization was simple and effective. He suggested that instead of granting free land to settlers as had happened in other colonies, the land should be sold at a ‘suffient price’. The money from land purchases would be used to form an Emigration Fund to provide free passage to labourers and their families. Once in the colony the labourers, after working for a few years, would be able to buy land themselves. On his release from Newgate prison in 1830, Wakefield became involved in several attempts to promote a scheme for the colonisation of South Australia. Initially, he was the driving force but over time lost his influence and finally severed his connections with the scheme.
South Australian Colonisation Act
Robert Gouger, Wakefield’s secretary promoted Wakefield’s theories and organised societies of people interested in the scheme. In 1834 the South Australian Association was formed and with the aid of several influential figures, including the Duke of Wellington persuaded British Parliament to pass the South Australian Colonisation Act. The Act incorporated Wakefield’s principles with the control of land sales as a way to finance the development of the colony and encourage the best qualities of British society.
The colonists were to fall into two groups; those who came as free settlers and those who were to be labourers and whose passage was paid for from the sale of land. In a bold piece of social engineering, the Act specified that labourers immigrating to South Australia under the Emigration Fund, should be men and women under the age of thirty, and be of good character and of sound mind and body.
On the 19th Febuary 1836, King William signed the Letters Patent establishing the Province of South Australia and the first settlers set sail from London to South Australia in early 1836. On the 28th December 1836, at Holdfast Bay the Union Jack was raised, by a gum tree and Governor John Hindmarsh proclaimed the Province of South Australia.
References
Atlas of South Australia. 2000. [online]. [Accessed 10 April 2007]. Available from World Wide Web:
<http://www.atlas.sa.gov.au/go/resources/atlas-of-south-australia-1986/the-course-of-settlement/organizing-a-colony>
Cowell, Max and Naylor, Alan 1974. Adelaide: An illustrated History. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press.
Kwan, Elizabeth 1987. Living in South Australia: A social history, Volume 1 from before 1836 to 1914. Netley: South Australian Government Printer
Whitelock, Derek 1977. Adelaide 1836–1976: A history of difference. St.Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press.
