The William Light Project

The William Light Project is a celebration of South Australian Founding history, which includes a great body of fascinating research not published before.

Mark Twain’s, Following the Equator (1897) captures the essence of the founding story quite perfectly.

In 1829 South Australia hadn't a white man in it. 

In 1836 the British Parliament erected it— still a solitude— into a Province, and gave it a governor and other governmental machinery. Speculators took hold, now, and inaugurated a vast land scheme, and invited immigration, encouraging it with lurid promises of sudden wealth. It was well-worked in London; and bishops, statesmen, and all sorts of people made a rush for the land company's shares. Immigrants soon began to pour into the region of Adelaide and select town lots and farms in the sand and the mangrove swamps by the sea. 

The crowds continued to come, prices of land rose high, then higher and still higher, everybody was prosperous and happy, and the boom swelled into gigantic proportions. A village of sheet iron huts and clapboard sheds sprang up in the sand, and in these wigwams fashion made display; richly dressed ladies played on costly pianos, London swells in evening dress and patent-leather boots were abundant, and this fine society drank champagne, and in other ways conducted itself in this capital of humble sheds as it had been accustomed to do in the aristocratic quarters of the metropolis of the world. 

The provincial government put up expensive buildings for its own use and a palace with gardens for the use of its governor. The governor had a guard and maintained a court. Roads, wharves, and hospitals were built. All this on credit, on paper, on wind, on inflated and fictitious values — on the boom's moonshine, in fact. This went on handsomely during four or five years. Then all of a sudden came a smash. 

Bills for a huge amount drawn by the governor upon the Treasury were dishonoured, the land company's credit went up in smoke, a panic followed, values fell with a rush, the frightened immigrants seized their grip sacks and fled to other lands, leaving behind them a good imitation of a solitude, where lately had been a buzzing and populous hive of men.

Adelaide was indeed almost empty; its population had fallen to 3,000. During two years or more the death trance continued. Prospect of revival there was none; hope of it ceased. Then, as suddenly as the paralysis had come, came the resurrection from it. Those astonishingly rich copper mines were discovered, and the corpse got up and danced.

The Colonial Record of 1836 provides another unique historical perspective of the story.

Whilst he (Wakefield) was in jail he devised a variety of schemes for the benefit of mankind, and amongst them was one for colonizing South Australia, the only waste territory belonging to England where an experiment of the sort could be tried. He was shrewd enough to foresee the scheme would not take if put forward as emanating from the brains of a convict then incarcerated in the dungeons of Newgate, so he propounded it to Colonel Torrens, a man ever ready to enter into any scheme which cost his pocket nothing, who pattered about it to a few friends of the same calibre as himself, with whose assistance, at least, by dint of ‘getting up’ public meetings and public dinners and of that sort of claptrap which ‘brings over the people” he has advanced the scheme to its present position - a position from which it must retrograde immediately the first party of emigrants to land on the shores of South Australia. Commissioners at the head of who is Colonel Torrens were appointed nearly a year since to work this plan, and it is said to have raised 75,000 pounds, for a great part of which interest is to be paid at the rate of ten per cent!

A splendid house in the Adelphi has been taken, in which the Commissioners friends regale themselves, and a variety of other expenses incurred in the shape of salaries to secretary and clerks, all of which are discharged out of the money, which is eventually to be repaid by the taxes to be levied on the colonists when they arrive at the other side of the world. Well may intending emigrants be alarmed at seeing such sums thrown away, whilst nothing effectual is done to forward their interests, though they have paid for land four times the price for which it could be obtained in the neighbouring colonies.

The research fleshes out the backstory prior to the passing of the Act in 1834 to erect the new British Province of South Australia. The prior relationship between Captain John Hindmarsh and William Light is explored. Both offered their services as mercenaries to the influential military leader Mehemet Ali of Egypt.

Light’s heroic efforts during the Napoleonic War had endeared him to the Napier family, leading to his marriage to Mary Bennet and their exploration of the Mediterranean aboard their luxury yacht, the Gulnare.

Light and Hindmarsh shared the responsibility of delivering the fastest steamship of the time, the Nile, to the Pasha in 1835. It was a quirk of history that William Light was not made the Governor of South Australia, and the revealing story of the circumstances is a great read. This episode where Hindmarsh delivers a letter from LIght to the recently resigned Governor elect Charles Napier is titled ‘The Wrong Governor’! Napier knew any decision to make Captain Hindmarsh the Governor would be another fatal mistake, but his letter to the Board of Commissioners arrived too late and the rest as they say is history.

Colonel Light and his wife won the heart of the most powerful military leader in the world after Light challenged Pasha Mehemet Ali to a yacht race and won., the Gulnare outclassing the Pasha’s fastest yacht. The keys to the city were offered immediately and Light and his wife enjoyed a romantic time in Egypt documenting the sites and drawing inspiration from this ancient city.

Few know as well that Light’s assistant George Kingston aboard the HMS Cygnet arrived late to the new colony on account of a mutiny that was managed in Brazil. Finniss reveals in his diary that inadequate supplies of coffee and biscuits and Kingston’s pretence of being in command of the ship were reasons for the disquiet, finally managed by the boarding of the Brazilian military.

The betrayal of Light by the key founders is expressed in full in his last diary and in an unpublished letter to his friend in England George Palmer.

If not for his close allegiance to Boyle Travers Finniss, later to be the first Premier of South Australia and John Morphett, the bankruptcy of the Colony may have been more extreme.

Land agent to become an immigration agent, John Brown reveals all in his diary including his establishment in 1836 of a statistical society that had the real motive of keeping a close eye on the newly elected Governor Hindmarsh.

Some of the other players are:

Edward Gibbon Wakefield – His kidnap of a young heiress from her school lands him in Newgate Jail where he fabricates Letters to Sydney and meets Robert Gouger the embezzler, the perfect partner in crime to hatch the South Australian plan in 1829. Wakefield’s publication of Letters from Sydney becomes a celebrated work of fiction, and sets the stage for South Australia Plan, ‘no convicts please!’

Colonel Torrens had a good head on his shoulders and knew how to sell land and manage the SA Board of Commissioners.

Lord Glenelg, Secretary of the Colonies, was appalled by the atrocities committed by the explorer Thomas Mitchell and vowed to protect the natives from the greed and avarice of the speculators. Alas, however, his clear instructions (Letters Patent 1836) were ignored by the first Governor and SA Board of Commissioners.

George Fife Angas, a successful businessman underwrote the scheme and established the South Australia Company. His decision to hire a reformed drunk Samuel Stephens as his first manager has consequences.

George Stevenson, Secretary to the Governor took control of the first free press and used it immediately to create friction between the Surveyor General Colonel Light and the Governor Captain Hindmarsh. His letters to George Fife Angas reveal his contempt for the Governor.

John Brown, a flamboyant wine dealer /land agent soon to become an immigration agent was a likeable scoundrel who should figure more prominently in this history, he was the court jester and his idea of gifting chickens to each of the arriving immigrants was actually brilliant.

The stories of the first Judge of South Australia – John Jeffcott – and the second Judge Henry Jickling are sufficiently tragic and intriguing to warrant a separate and in-depth article.

Light’s mistress Maria Gandy and her brothers Edward and Ibrahim are suppressed in history, as Light was still officially married and so this was a faux pas in respected circles. Staunch Christian Governor Gawler would not entertain or visit the good Colonel on the basis of his unconventional approach to life.

Boyle Travers Finniss was noted for his loyalty and close friendship with Colonel Light.

John Morphett, freemason and land agent was a close friend of Colonel Light. He saved the Colony by using his proxy votes to dismiss the Governors plan to locate the City of Adelaide at Encounter Bay.

Captain Charles Sturt enters the fray in 1838, on his second overland expedition to deliver much-needed livestock to the struggling new colony, his respect for Colonel Light is well known, and he confirms quietly and quickly that of course, the Colonel made the correct decision, anyone that knew him would have known that.

The William Light Project provides content for a variety of media. The granularity of research and the depth of character development invites an entertaining television series similar to the original BBC production of Poldark.

From the hatching of the Wakefield plan in 1829 to the final bankruptcy of the Colony in 1841, the founding of South Australia is best described as a tragic comedy.

The tragic element being the suffering and loss caused to the Kaurnu Nation and other tribes of South Australia. The non abidance of the Letters Patent 1836 by the Governor and his official party does to this day represent the misappropriation of land and natural resources. It is hoped the current government of South Australia will address this via a meaningful treaty.