Today's Stories from our Past
A podcast about Australian family stories and social history. Everyone has a story that we want to tell.
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Today's Stories from our Past
E01 –Bound for South Australia – The Grand Plan
Discover the surprising irony behind South Australia's convict-free reputation as we unravel the story of how the colony was conceptualized by a convict whose radical ideas shaped its foundation. Explore the grim reality of early 1800s England, where overcrowding, poverty, and the quest for religious freedom drove many to seek new beginnings in the British colonies. Learn why South Australia emerged as a unique opportunity, offering hope and independence free from the constraints of convict labour and land grants, and how this promise set the stage for a distinctive settlement.
Meet Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a controversial figure with a criminal past, whose innovative ideas on systematic colonization left an indelible mark on South Australia's founding principles. We delve into the complex network of organizations, including the South Australian Association and the South Australian Colonisation Commission, that brought Wakefield's vision to life. Despite his notorious history, Wakefield's influence persisted even as he distanced himself from the project, with key followers like Robert Gouger advancing his ideals. Their stories paint a vivid picture of ambition and controversy that defined the early days of the colony's formation.
Witness the early struggles and triumphs of establishing South Australia, a colony striving for self-sufficiency amidst bureaucratic challenges and conflicting leadership. Hear about the dedication of figures like Governor Hindmarsh, Sir James Hertel Fisher, and Robert Gouger, who navigated the intricacies of the colonization process. Our narrative concludes with a teaser of the trials faced by founding individuals before leaving England, including the introduction of my ancestor, William Henry Neale. Join us on this fascinating historical journey as we continue to uncover the untold stories that shaped South Australia's origins.
Contact us at todaysstories101@gmail.com.
South Australia, the wonderful convict-free colony, and Adelaide, the saintly city of churches.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, that's all fine, but you do know that the colony was conceived by a convict, while in prison, a convict abducted and married underage girls. A convict suspected of forgery and perjury. And that's the untold story of South Australia.
Speaker 1:G'day, I'm Peter. G'day, I'm Peter.
Speaker 2:G'day, I'm Greg.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Today's Stories from Our Past, a podcast about our history of Australia from about 1800 onwards. The story is told through the experiences of those who lived it.
Speaker 2:We'll tell you stories about Australia that you probably haven't heard before.
Speaker 1:So this is episode one of our podcast. We've got to start somewhere, so I thought we'd start with the story of the establishment of the colony of South Australia. I do have ancestors who arrived in Tasmania more than a decade earlier, but by the time they arrived Hobart was an established town. South Australia is a different story. It was just a grassy paddock when my family lines arrived there. We'll get back to Tasmania story at some later date. So this is the first episode in a season that we'll call Bound for South Australia.
Speaker 2:Aha, the convict-freeze colony in the City of Churches.
Speaker 1:Yep. In the next few episodes we'll talk about why the first immigrants came out to Australia, what their voyages to Oz were like and how they fared in the early colony. But first we need to understand some background to the colony of South Australia itself.
Speaker 2:Okay, so where do we begin?
Speaker 1:Firstly, why did the colonists want to leave England?
Speaker 2:That sounds like a sensible place to start.
Speaker 1:Well, we need to go back to merry old England in about 1820. But England wasn't all that merry at the time. This is the Dickensian period. England was full of characters out of a Dickens novel. Poor old Oliver Twist. He had to beg for food, please, sir.
Speaker 3:I want some more.
Speaker 1:And the artful Dodger was out nicking everything he could, trying to avoid getting nicked himself. Mean old Ebenezer Scrooge was begrudgingly allowing poor Bob Cratchit to have a Christmas day off work.
Speaker 2:Christmas Bah.
Speaker 1:Humbug. Most people didn't have any great expectations for a wonderful life. So what specifically were the problems? There's lots, just a dot point summary. Most people didn't have any great expectations for a wonderful life. So what specifically were the problems? There's lots, just a dot point summary. Number one the population was exploding. The population of England and Wales almost trebled from about 6 million to 18 million in the hundred years up to 1850. Number two While many were migrating to the larger cities, thousands of rural folk just wanted to remain on the land. They had an aspiration to own their own land, but that would never happen in England. Number three the country was flat broke. England was suffering economic woes from the Napoleonic wars. We must not be beat. Number four Conditions in the cities were terrible. Overcrowding, disease, poverty, hunger, destitution. Crime was rife. Number five the jars were full. Transportation of convicts to the colonies was only a partial solution to that problem. Number six the pollution in large cities was dreadful and the Thames was just a giant fetid sewer.
Speaker 3:On departure one early immigrant to South Australia described it thus I thought the River Thames a foul dirty hole smells abominable and the miles of ships' masts bewildering.
Speaker 2:That doesn't sound like a delightful place to live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty dreadful. Continuing number seven Social reformers appeared. They wanted an end to slavery, child labour etc. And the Chartists wanted representative government. 8. Religious changes were happening. The people involved were collectively called the Dissenters. They were various Protestants who had separated from the state religion. The good old C of E Dissenters included Quakers and Lutherans, calvinists, baptists and more. They'd founded their own churches, educational establishments and communities. They wanted freedom of religion.
Speaker 2:Let us offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. Hallelujah, okay, good reasons to leave, not so jolly old England.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not surprisingly, many wanted to emigrate to somewhere, anywhere where they had better opportunities. To date this had been America, but that was no longer a British colony. Most British emigrants wanted to go to a colony that was British. The main options were Canada, australia, new Zealand and, to a lesser extent, south Africa.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, america was off the table if they wanted to go to a British colony.
Speaker 1:That they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Speaker 2:We hold these truths to be self-evident and that all men are created equal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the reasons for leaving England that I've just gone through are the party line reasons spruced by the historians, but the reality is not that simple. All of my ancestors came from either England, scotland or Ireland. I've been able to find out why most of my ancestors immigrated to Australia. There's a wide range of reasons why they came, and most don't fit that standard historical profile. More on that later.
Speaker 2:Okay, but why South Australia?
Speaker 1:South Australia are offered something different. The establishment of the new colony of South Australia is a long and complex story which we need to cover fairly quickly and we need to understand that one of the key documents that was used to promote the proposed colony, that enticed the immigrants to go, included what we would call fake news. We'll discuss that later. So for some time there'd been discussion about starting a colony based on a completely different approach to the convict settlements of Sydney and Van Diemen's Land. The practice of land grants made by the governor to a few worthy colonists was to be avoided. That practice meant that land was given away to a select few or just grabbed by the squatters in enormous tracts. This effectively prevented poor immigrants from getting their own land. Also, to get a job, poor immigrants couldn't compete against free labour, namely the convicts. That was another practice to be avoided. There needed to be freedom of religion as well. This new concept for the establishment of a colony was called systematic colonisation.
Speaker 2:Ok, there seems to be some merit of a different system of settlement to the other Australian colonies. But what's this about? Fake news?
Speaker 1:Don't worry, we'll get there. But first we need to introduce the key players in this story. They're Edward Gibbon, wakefield, robert Gugia and Captain George Sutherland.
Speaker 2:Who's this? Edward Gibbon, wakefield fella.
Speaker 1:Wakefield is the person credited with developing the concept of what was called systematic colonisation. This underpinned the whole development of the colony. Now some background on Wakefield. I must say that I find him a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde type of character.
Speaker 2:How so.
Speaker 1:You'll see soon enough. Wakefield was a Quaker born in 1796. After a good school education, he was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1813 to study law. A career in the law beckoned, but in 1814 he became secretary to the British Envoy at Turin in Italy. When he returned to England in 1816, he eloped with Eliza Anne Frances Paddle, a wealthy underage heiress and a ward of the state. Wakefield secured a marriage settlement of £70,000. That's a substantial fortune over 16 million Australian dollars in today's money, and the promise of a lot more. When his wife reached 29 years of age, edward and Eliza then had two children. Sadly, eliza died soon after, aged just 20, leaving Wakefield with a substantial life income and two children. Eliza wasn't 29 years old, so he didn't get the additional fortune that he'd expected. Years old, so he didn't get the additional fortune that he'd expected.
Speaker 1:Wakefield was now single, with two children. He needed a wife. His first elopement with an underage girl worked, so that seemed to encourage him to try again. In March 1826, he lured another wealthy heiress, 15-year-old Ellen Turner, whom he'd never met from school, claiming that her mother was ill. They fled to Gretna Green where he convinced her to marry him, and then they fled to Calais in France. The bride's family was none too pleased. They chased him to Calais, where they persuaded Ellen to return to the family. Parliament later annulled the marriage and Wakefield was charged with kidnapping. The affair became known as the Shrigley Abduction. Wakefield's brother was tried as an accomplice. Both were sentenced to three years' imprisonment in Newgate Prison. Wakefield was now a disgraced character. He then tried unsuccessfully to overturn his former father-in-law's will to gain access to his first dead wife's money. In doing so, it was suspected that he committed both forgery and perjury, and pursuing that case, he was now 31 years old and in prison, and his reputation was in tatters.
Speaker 2:Hmm, Wakefield sounds like a pretty seedy sort of character. What's he got to do with South Australia?
Speaker 1:While he's in Newgate Prison, wakefield turns his attention to other matters prison reform and colonisation. I can understand why he might have had an interest in prison reform, but colonisation I don't understand. Anyhow, he published a pamphlet called A Sketch of a Proposal for Colonising Australasia in June 1829, and then A Letter from Sydney, even though he'd never been to Sydney. Robert Guju was listed as the author, but it appears that Wakefield really wrote it. His concept of systematic colonisation argued for a completely different approach to colonisation to that which had occurred in New South Wales. He had a wide range of innovative ideas. Put simply, he proposed a colony that would allow poor working class folk to emigrate and a colony that allowed freedom of religion. More specifically, his idea included concentrated free settlement that is, not letting adventurous squatters wander far and wide as they did in New South Wales.
Speaker 1:Number two the sale of all land. This means no land grants or squatting. The sales would be done at a sufficient price to deter working class immigrants from buying land as soon as they arrived, thus assuring a sufficient supply of labour to develop the colony. This was essential as there were to be no convicts in the colony. Number three directing the income from the land sales to supporting assisted immigration of working class families from England. An immigrant could get a free passage to the colony. Without this approach, poor labourers in England simply couldn't afford the fare to a colony. His proposal also mandated freedom of religion. This would satisfy the dissenters. As the population of Britain was exploding, there was no shortage of eager immigrants, and wiser heads in England knew that mass immigration was needed to relieve pressures on the home country. Wakefield vigorously advocated his ideas. He inspired several followers, notably the second person who we need to chat about, robert Gugger.
Speaker 2:It seems ironic that one of the founding principles of the new colony no convicts was devised by a convicted felon while he was actually in prison. I can't work out how the actions of running away with underage girls is in line with being a good Quaker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as I said, he comes across as a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde type of character. Just a quick footnote about Wakefield. He soon distanced himself from the South Australian venture as he thought that the price of land was set too low. He got involved with other colonising ventures in Canada and New Zealand and finally died in Wellington in New Zealand in May 1862.
Speaker 2:Okay, so tell me about this Robert Gouger character.
Speaker 1:Firstly, we need to make the following discussion clearer. We are about to discuss a whole lot of entities that start with the term South Australia and after a while they become a bit confusing. So I'll try to clarify. These entities are number one the South Australian Association. It was set up in 1833 and its role was to lobby the British government for the establishment of the colony in South Australia. A key element in the proposal for South Australia was that the colony belonged to the Crown but was administered by private trustees. Next number two the South Australian Land Company. The Land Company intended to purchase the land for the colony. The purchasers would raise funds for the transportation of immigrants out to South Australia. The Land Company would also administer the governance of the new colony. This scheme included free trade, self-government and the power to select the governor. However, it wasn't approved by the British government as those ideas were considered too radical and republican.
Speaker 1:Number three this is the South Australia Act. We'll just call it and all the subsequent amendments the Act. The British Parliament passed the Act firstly in 1834. It provided for the settlement of a colony in South Australia. Wakefield helped draft the 1834 version of the Act. It also included a requirement to set up the following next entity, which is number four the South Australian Colonisation Commission. The commission was set up to oversee the implementation of the Act. The commission allowed for appointed commissioners to sell and lease land in South Australia to British subjects. The commission was to be represented in the new colony by a resident commissioner and others. The commission was required to pre-sell £35,000 worth of land, which would fund the migration of the immigrants to the colony. The commission was also obliged to deposit £20,000 in the British Treasury as a guarantee fund. The British government wanted the colony to be self-sufficient and not a drain on government funds.
Speaker 2:This sounds a bit like a modern public-private partnership enterprise, where society gets the assets with ownership, eventually investing in the government. Did that self-sufficiency come about?
Speaker 1:We'll find out about that in later episodes. Self-sufficiency come about. We'll find out about that in later episodes. Now number five the South Australian Company. The company was formed on 9 October 1835. It's important to understand that the company was simply a commercial enterprise. It wasn't officially connected to the British government or the Commission. We'll go through the business plan of the company in the next episode. The company had subscribed capital of £200,000. The company turned out to be indispensable in allowing emigration to the new colony to get moving. The company ensured that the essential first financial obligations of the Act were met. It brought up unsold land to the £35,000 level that was required by the Act for emigration to be allowed to begin. So have you got all of that? There's the association, the land company, the Act, the commission, the company, all with the prefix South Australia.
Speaker 2:Um no, it's all a bit confusing.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's bureaucracy. Anyhow, there is an important take-home message out of all of this the future management of the colony was fatally flawed. On one hand, there's a government bureaucracy. The Act required a governor In this instance. The first one was Bluff Jack Hindmarsh, a dyed-in-the-wool naval officer who we'll meet in the next episode, and then a pile of bureaucrats colonial treasurer, colonial secretary, advocate general, etc. Etc. Everything had to be done by the book, following the provisions of the Act.
Speaker 1:In all other British colonies the governor was the supreme commander, and that's how Hindmarsh saw himself. But on the other hand, there was a commission. The commission needed to sell land quickly and immigrants needed to be happily employed quickly so that the profits could be made by the company. Land sales were the company's greatest source of revenue. The last thing that the company needed was a petty bureaucracy that would cause delays. The Commission's representative in the new colony was Sir James Hertel Fisher. Now, under the Act, both the Governor and the Commission had different decision-making responsibilities. In South Australia, hindmarsh represented the British Crown and the Government, while Fisher represented the Commission. The Commission stressed that Fisher had sole and separate powers regarding sale of land and migration. Conflict between these parties was inevitable, even if there weren't any personality issues, which there were.
Speaker 2:It seems that the plan was to have two hands on the rudder when it came to running a new colony. That couldn't work, could it?
Speaker 1:We'll see how well that went in later episodes. So now we can talk about our old mate Robert Gugia. He's an important player in my family story, as we'll find out in a later episode. He employed my great-great grandfather, a young Charles Netties, to be his clerk in the new colony, and they travelled out to the colony on the same ship.
Speaker 1:Guju was one of the first and most influential advocates of Wakefield's proposal for South Australia and an early settler. He was the son of a wealthy London merchant. Like most others in the South Australia story, he was also a devout dissenter. In 1829 he considered joining the venture to set up the colony of Swan River, that's, western Australia, but changed his mind after meeting Edward Gibbon Wakefield in Newgate Prison. Cooja became an enthusiastic supporter of Wakefield's ideas and became his chief publicist. During a brief spell that he spent in the debtor's prison for bankruptcy from debts arising from the printing costs of £50 for the first pamphlet, he learned about the news of Captain Sturt's exploration of southern Australia. So in 1831, with Wakefield, he drew up two proposals for the Colonial Office. Both were rejected Undaunted. In December 1833, guja, with others, formed the Association. The Association put a proposal to the Government, but it was rejected.
Speaker 2:Okay he doesn't seem to have much luck getting things off the ground.
Speaker 1:No, but you've got to admire Guja. He was persistent. He had aroused the interest of many potential emigrants, so this encouraged him to keep trying. He continued to organise meetings right to the press and lobby members of Parliament. The association eventually organised a public meeting at Exeter Hall in London on 30 June 1834 to spread awareness about the proposal for the new colony and its immigration scheme. It was well publicised and it was huge. The meeting was attended by more than two and a half thousand people. The speeches and discussion continued for seven hours. The meeting was reported in papers all across England. Afterwards the association received hundreds of inquiries from people interested in immigration. Before and after this meeting, guja also met with many individuals who were interested in the concept.
Speaker 3:Here's an entry from Guja's journal, may the 29th 1835. Two gentlemen called today at the office having rather important errands. Mr Barton Hack, a Quaker, called to say he has some friends, persons of capital, desirous to emigrate. He appears to be a highly respectful man and is very well connected. Then there's a Captain Hindmarsh, a post-captain in the Navy, who wishes to be appointed governor. Then there's a Captain Hindmarsh, a post-captain in the Navy, who wishes to be appointed Governor. He has letters from Lords Auckland, palmerston, horwick, sir Pulteney, malcolm and others asking for the appointment for him. He appears to be a jovial, hearty and energetic man.
Speaker 1:We'll hear a lot more about John Barton, Hack and Hindmarsh in later episodes. Wakefield had already drafted a colonisation bill for Parliament and, as I mentioned before, in August 1830, the Act was passed. When the Commission finally was gazetted in May 1835, Gugge was appointed Colonial Secretary. He was 33 years old and looking forward to a distinguished career in the new colony. Now, Wakefield's scheme was based on the pre-sale of land. Gooja worked hard which was a change for him to sell land on the Commission's behalf, perhaps because he got a commission on the sales. With the proceeds of his commission, he married Harriet Jackson on 22nd of October 1835.
Speaker 2:OK, so I see that he got a commission for land sales and commissions for selling projects can induce real estate salesmen to oversell their products. Can you tell us a bit more about these land sales? Is this where the fake news is you mentioned before?
Speaker 1:Yep, but keep your shirt on. We need to get some other information first.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:The Act included provisions such as religious freedom and that no convicts would be sent to the colony. But a central item was the sale of land. Prior to the establishment of the colony, wakefield had proposed that instead of granting free land to settlers, as it happened in the other colonies, land had to be pre-sold. The money from the land purchases was used to transport workers to the colony free of charge. The colony needed responsible and skilled workers rather than just paupers and convicts. Land prices needed to be high enough so that the workers who wanted to buy land of their own remained in the workforce long enough to avoid a labour shortage in the colony. But everybody knows that you need an attractive sales prospectus, as we'd call it today, to induce people to pre-purchase land. Robert Guja was very keen to sell the land because he got commissions.
Speaker 2:Okay, but how do you do a prospectus for a real estate developer on the other end of the world? And what was known about South Australia at that time?
Speaker 1:Not a lot. Some sailors had seen some of the coastline, namely Matthew Flinders and the French navigator Burdunk. The two navigators had met at what is now called Encounter Bay on 8 April 1802 and they gave names to various places around Kangaroo Island and the two gulfs the Gulf of St Vincent and Spencer Gulf. However, explorers had not yet seen much of the inland of what would become the main body of South Australia. Charles Sturt had explored down the Murray to its mouth at Lake Alexandrina, but he had not been into what would become the main body of the colony. Also, some whalers and sealers had been there, but they were a pretty disreputable bunch and hadn't journeyed inland.
Speaker 1:This lack of site information presented a marketing problem. What could Guja tell potential investors about the land which they were going to buy? Site unseen, it also presented another problem when would the eager immigrants land when they first went to the colony? It turns out that this would be Kangaroo Island. We'll follow the South Australian tradition and call Kangaroo Island. We'll follow the South Australian tradition and call Kangaroo Island KI from now on. So here is where our Captain Sutherland appears.
Speaker 2:So what do we know about this, captain Sutherland?
Speaker 1:Not a lot. Nothing is known about Sutherland's family background. Only his professional career as a ship's captain is recorded. We know that for many years Sutherland had been in the import-export trade between England and New South Wales and he owned a farm in Van Diemen's Land, that's Tasmania. In 1819 he was engaged by some merchants in Sydney to command the brig of Governor Macquarie to obtain salt and seal skins from KI. On this sealing voyage he remained at KI for seven months from January to August in 1819.
Speaker 2:OK, so Sutherland had seen some of South Australia.
Speaker 1:He'd only seen KI and not much other than the coastline. However, in 1831, Sutherland later wrote a report called A Report of a Voyage from Sydney to Kangaroo Island and of Observations Made During a Stay of Seven Months on or near Kangaroo Island. This Sutherland report was written 12 years after his visit, but it was regarded in England, and particularly by Guja, as a valuable document, being apparently the only observations of South Australia by both a practical Australian farmer and an experienced navigator.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Sutherland knew something about KI, but I wonder why he writes his report 12 years after the fact.
Speaker 1:I don't know what triggered him to write it then. However, his report was used to market land sales in the future colony of South Australia. A second report was published anonymously in 1834. It's now believed to be from the pen of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. I'll call this the Modified Sutherland Report.
Speaker 1:It was entitled the New British Province of South Australia or A Description of the Country, illustrated by charts and views, with an account of the principles, objects, plans and prospects for the colony. It reads just like a prospectus for a modern investment. It's got sections like South Australian Land Company, south Australian Association, theory and Practice of Colonisation, natural Features of South Australia, relative Position of the Colony, mode of Colonisation, inducements to Emigration, government of the Colony. It's under the natural features section that Captain Sutherland's 1831 report is extensively used. It was his description of the combination of good sealing and whaling prospects as well as good agricultural land on KI that led everyone to believe that Nepean Bay on the eastern end of KI was the best site for a settlement in South Australia. As we'll see in a later episode, it was this description of grassy plains that attracted my ancestor Charles Nandy's attention.
Speaker 2:So Captain Sutherland really makes KI sound like a wonderful place. Was this report factual or was this one of those fake news stories that you've mentioned?
Speaker 1:Yep, as we'll eventually see, this is completely fake news, a real estate agent's masterpiece of overselling the property's features. But it was the inducement that was needed to get momentum going for the establishment of the colony.
Speaker 2:Inducement that was needed to get momentum going for the establishment of the colony. Okay, so, given the scanned information about South Australia, where was the proposed site of the first settlement?
Speaker 1:The charter for the colony said that the eastern and western sides of the colony were to be between the 132nd and 141st degrees of east longitude. Those degrees of longitude that define the eastern and western boundaries of South Australia were simply chosen, as they were the extents of the coastline surveyed by Matthew Flinders, nothing more significant than that. All adjacent islands were included. The original proposal was that Port Lincoln, which had a good harbour, would be the seat of government and KI would be the agricultural area. That's about it, but apparently no one had seen the interior of South Australia and they needed to say something. You can see what I mean about the colony being based on fake news. Not wrong about the colony being based on fake news.
Speaker 2:Not wrong. Ok, so in summary, you're saying that the wonderful convict-free settlement of South Australia was conceived by a convict who was in prison, a convict who abducted and married underage girls, a convict suspected of forgery and perjury, and then promoted by someone who'd never seen the site where the colony would be founded and who write upon a 19-year-old report about the location, and that this old report was written by someone who'd never seen anything more than the coastline.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's about it. That's the story of South Australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, money's involved. There's a universal temptation to oversell a product. It happened then and it still happens today. Nothing has changed about human nature in this regard.
Speaker 1:So true. In our next episode, we'll talk about some of the key people who were employed to set up the colony of South Australia and some of the issues that arose even before they left England. We'll also meet another one of my ancestors, William Henry Neill and his family. Well, it sounds good. Well, thanks for listening. So it's goodbye from me.
Speaker 2:And it's goodbye from me, thank you.