Precis 19

Early Days on Eyre Peninsula 19

PORT LINCOLN AS SITE FOR CAPITAL

EARLY ATTEMPTS AT LAND SETTLEMENT

By J. D. Somerville

In this new series of articles, Mr. J. D. Somerville traces the outstanding events in the colonisation of South Australia, more particularly where they concern Port Lincoln, which was freely mentioned at a suitable site for the capital.

… the particulars are not a full narration of the settlement of South Australia, but only sufficient to make the history of Eyre Peninsula intelligible.

… [The lengthy story of Wakefield and his ambitious plan is laid out.]

In 1830, the National Colonisation Society was formed, with Gouger as secretary, to carry out the ideas formulated by Wakefield. … the first plan for the settlement is dated December, 1830, and he says, " if it is authentic, it is earlier than any of the proposals in the British Colonial office, and is the earliest document known referring to South Australia as the site of the Wakefield experiment."

… Bacon in February, 1831, submitted a scheme, not on Wakefield's lines, but for raising funds by public subscription for transporting laborers, putting the capital somewhere on Yorke Peninsula, but with Port Lincoln as the chief seaport. He apparently did not amplify his proposal by saying how his scheme for the capital on one peninsula and the seaport on another; would work. This separation of capital and seaport was a bone of contention in the selection of the site of Adelaide, and caused bitter strife among the early settlers, even though only six miles separated two proposed sites. …

… the South Australian land company issued a publication with the cumbersome title of " Plan of a company to be established for the purpose of founding a colony in South Australia, purchasing land therein and preparing the land so purchased for the reception of emigrants"; published by Ridgway & Son in 1831. This company had as early as 1831 proposed the formation of a settlement at or near Port Lincoln.

In that year very little information was available about South Australia. Flinders was not enthusiastic about Port Lincoln as a site for a settlement ; he rather favored Kangaroo Island. The opinion of the French expedition, voiced by Peron and Freycinet, was quite the reverse. Gould and Dillon had spoken highly of Port Lincoln. Sutherland was enamored with Kangaroo Island, but he had not seen Port Lincoln. Some of Sturt's views of the Murray and Encounter Bay had arrived in England before the publication of the first pamphlet. Barker had discovered the harbor, now known as Port Adelaide, in 1831, but the results of his explorations were unknown in England, and probably were not known until two or three years later. Another three years had to pass by before Jones rediscovered the same harbor.

Some of Sturt's views were used by Wakefield in a memorandum, marked ' the first papers etc.' dated December, 1830. In this paper it is stated that the site of the colony was to be St. Vincent's Gulf, the new site chosen being due to the news just to hand that " a magnificent river had just been discovered by Capt. Sturt, which falls into the sea at Gulf St. Vincent." In another plan of May, 1831, Gouger quotes Lardner's cyclopedia in connection with Sturt's trip down the Murray. In this plan the site of the colony was fixed on the coast of Southern Australia, as nearly as might be found expedient opposite Kangaroo Island.

The next installment examines how the Home Authorities opposed the scheme, and the difference of opinions about the site for the capital.