Organizing a Colony

The cherished principle of the founders of South Australia was to attempt to balance the flow of labour and capital by regulating the price and location of land sales. All land was to be surveyed before sale and rural land was to be sold in 80 acre parcels at a minimum price of £1 per acre and in contiguous blocks for any individual.

All purchase money was to be used for conveying poor emigrants from the British Isles and for their maintenance until private employment was available. The colony was to be self-supporting, wholly free of subsidy from the British Government.

In a bold piece of social engineering, the South Australian Colonisation Act of 1834 specified that '… the poor persons … shall, as far as possible, be adult persons of the two sexes in equal proportions and not exceeding the age of 30 years'. In due course poor, newly wed emigrants might become independent small farmers through hard work and thrift.

The reluctance of British capitalists to purchase high-priced land in an unknown colony resulted in some important modifications to the theoretical principles before the first emigrants departed.

First, for a limited period the minimum price of country land was lowered to 12 shillings.

Second, Edward Gibbon Wakefield's advice that initial sales be concentrated around the capital was interpreted very loosely. Although the first surveys were confined to Preliminary Districts, these extended from the Adelaide Plains to Cape Jervis on the Fleurieu Peninsula. Within these districts, purchases could select wherever they wished, priority of choice being determined by lot.

Third, George Fife Angas and his co-directors of the South Australian Company secured provision for Special Surveys which gave handsome inducements to those with substantial capital to become large-scale landowners. Outside the Preliminary Districts, purchasers who paid £4000 could ask for a Special Survey of 15,000 acres subdivided into 80 acre Sections and with the right to select any 4000 acres in a compact block, but in such a manner that the extent of waterfrontage did not exceed 2 miles.

For those with ready cash, here was a means to pick the choicest land with the best streams and waterfrontages beyond the confines of the Preliminary Districts. Without such inducements the growth of population and spread of cultivation before 1850 would probably have been slower.

The complexity of the Colonisation Commissioner's instructions on the surveys within the Preliminary Districts delayed access to the land for two vital years. Under Government Gawler (1939-41) surveys and public works expenditure proceeded with vigour. The first substantial crops in South Australia were harvested in 1841. By then, 202,000 hectares had been divided into Sections, including those of thirty Special Surveys.

The first official census late in 1840 recorded 14 160 Europeans in South Australia. Of these, 6557 were in the City of Adelaide, 1600 at the port and in villages on the Adelaide Plains, and 5414 in rural areas including 186 at Port Lincoln. Some 7000 hectares had been enclosed, with 1200 hectares under crop.

Livestock included some 200,000 sheep and 15,000 cattle, a rapid increase from the pioneer stock which had been landed by sea from Tasmania or driven overland from New South Wales 1838 and 1839 along the Murray River and along the southeast coast from the Port Phillip District.

Approximately 12,000 'poor persons' from the British Isles were selected by the Colonisation Commissioners for free passage between 1836 and 1840. The counties of origin for 10 600 persons can be identified from the Emigrant Registers.

Vigorous propaganda extolled the virtues of South Australia was widely disseminated though books, pamphlets, posters and lectures, particularly in southern England. While some emigrants came from nearly every county of the British Isles, 65% came from south of the line joining Bristol and London. In the first five years 17% were from London alone, although it is likely that many of these were recent migrants from the countryside. Seven per cent came from Ireland 9% from Scotland; only 8.5% were from the industrial counties of northern England.

The crucial theoretical principle of selecting young married persons was largely accomplished over the first six years, although in 1836 there was a preponderance of men in their twenties. The emigrant selection policy thus ensured an initial colonial population that had the potential for very rapid growth by natural increase.

Information supplied by emigrants showed that almost 55% of adult males and 15% of the adult women claimed some agricultural experience. Twenty per cent of the males were in the building trades, and 18% were mechanics, tradesmen and artisans. When land sales fell off after 1841, emigration virtually ceased for five years.

A small but very important group of foundation emigrants with valuable farming experience was from Germany. The first group was largely composed of 'Old Lutherans" disapproving of the new liturgy of the national church in Prussia. Their leader, Pastor Kavel, persuaded George Fife Angas to advance the passage money for 800 German emigrants between 1838 and 1841.

One group of Germans settled as tenants on land owned by Angas near the Banks of the Torrens. Here they built the village of Klemzig, named after their home in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, east of Berlin. Others became tenants of the owners of Special Survey land at Hahndorf and Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills. The three communities quickly established a reputation as hardworking and competent farmers and artisans. By 1850 another 5400 German emigrants were to arrive, many from urban as well as rural areas in northern and eastern Germany and from the Harz Mountains' mining district. The inferred areas of origin for a sample of 2600 German migrants to South Australia who eventually applied for naturalisation. The initial religious motive for German migration soon gave way to that of economic improvement.