Plan of the City of Adelaide

Plan of Adelaide showing the site of C1887 exhibition.

Colonel Light after having rejected Port Lincoln and Kingscote as possible sites, Light returned to Holdfast Bay and noted in his journal on 29 December 1836: ‘Employed nearly all day examining the plain, and looking out for the best situation for the capital. I was delighted with the appearance of the country, and the supply of fresh water we were certain of possessing at four p.m., I had the pleasure of seeing the Governor and Mr Fisher, and we agreed on going the following day to look at the place I had selected for the capital.

The next day, Light and Governor Hindmarsh inspected the site and although Hindmarsh liked what he saw he stated that it was too far from the harbour. They agreed to move the location by one and a half miles lower down the bank of the river but after re-examining the area the following day, Light noticed previous evidence of the river having breached its banks. Light wrote that from 3-11 January 1837, ‘I was employed in looking repeatedly over the ground, and devising in my own mind the best method of laying out the town according to the course of the river, and the nature of the ground this being fixed, I commenced with Mr Kingston and Mr Neale only … It may be asked then, “Why choose it?” I answer, “Because it was on a beautiful and gently rising ground, and formed altogether a better connection with the river than any other place”’.

Although Light had been given total autonomy by the Commissioners in selecting the site, he was being undermined by Hindmarsh and his supporters, who saw the distance to the sea as unworkable. In response to correspondence from Hindmarsh, Light called a public meeting to discuss and vote on the matter. The meeting took place in Edward Stephens’s tent at Holdfast Bay, on the 10 February 1837. The subsequent vote found was in favour of Light’s selection and he then proceeded to divide the town into 1000 acre allotments as instructed by the Commissioners. Light resigned from his position in 1838, after being instructed to use faster and less accurate surveying methods for the country surveys.

His health soon deteriorated and he died of tuberculosis at the age of fifty-three on 6 October 1839.