What is the history of Adelaide?

Answer 1

The idea of a settlement on the southern coast in approximately the location where Adelaide is located was first proposed by exporer Matthew Flinders after he circumnavigated the continent in 1801-02. Flinders explored the gulfs and peninsulas of the south, but he did not find any significant rivers, so his suggestion was largely ignored for several decades. There was more potential to the idea once Captain Charles Sturt charted the Murray River to its mouth at Lake Alexandrina, finding that there was a significant navigable waterway to the south.

As a result of Sturt's explorations, the British authorities agreed to establish a colony on the southern coast. Adelaide was founded by Colonel William Light in 1836. However, its site was originally discovered by Captain Collet Barker.

In April 1831, Barker was sent by Governor Darling to explore southern Australia, following Charles Sturt's discoveries of the mouth of the Murray River. Barker explored around the eastern side of Gulf St Vincent, climbed Mt Lofty, and determined a suitable port for the future city of Adelaide. However, whilst swimming across the channel where the Murray meets the sea at Lake Alexandrina, Barker was speared to death by Aborigines.

Light was the first Surveyor-General of South Australia. He arrived in South Australia in 1836 to decide on a suitable site for a new settlement, which would be the first in that region of Australia. He explored Encounter Bay and nearby regions until he discovered Port Adelaide which Barker had noted in his journals. Light's deputy, George Kingston, discovered the Torrens River flowing from the Mt Lofty ranges and, as a result, Light approved the site for the settlement of Adelaide. He described "nearly six miles of a beautiful flat ... affording an immense plain of level and advantageous ground for occupation..."

Light surveyed and designed Adelaide, laying out and naming the main streets and squares in 1837.