William Light - South Australia and The Design of Adelaide

South Australia and The Design of Adelaide

Light was initially considered for the position of Governor of South Australia - this was, however, given to Hindmarsh. Instead, in 1835, Light was appointed Surveyor-General of the new colony. He sailed for South Australia with his mistress Maria Gandy (his second wife having left him for another man) and some of his staff on the Rapid.

There Light selected the location and laid out the street plan of the city of Adelaide. The Adelaide city centre was planned by Light in a grid fashion. One of the reasons he chose the location was because clouds drifting over the nearby Adelaide Hills would provide rainfall. This was a promising indicator of good conditions for agriculture. Another was that the location was adjacent to the perennial creek grandly named the River Torrens; the available supply of fresh water was a problem throughout the new colony, and had resulted in the rejection of, or relocation of, settlement sites on Kangaroo Island, Port Lincoln and Holdfast Bay (now known as Glenelg).

When Colonel Light was designing Adelaide, his plans included surrounding the city with 1,700 acres (690 ha) of parklands. This would provide clean fresh air throughout Adelaide. European cities often had polluted stale air and Light wanted to avoid this occurring in Adelaide. Ironically, white settlers denuded the Adelaide Plains of trees in the first decade of their settlement.

It is sometimes claimed that Colonel Light also designed the city of Christchurch in New Zealand. However, this is not possible; Light died in Adelaide in 1839, whereas Christchurch was not settled until 1850.

Light's role in founding and designing the South Australian capital is remembered as "Light's Vision", and commemorated with a statue on Montefiore Hill, also named "Light's Vision", of Light pointing to the City of Adelaide below.

Extracts from his diary in 1839 are quoted on a plaque attached to the statue, and highlight the difficulty Light faced in having this site chosen:

'The reasons that led me to fix Adelaide where it is I do not expect to be generally understood or calmly judged of at present. My enemies however, by disputing their validity in every particular, have done me the good service of fixing the whole of the responsibility upon me. I am perfectly willing to bear it, and I leave it to posterity and not to them, to decide whether I am entitled to praise or to blame.'

Legend has it that this was the spot from which the Colonel chose the site for the city. However, there is evidence that the first place could have been near the corner of North Terrace and West Terrace, and there is a plaque in that vicinity.

Light's design for Adelaide is noted as one of the last great planned metropolises; the city's grid layout, with alternating wide and narrow streets, interspaced with five public squares, has made it an ideal modern city, able to cope with traffic, and the Adelaide Parklands that surround it provide a "city in a park" feel.

Light resigned from his position in 1838, after refusing to use less accurate surveying methods for country surveys, and formed a private company. In January 1839 the Land and Survey Office, and his adjoining hut (along with that of James Hurtle Fisher), burned down, taking some of the colony's early records and many of Light's diaries, papers and sketches with it.

Light spoke several languages and was an artist. Many of his sketches were published in London in 1823 and 1828, and a number of his works and incomplete self portraits are displayed in the Art Gallery of South Australia on North Terrace.