February 9, 1837, sees William Light's choice for Adelaide site beat opposition by backers of John Hindmarsh

William Light's 1837 painting of a "view of the country and the temporary erections near the site of the proposed town of Adelaide in South Australia".

The opposing forces within the new colony of South Australia lined up at a meeting on the evening of February 9, 1837, to decide the site of the city of Adelaide.

On one side were the supporters of first governor and former navy captain John Hindmarsh, who wanted a site next to a harbour, and, on the other, the backers of surveyor general William Light’s inland site on the Adelaide plains.

Assistant surveyor Boyle Travers Finniss supported Light’s choice, with his view strengthened by his brush at Rapid Bay in January with George Stevenson, a Hindmarsh supporter and editor of the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register. The incident “had been sufficient to convince him that the underhand methods used by the governor's men had to be checked before the colony suffered irreparable harm”.

Another Hindmarsh supporter, Thomas Bewes Strangways, and six other preliminary landholders had petitioned the governor to call the special meeting to settle the question of the capital site once and for all. Hindmarsh appointed Stevenson to chair the meeting.

After the method of voting at the meeting was settled, Hindmarsh's supporters moved that Light’s site for the capital was badly placed.

Hindmarsh’s main official rival, the resident commissioner James Hurtle Fisher, replied by reading Light's letter defending his selection and then adding some comments of his own. It was soon obvious that Light would receive enough support to block the censure motion. When the vote was taken, Light, with the backing of Fisher and major landholder Morphett, who controlled 115 and 47 votes respectively, obtained 218 of the 355 votes cast.

Although he had only two votes as a future landholder and had just reached Holdfast Bay from rapid Bay, Finniss successfully moved at the meeting that “the colonists [could] now proceed in the immediate outlay of their capital in the colony … confident that the doubts thrown upon the utterly expediency of such exertions were unfounded.”

As a compromise, Light agreed, while retaining the site of Adelaide for the seat of government, to mark out 437 acres at Port Adelaide for preliminary landholders who might wish to live there. But the Hindmarsh-led opposition stubbornly refused to accept even this. Hindmarsh appealed to the South Australian colonial commissioners in London against Light's city site choice. He argued with Fisher over street names in Adelaide and stoutly maintained that the capital should be a seaport.

To Finniss, who felt that right was on his side, this was a deliberate breach of faith in the democratic will of the majority, and he became one of the governor's sternest critics.

• Information from “The life of Boyle Travers Finniss (1807-1893)” by Cleve Charles Manhood BA (Hons) Dip Ed, presented as thesis for degree of master of arts, history department, University of Adelaide, 1966.