Injunction to delay 1838 ballot for land lots on Adelaide plains insults the surveyors, says Boyle Travers Finniss

Thomas Bewes Strangways (left) and Young Bingham Hutchinson were among South Australian first governor John Hindmarsh supporters who took out an injuction against the ballot for land lots Adelaide plains going ahead without more area being surveyed. Boyle Travers Finniss took this as an insult to the surveyors' work.

Boyle Travers Finniss, as the second in charge to South Australian surveyor general William Light, took over as the prime defender of the survey party’s work in early 1838.

By the end of February 1838, hard work and growing experience enabled Finniss to show a map that the two surveys parties (one led by him, the other by Light) had surveyed 60,000 acres. Contrary to first expectations, the small band of surveyors had been able to delineate an area on the Adelaide plains to allow the 437 preliminary landholders to make their selection.

Resident commissioner James Hurtle Fisher called a meeting to determine how the ballot for land – set down for March 1– should be conducted. But the surveyors’ efforts didn’t impress governor John Hindmarsh’s supporters.

Thomas Bewes Strangways, Young Bingham Hutchinson, Osmond Gilles and captain Thomas Lipson immediately presented an injunction from the South Australian supreme court saying that, as the barest minimum of land was available, landholders wouldn’t be given a wide choice if they drew badly in the ballot, so it should be deferred. The inference was that the colonists should not be forced to accept land on the clay pans and salt bogs of the Adelaide plains when there were thousands of acres of lush green pasture at Encounter Bay.

Finniss, aptly described by another Hindmarsh supporter, South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register editor George Stevenson, as "the preux chevalier of the [survey) party . . ready, on all occasions, to do battle on their behalf, " challenged the injunction. Incensed that all the hard work the surveyors had done should be disparaged for political reasons, Finniss petitioned Hindmarsh, saying there was a reasonable choice of land  available and the ballot should be held as planned.

The governor merely pigeonholed the petition. Finniss saw this as yet another indication of the corruption he thought prevalent in the colony. His workmanship had been challenged and his protests thrown aside without examination because he was not one of the governor's personal friends.

Fisher and Stevenson worked out a suitable compromise. The injunction was withdrawn and those wanting land outside the surveyed area were permitted to forgo their choice and to wait until later. The order of selection in the ballot was decided on March 28, 1838.

Each order was drawn separately and landholders were given until May 17 to make their choice or reserve their right. William Light was lucky with No.147 and drew first choice. Finniss, 235th on the list, wasn’t so fortunate but, helped by many of the governor's supporters drawing favourably and yet feeling duty bound to reserve their right, he gained 134 acres in North Adelaide in Section No. 375.

• 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.