The amazing rise of
 George Milner Stephen
 as an offshoot of the 
Hindmarsh-Fisher feud

George Milner Stephen made a rapid rise in status via the young South Australian colony.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

George Milner Stephen was an extraordinary product of the feud between South Australia’s governor John Hindmarsh and resident commissioner James Hurtle Fisher. Without qualifications beyond being a legal clerk, Stephen became the colony’s advocate-general and crown solicitor in 1838. Months later, when Hindmarsh was recalled to England, Stephen was acting governor of South Australia.

A brilliant school student born into a well-connected English family (he was related to Colonial Office under secretary James Stephen), George Stephen had arrived in 1829 in Hobart Town where his brother Alfred was crown solicitor. George Stephen became a supreme court clerk.

During 1837 in South Australia, advocate general and crown solicitor Charles Mann resigned after siding with James Hurtle Fisher in the dispute with governer Hindmarsh. Hindmarsh, who heard from judge John Jeffcott that Alfred Stephen had resigned in Hobart as crown solicitor, wrote to Van Diemen’s Land governor John Franklin inviting “Mr Stephen” to accept the vacancy in Adelaide.

Franklin was surprised to get a request from George – not Alfred – Stephen for three months leave to visit Adelaide, to consider the offer from South Australia  and an advance of £100 to buy law books. In 1838, George Stephen departed the amazed people in Hobart to be soon appointed South Australia’s advocate-general.

Since resident commissioner James Hurtle Fisher hadn’t been attending council of government meetings, when Hindmarsh sailed for England in 1838, George Stephen was left as the senior council member and became acting governor of South Australia.

A land speculation scandal, also involving Hindmarsh and his wife, ended George Stephen’s rise. He resigned all his public offices, sold more land for himself and Mrs Hindmarsh – and married one of her daughters, Mary, and sailed with her to England.

He became government secretary to his father-in-law at Heligoland. There he did portraits of European notables and thought of making painting his profession. In 1844, he changed his mind when a disgruntled citizen on the island complained to the Colonial Office about his perjury record in Adelaide.

Stephen applied for admission to the Middle Temple and was cleared by the Colonial Office in 1845 of perjury accusations even though they persisted.
In 1846, Stephen returned to Adelaide but failed in his bids to become advocate general and, later, chief justice.

After gold was found in Victoria, Stephen claimed to have found a deposit near Adelaide and offered to lead the way to it. On a hot December 1851 day, large crowds with shovels and tin dishes climbed the range but neither Stephen nor his mine were found. Soon after, he moved to Melbourne.

In Victoria and later New South Wales, Stephen had mixed success in law, mining and a parliamentary career. By 1877, he began dabbling in spiritualism and found a gift for faith healing. He was soon treating more than 50 patients a day by touch, breathing on affected joints and ordering away pain, Stephen was reputed to have lengthened short limbs and cured blindness, deafness, rheumatism, St Vitus dance and consumption; even cancers.

Paradoxically, he suffered badly himself from “an internal affliction” and died after an operation in 1894.