Adelaide Hills valley named and settled early after 10 crew men deserted 'Coromandel' settlers ship in 1837
One of South Australia's earliest European settlements, Corormandel Valley had its institute (at left) opened in 1881 as a focus for community activites. The barque Coromandel (top right) gave its name to the valley after 10 deserting crew members headed there in 1837. Bottom right: James Chambers, a Coromandel passenger, gained a licence for a large stock run in the valley in later 1837.
Images of Coromandel Valley Institute (by Ernest Gall) and James Chambers, courtesy State Library of South Australia
The three-masted barque Coromandel – the 10th ship to bring out European settlers to the province of South Australia, arriving in 1837, gave its name to an Adelaide Hills valley through 10 crew members deserting the vessel at Holdfast Bay.
The Coromandel arrived at Glenelg’s Holdfast Bay on Adelaide’s coast on January 17, 1837, a fortnight after the reading of the proclamation of South Australia, and after more than three months at sea after sailing from St. Katherine's Dock, London, in 1836. The voyage was longer than planned as captain William Chesser called in at Cape Town, South Africa, and rested his many sick passengers back to good health with fresh fruit, vegetables and good water. (Back in Britain in 1837, Chesser was called to task for the extended journey and interrogated by the British colonial office and the South Australian Company that commissioned the ship.)
After the Coromandel’s 156 passengers (124 young mostly-married adults – labourers, mechanics and shepherds – and 32 children) had disembarked while the ship was anchored in Holdfast Bay, 10 of its crew took provisions and deserted. The deserters headed to the Adelaide Hills via Brownhill Creek or the Sturt River and sheltered in a cave.
Needing a high place to see the Coromandel leave the Adelaide coast, the crew members climbed a tree that later became a valley landmark from the footholds they cut in its trunk. (The tree survived to South Australia’s European settlement sesquicentenary celebrations in 1986 before being wiped out by bushfire.)
When the Coromandel had sailed, the crew men went down to the plains where all but one of them surrendered to first governor John Hindmarsh on March 13, 1837, and were held in custody. They were never prosecuted, owing to the lack of officals.
None of the crew men returned to what became Coromandel Valley. But their knowledge of the picturesque area very possibly would have been passed to other passengers they'd known from the trip. James Chambers was a Coromandel passenger who, in later 1837, obtained a licence to graze stock over 200 acres in the south of the valley along a creek (later Chambers Creek), running from Cherry Gardens to the Sturt River.
James Chambers had dived overboard before the Coromandel anchor was dropped on arrival in Holdfast Bay and raced other enthusiasts to the shore of South Australia to begin a frenetic and sometimes chequered list of achievements. Most notably, he financed john McDouall Stuart’s early explorations towards Australia’s northern coast. The busy James Chambers didn’t spend much time managing his Coromandel Valley, leaving that to his brother John who built a house, Chamberlea, on valley land in 1842.
In 1838, much of Coromandel Valley area, to the east and west of the Sturt River, was surveyed and subdivided into sections. As one of the South Australia’s earliest European settlements, Coromandel Valley became home to one of its first important businesses, Alex Murray & Sons jam and biscuit factory, from the 1850s. Coromandel Valley Primary School, from 1877, was one of the oldest in South Australia.
Coromandel Valley had its own £600 institute building, as a focus of local activities, from 1881.
