John Hindmarsh

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Governor John Hindmarsh

Rear-Admiral John Hindmarsh, KH, RN (c.1779 – 29 July 1860) was the first Governor of South Australia, from 28 December 1836 to 16 July 1838.

Hindmarsh joined the Royal Navy in 1793, seeing action at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 where he was briefly the only officer on the deck of the HMS Bellerophon where he gave orders which saved the ship from destruction. He was promoted lieutenant in 1803, and had a distinguished career until the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. A period of inaction followed, but in 1830 he was in command of the HMS Scylla and was made a captain in 1831. In 1836 he was made a knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order and went to South Australia as its first governor after winning influential support and applying the Colonial Office.

Hindmarsh arrived in South Australia in 28 December 1836, with a fleet of ships carrying the first British settlers for the colony. The ships in the fleet included the Cygnet (carrying Colonel William Light's surveyors), Africaine, Tam O'Shanter, Rapid, and Buffalo (carrying Hindmarsh). Initially they landed on Kangaroo Island, and sent out the team of surveyors led by Light to find a suitable place for the capital city of the new colony. Light eventually chose the site of Adelaide, and the fleet moved up the Gulf of Saint Vincent to Holdfast Bay, off the present-day suburb of Glenelg. The proclamation creating the colony was read on 28 December 1836 under the Old Gum Tree. After sacking all those who opposed him, Hindmarsh was recalled to London in 1838. Hindmarsh was knighted by Queen Victoria on 7 August 1851, attained the rank of rear-admiral in 1856 and retired in 1856 to the seaside town of Hove, England.

Hindmarsh lived at 30 Albany Villas for a number of years, where there is now a plaque in his honour. Rear-Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh died in London on 29 July 1860 and is buried in the grounds of St Andrews Church, Hove.

[edit] Places named after John Hindmarsh

The Division of Hindmarsh federal electorate in the area near the proclamation is named after him.
Hindmarsh Island near the Murray Mouth.
Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide is an open space area in Adelaide.
Hindmarsh Drive runs through the districts of Weston Creek and South Canberra in Canberra, Australia.

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