It all started way back on December 28 1836. The other vessels had already landed along with the Colonial Secretary Robert Gouger and a makeshift
camp of tents and huts had been established at the lagoons, when Cygnet and Buffalo sailed into
Holdfast Bay.
At 2.00pm 3 boats came ashore containing the Vice Regal party. In the first boat was Governor Hindmarsh his Secretary George Stevenson and the Resident Commissioner Hurtle Fisher and their families. In the next boat came the Colonial Chaplain Rev CB Howard, the Colonial Treasurer Osmond Gilles and others and in the third boat were 20 marines.
The official party first entered Gouger’s tent where the commission was read and the oaths administered to
the Governor and his Council. They then emerged and in open woodland,and beneath an
old gum tree Stevenson read the document known as the Proclamation of South Australia.
Image Could Not Be Found
Image Could Not Be Found
The Proclamation as it is still read at the ceremony to this day.
By His Excellency
John Hindmarsh, Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphie Order, Governor and Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s Province of South Australia
In announcing to the colonists of His Majesty’s Province of South Australia, the
establishment of the Government, I hereby call upon them to conduct themselves on all occasions with order and quietness, duly to respect the laws, and by a course of industry and sobriety, by the practice of sound morality and a strict observance of the Ordinances of Religion, to prove themselves worthy to be the Founders of a great free colony.
It is also, at this time especially, my duty to apprize the Colonists of my
resolution, to take every lawful means for extending the same protection to the Native
Population as to the rest of His Majesty’s subjects and of my firm
determination to punish with exemplary severity all acts of violence or injustice
which may in any manner be practiced or attempted against the Natives who are to be considered as much under the safeguard of the Law as the Colonists
themselves, and equally entitled to the privileges of British subjects. I trust
therefore, with confidence to the exercise of moderation and forbearance by all
Classes in their intercourse with the Native Inhabitants, and that they will omit no opportunity of assisting me to fulfil His Majesty’s most gracious and benevolent
intentions toward them by promoting their advancement in civilization and ultimately, under the blessing of Divine Providence, their conversion to the Christian Faith. By His Excellency’s Command, Robert Gouger Colonial Secretary, God Save the King.
This was NOT the proclamation of the establishment of South Australia.
That was done on 19 February 1836 by the King in England.
Image Could Not Be Found
Image Could Not Be Found
After the proclamation, a cold collation, which included dressed Hampshire ham,
was served. Then with the festivities concluded, the official party retired to the
Buffalo.. All was not jolly after the official proceedings, the sailors became intoxicated, the aborigines set fire to the woods and the settlers were disappointed at not being able to go to their allotments straight away. Such was the first celebration.
It was in 1855 when
Glenelg became a municipality that the finding of the
site and the tree became important. Once identified as Lot 82 of section 184,
John Hector, the owner of the land transferred part of the allotment, 62 feet
square, to the
Glenelg Corporation on the jubilee of South Australia’s Coming of
Age 28 December 1857. The site and the tree, (although now dead and
incorporating large amounts of concrete) became an icon for the birth of the State of South Australia.
The celebrations of the State’s coming of age in 1857 were
Glenelg’s first
Proclamation Day event and probably the first major Proclamation Day
celebrations in the colony.
Image Could Not Be Found
.