HCSA Fellow 2022

The HCSA would like to congratulate the 2022 HCSA Fellow: Dr Heidi Ing, Flinders University, 'Examining South Australia's early investors: An analysis of initial purchasers of Adelaide's 'Town Acres'' . 

Dr Ing's Abstract:

The Foundation Act (1834) for the proposed Province of South Australia required the pre-sale of land before the Act could be implemented, causing the land of southern Australia’s Aboriginal Peoples to be sold from antipodean London. Once the site of the colony’s capital had been selected and surveyed, those who had pre-purchased land were able to select their Adelaide ‘Town Acres’ on 23 March 1837 with the remaining acres auctioned four days later on 27 March 1837. Dr Ing's project will flesh out the identities of the men and women who were listed as South Australia’s initial investors. The resultant biographical details will illuminate these preliminary purchasers, linking them to other colonies and countries through the purchasers’ places of origin and the sources of their capital. An analysis of those positioned to become the colony’s initial investors will better place the foundation of setter-colonial South Australia in its international context.

The judges note that Dr Ing's project will build on and enrich the valuable work undertaken for her PhD. By focussing on pre-selection land purchasers and analysing connections between individuals, their geographic mobility and their links with other settler-colonial societies, Dr Ing's project will better place the foundation of South Australia in its international context. The judges appreciated Dr Ing's openness to engage with relevant staff at the SLSA and to provide her research findings in a format that can be utilised by the SLSA. They were impressed with the potential applicability and diversity of the project's outcomes which will be of great benefit to future researchers. Read more about the Fellowship here.