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Colonel William Light (1786 - October 6 1839) was a distinguished military officer and latterly Surveyor-General of South Australia. He was born in Kuala Kedah, Malaya in 1786, an illegitimate son of Captain Francis Light, the Governor of Penang, and Martina Rozells, of mixed Siamese and Portuguese descent. He died in Adelaide, South Australia, from tuberculosis.
Military career
At the age of thirteen, Light volunteered for the Royal Navy, in which he served for two years. He then travelled through Europe and India before joining the British Army in 1808. After courageous service against Napoleon's forces from 1809 to 1814 in the Spanish Peninsular War, he went on to serve in various parts of Britain as a Captain. He married in 1821. In 1823 he returned to Spain to fight in the Spanish Revolutionary Army as a lieutenant colonel. He was badly wounded and spent the next six years travelling Europe and the Mediterranean, accompanied by his second wife Mary (due to a lack of information his first wife is presumed dead).
Between 1830 and 1835 he helped Mohammad Ali, founder of modern Egypt, to establish a Navy. Here Light met John Hindmarsh, who served under him and succeeded him as captain of the Nile.
South Australia
Light was initially considered for the position of Governor of South Australia - this was, however, given to Hindmarsh. Instead, in 1835, Light was appointed Surveyor-General of the new colony. He sailed for South Australia with his mistress Maria Gandy (his second wife having left him for another man) and some of his staff on the Rapid.
There Light laid out the street plan of the city of Adelaide, which persists to this day. His role in founding and designing the South Australian capital is remembered as "Light's Vision", and commemorated with a statue on Montefiore Hill pointing to the City of Adelaide below. (This role is, however, disputed. ) Legend has it that this was the spot from which the Colonel chose the site for the city. Light's design for Adelaide is noted as one of the last great planned metropoleis; the city's grid layout, interspaced by public squares, has made it an ideal modern city, able to cope with traffic, and the Adelaide Parklands that surround, provide a "city in a park" feel.
Light resigned from his position in 1838 after refusing to use less accurate surveying methods for country surveys and formed a private company. In January 1839 the Land and Survey Office and his adjoining hut (along with that of James Hurtle Fisher) burned down, taking some of the colony's early records and many of Light's diaries, papers and sketches with it.
Light spoke several languages and was an artist. Many of his sketches were published in London in 1823 and 1828.
Death
Light died on October 6 1839, finally succumbing to tuberculosis. He was buried and immortalised in Light Square, one of the five squares of the City of Adelaide. A memorial was erected in 1843 (this quickly crumbled and was replaced in 1905). There a monumental obelisk, topped with a surveyors theodolite, signals his resting place.
Memorials
Colonel William Light is commemorated in a number of ways, including:
- The naming of Light Square, Adelaide, and the monument there over his grave. He remains the only person legally buried within the Adelaide central business district (CBD).
- The statue on Montefiore Hill, depicting him pointing to the Adelaide CBD.
- The naming of the Adelaide suburb of Colonel Light Gardens.
A memorial and plaque near the corner of North Terrace and West Terrace, Adelaide, marks the approximate location of the Land and Survey offices and Light's and Fisher's huts, which were destroyed by fire in 1839.
References
- "Light, William", Angus & Robertson concise Australian encyclopaedia (1983), ISBN 0-207-14820-1
- Elizabeth Kwan Living in South Australia: A Social History Volume 1: From Before 1836 to 1914 (1987)