William Light, known as Colonel Light, was a British-Malayan naval and army officer.
48 Facts About William Light
2.
William Light was the first Surveyor-General of the new British Province of South Australia, known for choosing the site of the colony's capital, Adelaide, and for designing the layout of its streets, six city squares, gardens and the figure-eight Adelaide Park Lands, in a plan later sometimes referred to as Light's Vision.
3.
William Light was thus legally classed as Eurasian, an ethnic designation which granted the designated a middle position between the natives and the Europeans.
4.
William Light lived in Penang until the age of six, when he was sent to Theberton, a village in Suffolk, England to be educated by friends of his father.
5.
William Light became attached to the Doughtys, and later named his house in Adelaide after the family home.
6.
William Light was well educated, and soon became proficient in French, as well as showing a talent for drawing, watercolour painting and music.
7.
William Light became known in London as a rich East Indian, and attended the court of the Prince of Wales, later King George IV.
8.
At the age of 13 in about 1799, William Light volunteered for the Royal Navy, in which he served for two years, leaving as a midshipman.
9.
William Light bought a cornetcy in the 4th Dragoons regiment of the British Army on 5 May 1808, being promoted to lieutenant in April 1809 en route to Spain to serve in the Peninsular War, where he learnt Spanish.
10.
William Light showed both outstanding bravery and kindness in his actions, and was a favourite of Wellington.
11.
Originally volunteering as a private in the Vigo militia, William Light was made a lieutenant-colonel.
12.
William Light returned to England, where he bought a yacht, Gulnare, after which the couple cruised the Mediterranean for some years.
13.
In 1830 they went to Egypt, where William Light first met promoters of a new colony in Australia.
14.
William Light made numerous sketches and Mary studied Egyptology while in Egypt, becoming a friend and keen correspondent of Egyptologist John Gardner Wilkinson.
15.
William Light sailed for England in 1831 in his own yacht to help recruit British men for the Pasha's navy.
16.
The process became prolonged, and William Light stayed in England until 1835, while Mary continued her studies, travelling to Thebes for a second time and writing detailed journals of her travels and discoveries.
17.
William Light separated from Mary in 1832, after she had formed a relationship with another officer.
18.
William Light helped Muhammad Ali to establish a modern navy, sailing his own yacht to England to help recruit British men for the Pasha's navy.
19.
William Light captained the paddle steamer the Nile from London to Alexandria to join the Egyptian Navy, reaching Alexandria in September 1834.
20.
William Light had given Hindmarsh a letter of introduction to Colonel Charles James Napier, who was the recently designated Governor of the new colony.
21.
Napier recommended to the authorities that William Light be given the post of Governor, but Hindmarsh had already been promised it.
22.
William Light returned to London in January 1836, and on 4 February was appointed Surveyor-General of South Australia instead.
23.
On 1 May 1836 Light sailed for South Australia with Maria Gandy, two of her young brothers, and some of his survey staff, on the survey brig, Rapid, along with the nine other ships in the "First Fleet".
24.
William Light suggested that the ships land at Holdfast Bay for the meantime, while he went with a group to explore further.
25.
The site chosen by William Light spanned the River Torrens, or Karra Wirra Parri, as it was known by the local people.
26.
The site had many challenges, but William Light wrote that he chose the site "because it was on a beautiful and gently rising ground, and formed altogether a better connection with the river than any other place".
27.
When William Light was designing Adelaide, his plans included surrounding the city with 2,332 acres of park.
28.
William Light referred to his unique figure-eight of open space as "Adelaide Park".
29.
William Light placed the city to the north and south of the river, avoiding areas prone to flooding and making best use of the local topography.
30.
William Light's Plan reserved 42 acres for town squares and government buildings.
31.
Long before William Light was engaged, the colonisation of South Australia had been designed as a kind of social experiment, drawing on the thinking of many notable minds: Jeremy Bentham, George Grote, Robert Owen, John Stuart Mill, and, closest to home, Edward Gibbon Wakefield.
32.
The oldest known version of William Light's plan was drawn by a 16-year-old draughtsman in 1837, to instructions from William Light, some time after the streets were named on 23 May of that year.
33.
William Light spoke several languages and was a gifted and prolific painter and sketcher.
34.
William Light often sold his works to support himself, but many were lost when fire destroyed the Land and Survey Office and his adjacent hut in January 1839.
35.
In December 1837 William Light led an exploration from Adelaide, discovering and naming the Barossa Range, after which the Barossa Valley was named.
36.
The four-roomed brick built cottage, built by William Gandy, was named Theberton House, after Light's childhood residence at Theberton Hall in Suffolk.
37.
Today, historians view Gandy as providing strength to the sickly William Light, helping him to achieve his goals while being treated as a pariah by many fellow pioneers.
38.
The sole remaining document authored by William Light was his will.
39.
The plan of the city of Adelaide stands as a lasting legacy to William Light's genius, praised both in the early days and more recent literature.
40.
The most well-known memorial of William Light is the statue now on Montefiore Hill and known as William Light's Vision, which points southwards towards the River Torrens and the city centre.
41.
The statue of William Light was unveiled on 27 November 1906 in its original location at the northern end of Victoria Square,.
42.
The Governor of South Australia, Sir George Le Hunte, gave an address in which he praised William Light highly, cheered on by the crowd.
43.
Legend says that William Light stood on Montefiore Hill when he began planning the city, but this is not confirmed.
44.
William Light's achievements have been commemorated in a number of ways, including:.
45.
William Light said that "months of painstaking art history and genealogical research" into its provenance had led to a man called Shimmin, who had worked for Light's colleague William Jacob in the Barossa Valley and in whose family it had remained for generations.
46.
William Light sees Light as an unfulfilled individual, despite all of his success; his life was " lonely and drifting".
47.
The 29 Town Sections which William Light allotted for the harbour area of Port Adelaide have been all but forgotten as part of his plan, which is often mistakenly thought to include only the city centre, with the North Adelaide part tacked on afterwards.
48.
However, this is not possible; William Light died in Adelaide in 1839, whereas Christchurch was only laid out by Englishman Edward Jollie in March 1850.