View source for First arrivals

{{Event
|Also known as=early settlement at Port Gawler and Grace Hundreds
|Type of event=Commemoration
|Town or locality=Hundred of Port Gawler
|Geocoordinates=34.633682° S,  138.493516° E
}}
The first settlement dates from the Pt Gawler Special Survey in 1839.

There was a great shortage of farming land in the early Colony because of a lack of surveyors.

When Colonel George Gawler, the second governor arrived in October 1838, he found some 5000 people crowded around Adelaide and conceived the idea of granting special surveys to men with capital.

These people could occupy suitable farming areas and were guaranteed the right to 4000 acres when the surveyors had finally surveyed the area.

Accordingly, on 22 November 1838 Messrs T B. Strangways and S. Blunden set out to find suitable sites for special surveys. They crossed the river which they named after Governor Gawler and continued as far north as the Hummocks.

The following year Mr Strangways set out again; this time accompanied by Mr G. M. Stephen who was so impressed with the country along the Gawler River, that he immediately applied for a special survey of a narrow strip of land stretching along each side of the river for several miles.

A settlement was established just south-west of the present Buckland Park homestead and called Milner, after George Milner Stephen. Nothing remains of this village today.

Almost immediately the special survey was sold to Captain John Ellis and Captain William Allen, who had arrived in South Australia in the ship Buckinghamshire on 22 March 1839. 

Further north, the Hundred of Grace was originally occupied for pastoral purposes.  Large tracts of the country were allotted to pastoralists in the 1850's, and in 1851 Messrs Grant and Butler secured 14 years lease, in lieu of occupation licence, for 163 square of country at 10/- a mile, which upon expiry or resumption, was included in the Hundreds of Grace and Dublin. Mr Phillip Butler's station took in most of the Hundred of Grace. His flocks of sheep ranged over natural open country, through Mallee scrub and patches of native pine. He employed many shepherds and station hands. These men and their families caused a store and post office to be  operated in the vicinity of the homestead. Few traces of these early  buildings remain today.

The influx of farmer-settlers was brought about because they had precedence over the holders of pastoral leases. These lessees (squatters) had to relinquish the land to agriculturalists after six months notice, and received compensation only on substantial improvements.

Buying land for about 2 pound an acre, the new farmers set about clearing and cultivating with crude implements and horse power, and were repaid with successively good crops, even up to 20 bushels per acre. Among the vanguard of pioneers were John Forby, John Hugh, Robert and Joshua Marshman, Samuel Crouch, Peter Farrelly, Henry Moody, W Jarmyn, A.J. McCabe, W. Jury, A. Vawser, J. Earl, N. Lindsay and John Forbes.


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== References  ==

* Mallala Museum research notes
* Life around the Light- District Council of Mallala
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