The establishment of South Australia was markedly different from that of any other colony, in that development of the State was to be greatly influenced by the theories of Edward Gibbon Wakefield - once an inmate of Newgate prison in the United Kingdom.

Wakefield was convinced that it was short sighted to give settlers free land or low priced land, raising the premise that if it cost nothing then it was worth nothing. He argued that settlers would not be able to re-sell the land because those following could obtain virgin land still in the public domain more cheaply.

Wakefield was also concerned with the supply of labour to the colonies, maintaining that the government's ridiculously low priced land would allow the majority of settlers to become employers, and that, as in New South Wales, there would be few employees to carry out the work necessary for the development of the new colonies.

Wakefield further argued, quite ironically given his own jail experience, that convicts were of little use to a colony, as the majority were ignorant of agriculture and, though they could be obtained cheaply, they often robbed the settler and refused to work hard.

He believed the more sensible approach to settlement was found in restricting the sale of land to ensure there was adequate supply of labour - the receipts of land sales could therefore be used to pay for the transport of labour to the new colonies.

And so it was that there was to be a total ban on convict transportation to the latest British settlement, and a minimum land price of 12 shillings an acre was to be set. Monies from the land sales were to provide funds for immigration projects which would ensure a supply of skilled labour to the new colony, and for this reason the South Australia Company was born in 1831.

The Government had considerable difficulty with many aspects of Wakefield's plan, most especially because of its implications, in that essentially it gave very great powers to this one company. Similarities with the troubled private-enterprise driven settlement of Western Australia, would also have been cause for concern within the government.

Despite these worries, a modified version of Wakefield's notion of 'systematic colonisation' was set in motion. In 1834, Parliament authorised the colonisation of South Australia, with the first settlers arriving in the colony in March of 1836 and officially declaring the State.

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