SESSION 6

‘What does the Proclamation painting tell us about becoming South Australian?’ presented by Susan Marsden, AM, BA (Hons), PhD, MPHA

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1836 culminated in the arrival by ship in South Australia of the first official settlers and the Governor’s first proclamation of government and of the rights of the Aborigines at Holdfast Bay on 28 December 1836. The event marked formal British settlement/annexation of the new Province of South Australia. Charles Hill’s celebrated large historical painting, titled, The Proclamation of South Australia 1836, 1857/1876, depicts the people at this first proclamation ceremony. There are dozens of women, men and children; Kaurna and British; official, military and civilian. They are all – both First People and second – at the beginning of becoming South Australian, and making ‘South Australia’. Many of the participants and observers are named in a key by the artist.

I’ve completed an illustrated book (in press, Wakefield Press) titled Mr Hill’s History Painting. I’ll speak about my exploration of these first South Australians in the book,  framed around Hill’s painting, and now on display at Government House. The painting provides a starting point, narrative and structure for the book, that provides a fresh look at the best-known event in South Australia’s history in its global context of mass migration, colonial settlement and first contact between Aboriginal and European people. This book connects the picture, the people, the proclamation and the place depicted in the painting in developing a story about the founding of a free British province on the far side of the world.

I address these simple but compelling questions: who are the people in the painting? Why are they there? Where did they come from, what were their journeys, and what happened to them after 1836? The painting is unusual in such nineteenth century images in depicting this as a family event with women and children, including amongst the Aboriginal observers. Life history and family history are also used to illuminate and explore the large theme of a ‘European diaspora’, and the lives of the men, women and children depicted in the painting, their prior British or Aboriginal lives, and migrations.

Many of them have descendants still in SA today, and I draw on their findings as well, and bring the story of the people at the proclamation through successive ceremonies at the Old Gum Tree.

Presentation time: Thursday, 15 May 2025, 6:30 pm
Presentation duration: 60-90 minutes

Image: Charles Hill, The Proclamation of South Australia 1836, c 1856-76, oil on canvas. Art Gallery of South Australia, 0.893