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the Victoria River, the other inlets of Van Diemen’s Gulf and the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria—in that
order. Once a suitable site (or sites) had been chosen, his task was to survey 250 000 acres of town lots and rural
sections as quickly as possible to satisfy the colonial and British investors who had already purchased most of the
land orders on sale since I March.
Finniss and half the party arrived at Adam Bay on the Henry Ellis on 21 June 1864 after a voyage that had been
marred by Finniss’s attempts to enforce military-style discipline. When water could not be found where they landed
at Escape Cliffs, Finniss had the surviving stock and some supplies taken sixty kilometres up the Adelaide River.
When he failed to find suitable land in that vicinity and discovered that the river was not easily navigable he returned
to Escape Cliffs where water was now found. This, together with its exposure to sea breezes and close access to the
sea, persuaded him that it should be the site of the capital. It was a decision that, together with his abrasive style
of command, set him at loggerheads with his officers and by 16 September he was already complaining to Ayers
about breaches of discipline. In the meantime the remaining stores were unloaded and stores and stock taken up
the river were brought back. Brief visits to Port Darwin and Port Patterson with Commander John Hutchison on
the survey vessel Beatrice only convinced Finniss of the wisdom of the Escape Cliffs choice although he made no
investigation of the hinterland in either case.
The work of surveying did not begin until after December, when the remainder of the party arrived on the
South Australian, but also on board were land agents and a journalist whose outspoken criticisms of Escape Cliffs
were to influence the government against Finniss’s choice. After strong representations to Governor Sir Dominick
Daly by land-order holders led by H B T Strangways, Finniss was instructed to investigate other sites but his
reports on Port Darwin, Port Patterson and the Victoria River were negative in the extreme and he continued to
argue for Escape Cliffs. In the meantime surveying went on in spite of the fact that much of the land in the vicinity
was waterlogged in the wet season. Ayers finally recalled Finniss in a despatch of 21 September 1865, which
accused him of delay and inaction and failure to provide adequate information. The senior surveyor with the party,
J T Manton, was appointed to act in his place and the explorer John McKinlay was commissioned to examine the
country ‘thoroughly’ and report on the best places for settlement and the location of the capital.
A three-man official inquiry established under Colonel W L O’Halloran in February 1806 produced a majority
report that Finniss had ‘prematurely’ fixed the site for the capital, but O’Halloran in his dissenting report pointed out
that he had done exactly what he had been told in his initial instructions, which had not required a full investigation
of the country unless the Adelaide River area proved to be unsuitable. There had also been severe problems
with communications, many of the despatches between Adelaide and Adam Bay being routed through Timor.
Nevertheless, Finniss’s failure to supervise loading of supplies for the expedition, his stubborn temperament and
his reliance on disciplinary authority had helped to produce an expensive fiasco.
Finniss was agent for the British Australian Telegraph Company in 1870–71 at Palmerston (later Darwin), the site
finally chosen by Surveyor-General George Goyder in 1869 on the basis of Manton’s recommendations and the
earlier reports of John Lort Stokes. He also served as member of the Forest Board in 1875 and as Auditor-General
in 1876, resigning from public office in 1881. During retirement he wrote The Constitutional History of South
Australia (1886) and he died at Kensington Park on 24 December 1893. His name is commemorated by the Finniss
River south of Darwin and Lake Finniss to the northeast but is more closely associated with Escape Cliffs, on
which he staked his reputation.
P F Donovan, A Land Full of Possibilities: A History of South Australia’s Northern Territory, 1981; C C Manhood, ‘The Life of Boyle Travers
Finniss (1807–1893)’, BA (Hons) Thesis, University of Adelaide, 1966; R H W Reeve, ‘Palmerston (Darwin): Four Expeditions in Search of a
Capital’, in P Statham (ed), The Origins of Australia’s Capital Cities, 1988; SAPP; SAPD; Finniss Papers, SAA.
BOB REECE, Vol 1.FISHER, CHARLES BROWN (1817–1908), pastoralist, was born in England on 25 September 1817, the third
child of South Australia’s first Resident Commissioner—and subsequently first Mayor of Adelaide—Sir James
Hurtle Fisher. He arrived in South Australia with his parents at the age of 19 in the Buffalo. The population of
the unsurveyed capital, Adelaide, was just seven—most of the colonists living instead near the sea at Glenelg.
He recalled: ‘On the following morning [29 December 1836] I came on shore with Parer and walked up to that
beautiful and, to us, interesting spot where the town of Adelaide was to be erected, where we slept for the first time
in our lives with nothing but a piece of canvas to shelter us from the weather.’
Before arriving in the colony Charles had spent two years working on a farm in Northamptonshire, and his
fascination for the land stemmed largely from this experience.
Soon after his arrival he commenced, in partnership with his brother James, a career as a merchant and importer.
However, it did not take him long to travel north beyond the ‘town’ boundary to Little Para. Here he ‘squatted’ with
a mob of ‘646 ewes, 2 wethers and 14 rams’, which he had purchased in partnership with a horseracing friend.
He wrote: ‘The most profitable investment after all is sheep. They are an almost certain return of 80% if managed
properly. James and I intend to purchase a flock as soon as it lies in our power, which I trust will not be very long
hence, and I shall go and squat in the interior and he will manage the business of merchant in town and as soon as
we get a flock of sheep here I shall consider our fortunes made for the increase is so great and the rent for pasturage
so trifling that the expenses attendant upon a flock will be not worth naming.’
He added: ‘There is nothing in this world that I delight more in that... a pastoral life, which will be far more
interesting here in an unexplored country than in England.’
Fisher’s Little Para run was sold in 1840, and from there he commenced farming on land earlier granted to his
brother James, near the present suburb of Lockleys. By dealing in stock on the Adelaide market, which he soon