The Surveyors by Margaret Goyder Kerr

The Surveyors

The Story of The Founding of Darwin

by Margaret Goyder Kerr

Rigby, 1971, [First Edition], ISBN 0851792871, black and white photographic plates, illustrated endpapers (maps), hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions, dustjacket shows minor edge and shelf wear with  a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners  (see photographs)

“The Northern Territory of South Australia had broken many hearts by the middle of last century.  Every attempt to found a permanent settlement had failed.  Colonel Boyle travers Finniss, the first Premier of South Australia, had led an expedition which had high hopes of solving the problem, but had returned defeated by the fearful conditions of the untamed tropical north.  Wildly optimistic plans alternated with gloomy scandal, until George Woodroffe Goyder was given the seemingly impossible task.
Goyder was a complex and controversial figure.  As Surveyor-General of South Australia, remembered best for his “Goyder’s Line” of rainfall, he had gained the reputation of “knowing every inch” of the young colony.  His competence and dedication had won hi the resect of the government, yet to many people he was the object of dislike and even scorn.  He was a strange mixture of man of action and stern authoritarian and did not suffer fools gladly.”