The
Kaurna people are indigenous to the
Adelaide Plains. A British colony, South Australia was established as a commercial venture by the
South Australia Company through the sale of land to free settlers at £1 per acre (£2/9/5d or £2.47 per hectare). The township of Gawler was established to cater for travellers to the mid-north of the colony, and in 1840 consisted of "a very good inn, one public house, police barracks, two smiths shops, six dwelling-houses, and thirty-four inhabitants". A
special survey was applied for by
Stephen King, H. Dundas Murray, and a syndicate of ten other colonists. The survey for Murray's syndicate was carried out in 1839 by William Jacob for the firm of Light, Finniss, & Company, of which Col.
William Light (died 6 October 1839) was a founder. By 1842 Gawler had a main thoroughfare named Murray Street, and a town square named Light Square. Thanks to Colonel Light, Adelaide was a model of foresight with wide streets and ample parklands. After Light's death, it became a model for numerous other planned towns in South Australia (many of which were never built). Gawler is dissimilar to Adelaide's one square mile (2.6 km²) grid; the heart of Gawler is triangular rather than square, a form dictated by the topographical features. The parkland along the riverbanks and a
Victorian preference for public squares are present, but Gawler was a village, not a metropolis. Gawler prospered early with the discovery of copper nearby at
Kapunda and
Burra, which resulted in Gawler becoming a resting stop to and from Adelaide. Later, it developed industries including flour milling by Hilfers & Co, and the engineering works of
James Martin & Co manufactured agricultural machinery, mining and ore-processing machinery and smelters for the mines of Broken Hill and the Western Australian goldfields, and steam locomotives and rolling stock.
May Brothers & Co. also manufactured mining and agricultural machinery. With prosperity came a modest cultural flowering, ("The colonial Athens" was its nickname in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), the high point of which was the holding of a competition to compose an anthem for Australia in 1859, four decades before nationhood. The result was the
Song Of Australia, written by
Caroline Carleton to music by
Carl Linger. This became, in the next century, a candidate in a national referendum to choose a new National Anthem for Australia to replace
God Save the Queen. Gawler had a horse street tram service from 1879 to 1931. ==Deadman's Pass==