Pre-colonial history The Adelaide area was inhabited long before European settlement in 1836 by one of the tribes which later came to be known as the Kaurna people, or Adelaide tribe.
As Wellington Square The square was named on 23 May 1837 after
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Irish-born
field marshal and statesman, victor at
Waterloo and
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1828 to 1830, who is credited with securing the passage of the
South Australia Foundation Act through the
British House of Lords in 1834. Colonel Light, first Surveyor-General of South Australia and a member of the Street Naming Committee, had briefly served under Wellington as a junior staff officer, a Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General (DAQMG), during the Peninsular War. Light's 1837 plan of Adelaide included Wellington Square.
Dual naming In March 2003, as part of the
City of Adelaide's dual naming project in association with the
University of Adelaide, the square was assigned the name "Kudnartu", officially "Wellington Square/Kudnarto". The name commemorates a Kaurna woman from the
Crystal Brook area called
Kudnarto (1832–1855), who married a settler, a
shepherd named Tom Adams, in January 1848 at the Registry Office in
Waymouth Street. ==Today==