South Australia Act 1834

The South Australia Colonisation Act 1834 (4 & 5 Will. IV c. 95) is the short title of an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom with the long title

An Act to empower His Majesty to erect South Australia into a British Province or Provinces and to provide for the Colonisation and Government thereof.

It provided for the settlement of a province or multiple provinces on the lands between 132 degrees east and 141 degrees of east longitude, and between the Southern Ocean, and 26 degrees south latitude, including the islands adjacent to the coastline. It was put into effect on 15 August 1834.

The Act largely reflected the views of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who saw control of land sales as a way to finance the development of a colony and encourage the emergence of a class structure similar to that of England.

Overview

The Act recognized that these lands were inhabitable, and made provision for colonization, government, and the funding of the new settlement on these lands. The Act states that the land specified by the Act is 'waste' and 'uninhabited' (this statement was subsequently modified by the Letters Patent establishing the Province of South Australia in 1836). The Act specifically provided for a limited independence of Government, whereby all laws made by the government in South Australia were to be presented to the King in Council in the United Kingdom. The Act stated that would be allotted to the colony and to be convict-free. The plan for the colony to be the...
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