The stamp show a ship that carried the first British settlers to a colony on the other side of the world. Showing the ship shows how perilous the whole enterprise was. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist. celebrated
I am torn, me not the stamp, about the visuals. The ship is shown, but not in a way to get a sense of the chances being took to sail in it to the other side of the world. A Royal decree is shown but not in a way that it can really be read. By 1986, even Dominion status with Great Britain was controversial. As such it makes it difficult to get too excited about Britain gaining a new colony. Celebrating such an event has gotten even more precarious since, with the thought that settlers were taking something from someone else more politically correct. It must be remembered though that Australia is a huge place and the number of Aborigines in the whole of Australia was only 500,000 people at the time of first European settlement.
Todays stamp is issue A362, a 33 cent stamp issued by the Commonwealth of Australia on February 12th, 1986. The stamp celebrates the 150th anniversary of the founding of the British colony of South Australia. The stamp shows the ship HMS Buffalo that transported several hundred English colonists and the first Governor, Admiral John Hindmarsh. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents.
South Australia was founded somewhat differently from the other Australian colonies. The settlers were not convicts or indentured laborers. Instead they were people who had paid for land in the new colony. The revenue raised was used to bring in at no cost to them other skilled laborers. This might have slowed development but meant there were not masses of unskilled being exploited. It was a fairly dry area, but sheep raising and wheat farming eventually got going. This lack of unskilled labor meant that all the settlers were full citizens and were quickly demanding their rights of self government as English subjects. This was quickly given with a Bicameral legislature and full suffrage including women quite early. This freedom did much to attract further settlers from Germany as well as the UK. Soon copper and even uranium deposits were found in South Australia, but the gold rush was only in Victoria. South Australia in 1901 joined as the Commonwealth of Australia, after a proclamation from Queen Victoria.
The Ship on the stamp is the HMS Buffalo. It was built in Calcutta India as the Hindustan a merchant vessel, and was bought by the Royal Navy after a journey to the UK. It was refitted to act as a colonist transport. The colonists were first set a shore at an earlier settlement on Kangaroo Island, while surveyors scouted the best place for a city. Adelaide was named after then King William IV’s Queen. The ship made further journeys afterward until it sunk in a storm off New Zealand. Wreckage of the HMS Buffalo was spotted after a tsunami in 1960 temporarily changed the water level. New Zealand’s Navy has since surveyed the wreckage.
Well my drink is empty so I will pour another to toast the memory of the original 600 English colonists of South Australia. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.