Military History Lecture & Dinner

Military History Evening

Thursday, 5 September 2024

Topic: Early SA Policing 1836-1844

Guest Speaker: Mr Maxwell Arthur SLEE OAM JP

This presentation shines a new light on the formative years of South Australia. The establishment and consolidation of Wakefield’s social experiment in the so-called ‘uninhabited lands’ of Southern Australia relied upon the establishment of law, order, and the first centrally controlled police force in Australasia.

In 1838 Henry Inman, a 21-year-old English cavalryman, was given sole responsibility by Governor Hindmarsh to create and then command a police force, at that time a novel idea in itself. The London metropolitan police, the first such service, was only nine years old. Then, when the military was withdrawn in 1838, the mounted police became a fully armed rural force without precedent.

There were no guidelines in how to establish such a service from scratch and with scarce supplies in the embryo colony, everything had to be scrounged, bargained, and bartered for.

In the midst of that, Inman narrowly avoided ambush and murder as well as assassination by two groups of bushrangers. Town duties were no less trying, with Inman supervising five public executions.

Following Inman’s dismissal in 1840 – a story in itself – his successor Major O’Halloran faced censure from England after his drumhead trial and execution of two aboriginals following a massacre on the Coorong by aboriginals of 28 European shipwreck survivors, followed by further censure after armed conflict in the Chowilla region resulted in 35 aboriginal deaths.

Although the earliest days of colonisation were mostly peaceful they were not without days of tumult and strife, as vividly recounted in this talk.

Time: 1830 lecture begins; 1930 dinner

Members Price: $55.00; $17.50 lecture only

Non-Members: $65.00; $17.50 lecture only

Dress: Jacket and Tie

RSVP: By 5PM, Monday 2 September 2024

Bookings cancelled after the RSVP will incur a 50% charge of the ticket price