George Goyder
Encyclopedia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
during the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Goyder was born in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, England to Sarah and David George Goyder, the latter a Swedenborgian minister and physician. He moved to Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
with his family where he worked with an engineering firm and studied surveying. In 1848, at the age of 22, Goyder followed his sister and brother-in-law, George Galbraith McLachlan, to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
. He spent time working with an auctioneering firm and moved to Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
in 1851, obtaining work as a civil service draftsman.
His rose rapidly in the civil service, becoming Assistant Surveyor-General by 1856 and Surveyor-General by 1861. He is remembered today for Goyder's Line of rainfall
Goyder's Line
Goyder's Line is a boundary line across South Australia corresponding to a rainfall boundary believed to indicate the edge of the area suitable for agriculture. North of Goyder's Line, the rainfall is not reliable enough, and the land is only suitable for grazing and not cropping. The line traces a...
, a line used in South Australia to demarcate land climatically suitable for arable farming from that suitable only for light grazing. However, Goyder was an avid researcher into the lands of South Australia (including the present-day Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
) and made recommendations to a great number of settlers in the newly developing colony, especially to those exploiting the newly discovered mineral resources of the state.
He married Frances Mary Smith on 10 December 1851 at Christ Church, North Adelaide, and had nine children with her. Frances died on 8 April 1870 and George married her sister Ellen Priscilla Smith, who had been looking after the children, on 20 November 1871. With Ellen, George had three children, a son and twin daughters. Goyder led an austere and disciplined life, and this was reflected in his strict treatment of subordinates – though he was always regarded as fair to those he advised in spite of many complaints by farmers and graziers. By the late 1880s, however, Goyder's health was declining and, with no improvement in sight, he resigned the post of Surveyor-General at the end of 1893. He died in the Adelaide hills his home "Warrakilla", near Aldgate
Aldgate, South Australia
Aldgate is a South Australian town located 21 kilometres south-east of Adelaide, in the Adelaide Hills.The town of Aldgate was supposedly named in 1882 after the local hotel the Aldgate Pump, which was named by Richard D. Hawkins, who had additionally opened the nearby Crafers Inn...
on 2 November 1898 and is buried in the Stirling District Cemetery.
Assistant and then Surveyor-General
In his period as Assistant Surveyor-General Goyder made many expeditions into the outback regions of South Australia, thinking that the water in lakes he saw at the time was fresh and permanent, rather than exceedingly erratic. He wrote many letters to newly established pastoralists who had moved into the arid regions for the state's north, and also surveyed the newly establishing mining industry in the Flinders RangesFlinders Ranges
Flinders Ranges is the largest mountain range in South Australia, which starts approximately north west of Adelaide. The discontinuous ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna...
.
His early years as Surveyor-General were very difficult, especially his efforts to help establish settlement in the Northern Territory by supervising the establishment of the pastoral leaseholds that continue to the present day. Pastoralists were hit by a major drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
in the middle of the decade and complained severely, with many forced to move even relatives away from their cattle stations by the end of 1865. Goyder was also faced with the despair of his wife, Frances Mary Smith, who suffered the loss of twins at birth during George's long travels in the outback.
Goyder's Line Of Rainfall
Before the drought of the mid-1860s, wheatWheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
and barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
growing had been spreading rapidly further north and the erroneous belief that rain would "follow the plow" led to the idea of cereal crops spreading up to the Northern Territory border.
However, the 1864–65 drought put paid, at least temporarily, to these ambitions. Goyder was, in the midst of his work in the pastoral zone, asked to do a report on the problem and his response was to find out how far south crop failure had been general. The northernmost point at which crops had not failed was marked as "Goyder's Line of Rainfall" and corresponds approximately to the 300-millimetre (12 inch) annual isohyet
Contour line
A contour line of a function of two variables is a curve along which the function has a constant value. In cartography, a contour line joins points of equal elevation above a given level, such as mean sea level...
(figures vary from 250 to 350 millimetres in different publications). Goyder recommended that farmers not attempt to farm cereal crops anywhere north of this line. The idea was quite contrary to beliefs widespread at the time and seen as ridiculous by many people in high places, yet it has been proven to be very wise by the many major droughts in the 140 years since, which have led to major losses by all graingrowers near to, or north of, the line.
Goyder's Line was first accepted significantly after a number of dry years in 1881–1882 and 1884–1886, though improved cultivation
Tillage
Tillage is the agricultural preparation of the soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shovelling, picking, mattock work, hoeing, and raking...
practices have allowed some expansion in the 1980s and 1990s, despite a couple of very severe droughts.
Darwin
Goyder is otherwise remembered for the siting, planning and initial development of DarwinDarwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
, now the Northern Territory capital and principal population centre. The site was chosen for its exceptionally good water supply, and potential for easy communication with the rest of the continent through land or sea transportation. The site was chosen after considering many others in the Top End
Top End
The Top End of northern Australia is the second northernmost point on the continent. It covers a rather vaguely-defined area of perhaps 400,000 square kilometres behind the northern coast from the Northern Territory capital of Darwin across to Arnhem Land with the Indian Ocean on the west, the...
.
Goyder was sent with a team of surveyors to lay out the street plans of Darwin, and other nearby settlements, by the government of South Australia, of which the Territory was then a part. They began the work in 1869, completing it in 18 months. In the early days, the town was known as Palmerston. The Overland Telegraph was landed there from England (via present-day Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
) soon afterwards, and commenced operation in 1872. A road in Darwin is named after Goyder, as is a large river in Arnhem Land
Arnhem Land
The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...
and electorates in both the Northern Territory
Electoral division of Goyder
Goyder is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly in Australia's Northern Territory. It was first created in 1990, and is named after George Goyder, the South Australian surveyor responsible for carrying out the first freehold surveys in the area...
and South Australia.