User:ScottDavis/sandbox

Special Surveys were an early way of surveying and making land available in the Colony of South Australia.

When the first settlers arrived in 1836, the primary objective was to identify a site fir the capital, already named Adelaide. Once the site was chosen, the survey department set about surveying the land for the city and town blocks. Farmers and graziers occupied land out from the town.

Following this survey, by 1839 it was becoming imperative to have more land surveyed and available for sale. A fixed price had been set as one pound per acre. A series of "special surveys" were organised. Each survey was for 15000 acres in 80 acre sections. The initiator of the special survey must pay £4000 up front for the survey. For this payment in advance, they earned the rigth to select 4000 acres of the surveyed land, before the rest was made available for sale to other colonists, also at £1 per acre.

The first special survey was funded by William Hampden Dutton in connection with McFarlane, Moore and other gentlemen from Sydney. The land they chose was centred on J. B. Hack's station near Mount Barker. The next special surveys were:
 * for the South Australian Company represented by David McLaren in the vicinity of Lyndoch Valley (in consideration of Preliminary Land Orders)
 * John Barton Hack in the district known as the sources of the Great Parra River recently named the Gawler
 * the neighbourhood of the Mount Barker District, including the stations of Messss Fenn, Scott, Jones, Boucher and Milne, excepting land already claimed by Dutton. This was also for The Company, represented by McLaren, in consideration of £4000.

...try to insert more surveys in chronoogical order...

Locations
By 1841, thirty-three special surveys had been conducted east of Gulf St. Vincent. A map of their locations was published in England. Numbered special surveys A map published in 1841 showed 33 surveys, numbered 1 to 33. The numbers appear to relate only to the map key, not to the order of survey