Preserving Our History

Goyder as Surveyor

Public map of Booleroo Centre town bearing Goyder's signature. The township was proclaimed in 1878. SRSA GRS 6910

It was in 1851 that Goyder joined the public service, becoming Chief Clerk in the Land Office in 1853, Second Assistant to the Surveyor-General in 1854, First Assistant in 1855 and Deputy Surveyor-General in 1858. On completing a hard 15 months of trigonometrical surveying in the Far North, he succeeded Freeling as Surveyor-General on 19 January 1861.

He held that position for 33 years, until the end of 1893, through the most formative years in the development of the State's land administration and, consequently, the business of putting South Australia on the map and into European ownership.

• 'In his own field, surveying, he has exerted a greater influence on his Department, and through it on South Australia, than any other person in the [Lands] Department except Light.'
  (John Love, The Measure of the Land, 1986)