Geoffrey Chapman, born on Kangaroo Island and a Ranger in the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service from 1969 until his retirement in 2001, has penned the attached 96-page history and bibliography of the early settlement of Kangaroo Island.

The fires on Kangaroo Island in 2000 destroyed the records at Flinders Chase – fortunately Geoffrey held copies. “There were rangers’ memos, various reports  including details of previous fire and a smattering of history bits including the ligurian bees and Kelly Hill caves.

“My interest was due to my grandfather William aka ‘Will’ Chapman having the lease of Rocky River in 1916 to 1919 and the work ‘Will’ and his best mate  ‘Bill’ Boxer did at lighthouses. I grew up listening to the stories of the two men  chatting about the old days on Sunday afternoons on the homestead verandah. Reference the Cape Borda light house – there is also a ‘William Chapman’ – he was my grandfather’s ‘grandfather’ – the first Chapman to arrive on Kangaroo Island in the very early 1840s.

“When I first started writing the article, there was very little information in official park files – I obtained all of it via newspapers via Trove, my family records, personal chats with the second ranger George Lonzar and his wife Joyce, interviews from several early rangers and cave guides, early wallaby hunters (who were all still alive at the time). it was a mammoth undertaking and took at least 25 years of research.

“I had help from Napier Mitchell on the bee history and some KI bee keepers who were interested in maintaining the early history of the industry. Napier is an ex Dean of a Queensland University and his father was one of the managers at the bee farm at Flinders Chase in the 1950s. He grew up at Flinders Chase”.

Geoffrey has supplied some other manuscripts:

Early post offices on Kangaroo Island.

A history of eucalyptus distilling.

Early history of sealing on Kangaroo Island and offshore Islands. Geoffrey writes: “I have found other researchers and authors have mis-interpreted and simply copied other people’s mistakes. It’s taken me about 15 years to sort it out and I am still correcting and adding details. I was able to fix the history of one sealer named Gamble after meeting a descendent in Albany last year. [2024].

‘I thought the sealing on Kangaroo Island would have been interesting to someone as it gives an estimate of how many seals, kangaroos and wallaby skins that were taken which gives a rough idea of the seal and ‘roo populations prior to 1810. The sealers also wiped out the Kangaroo Island small emus by the late 1820s.

“My grandfather and records show that when the first settlers arrived, kangaroos were virtually non-existent on Kangaroo Island and very sparse on the mainland. My grandfather who had the lease of Flinders Chase stated that even then, it was a rare occasion to see a ‘roo. I saw my first kangaroo in 1955. By the 1960s they were occasionally seen at our farm at Birchmore Lagoon (middle of KI) which was surrounded by thousands of acres of dense scrub. Now they are everywhere on KI and are a common road hazard!”

Copyright notice

As the author makes clear in his introduction, some of the photographs and maps to illustrate this remarkably well researched compilation have been downloaded from the Internet. We acknowledge that the photos of the bee farm were from Napier Mitchell whose father was in charge in the late 1950s; and other photos were from the late Neville Cordes and the Kangaroo Island Pioneer Association of which the author was a member. Any infringement of copyright is inadvertent. The author has generously placed the manuscript under open access conditions. Any person who believes that their copyright has been infringed should contact PaRC.

Geoffrey Chapman, a Ranger in the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service from 1969 until his retirement in 2001, has penned a number of compilations of the history of the islands of South Australia’s coast.

Photos, maps and extracts of text from other sources such as newspapers have been downloaded from the Internet. Any infringement of copyright is inadvertent. The author has generously allowed PaRC to publish the manuscripts under open access conditions. Any person who believes that their copyright has been infringed should contact PaRC. Also, the compilations have not yet been proofread to conform to PaRC’s house style.

St. Francis Island, is part of South Australia’s Nuyts Archipelago, was first named by Europeans in 1627 by François Thijssen, who charted it aboard the ‘t Gulden Zeepaert. It’s one of the earliest South Australian locations documented by Europeans.

St Peter’s Island is the second largest island in South Australia at about 13 km long. It was one of the first parts of South Australia to be discovered and named by Europeans, along with St Francis Island, mapped by Thijssen in 1627.

Althorpe Island, 96 ha, was named by Matthew Flinders in 1802. Its light was converted to automatic operation and demanned in 1991 and the island transferred from Commonwealth jurisdiction to South Australia.

Joseph Banks Islands Group consists of 21 islands about 20 km off the eastern coast of the Eyre Peninsula.

The Neptune Islands Group consist of two groups of islands located close to the entrance to Spencer Gulf. Captain Matthew Flinders in the Investigator named the islands after Neptune, god of the sea, on 21 February 1802.

Although a section of Wedge Island is privately owned, the western & southern area is a National Parks reserve. The goats, cats and other vermin have been removed over about 50 years and re-introduced wombats, wallabies and bettongs have successfully survived. There are about 6 holiday shacks – rarely visited – and at 2025 one person lives there part-time.

At 3925 ha, Thistle Island is the third largest off the South Australian coast.
Flinders Island of 3542 ha dominates the Investigator Group.

This paper is a transcript of a talk on ABC Radio on 6 March 1977 By Professor Polakowski, Visiting Professor at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Environmental Studies.

This memorandum presents a proposal for a 13-day tour of Victorian gardens, signed by Hank van Apeldoorn. It also reports on the Cultural Tourism Conference of August 1987 and progress in establishing a Cultural Tourism Association.

“Our 13 day tour explores the contrasts between the traditional English garden designs with the use of exotic species and the increasingly popular use of native Australian plants in the changing gardens styles of Victoria.”

This booklet authored by Ray Sumner and published by the Victorian National Parks Service in 1982 interprets the Steiglitz Historic Park, proclaimed in 1979, and covering 655 hectares of land, including parts of the township of Steiglitz and much of the surrounding Steiglitz goldfield. Steiglitz is about 60km west of Melbourne and about half way between Geelong and Ballarat.