Penang Story Lecture: From Penang to Adelaide: Surveyor-General William Light

Penang Story Lecture:

From Penang to Adelaide: Surveyor-General William Light

Date: Saturday 14 June 2014, 3.00pm
Venue: The Royale Bintang, 1 & 2 Weld Quay (Pengkalan Weld)
Admission: RM10
Admission and High Tea Package: RM 50 (limited to 30 guests only)

All proceeds towards the Penang Heritage Trust, a tax exempt charity

William Light (1786 – 1839), son of Captain Francis Light, was born in Kedah and grew up in Penang. After a notable military career in Europe and Egypt, Colonel William Light became the first Surveyor-General of the Colony of South Australia.

In designing the City of Adelaide Colonel William Light reveals the effect the landscape had on him. The form of Light’s plan is largely due to the topography and his sensitive response to the place. Analysis of the physical site, its creator and the people who use it, suggests the plan has been enjoyed, revered, and stoutly defended for generations. Accumulated layers of meaning and misunderstanding and social and political practices and pressures have left their mark. Nevertheless the pervading sense of significance remains attributable to Light’s intuitive act of creative genius. Set betwixt hills-face and harbour, spanning a river valley, laced with a unique figure-eight of open space, Adelaide demonstrates a rare rapport between the genius of place and plan. Today Light’s city remains a permanent testimony to a man who had the sense to recognise, and the ability to respect, the genius of the place.

KHKelly Henderson graduated in Telecommunications from the University of Adelaide, and obtained a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) from Flinders University of South Australia. She is currently Associate member of Australia ICOMOS; committee member of the Adelaide & Inner Suburbs Branch of the National Trust of South Australia, committee member of the Nature Conservation Society of South Australia Inc., Former Councillor of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia Inc (RGSSA) and formerly chairman of the RGSSA Geographical Heritage Committee. She is past President of the Adelaide Park Lands Preservation Association Inc. and Editor of Park Lands News (Adelaide Park Lands Preservation Association Inc., 2012-2014); and past Vice-President and Secretary of the Adelaide & Inner Suburbs Branch, National Trust of South Australia.

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