Level 3 Mortlock Wing State Library of South Australia North Terrace Adelaide SA 5000

South Australia as a place of residence for Anglo-Indians by Parsons and Harry, 1892

This publication is in hand written script and was issued by the Anglo-Indian Colonisation, South Australian Board of Advice and Correspondence which had a board of eleven prominent citizens including an influential figure, Langdon Parsons.

It is a rare surviving example of the literature seeking the immigration of Anglo-Indians, and has an association with an influential figure in both South Australian and Northern Territory history.  This volume is inscribed: ‘T. Gill Esq, with the compliments of the authors’, and is therefore particularly rare being annotated by the authors.

Parsons

Parsons J L and Thomas Harry, South Australia as a place of residence for Anglo-Indians* by The Hon. J L Parsons MP and Mr T Harry, Adelaide 1892.

This hand written script was issued by the Anglo-Indian Colonisation, South Australian Board of Advice and Correspondence which had a board of eleven prominent citizens.

This treasure is of historical significance as a rare surviving example of the literature seeking the immigration of Anglo-Indians, and for its association with an influential figure in both South Australian and Northern Territory history. The only other copy of this title in Australian libraries is at the Australian National Library. This volume is inscribed: ‘T. Gill Esq, with the compliments of the authors’, and is therefore particularly rare being annotated by the authors.

Langdon Parsons (1837-1903) is included in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. He was a contemporary and colleague of Gill’s, a South Australian Baptist minister, politician and prolific pamphleteer. He was elected to the House of Assembly in 1878, and became minister of education (1881-84), and minister controlling the Northern Territory. He was Head of the Parliamentary Party that visited the Northern Territory in 1882, Government resident (1884-90), and the first member for the Northern Territory (1890-93). Parsons argued for the Territory’s potential and pressed for developmental measures, including a railway and immigration of indentured Asian labour. During the 1890s depression he became increasingly conservative, and defended large landowners. It was during this time that this publication was prepared to encourage the immigration of Anglo Indians.

* Anglo-Indian was an archaic term used in relation to those of British paternal and Indian maternal heritage.

rgsp 994 P268 d 1892

1. Elizabeth Kwan, 'Parsons, John Langdon (1837 - 1903)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, On-line edition;


2. Australian National Library catalogue; Libraries Australia; John Langdon Parsons (www.nt.gov.au/administrator/pdf/cv/1884_parsons.pdf)