Matthew Moorhouse, a medical practitioner, arrived in South Australia from Staffordshire, England, in June 1839 to take up appointment as the colony’s first permanent protector of Aboriginals.
From the 1880s Tommy Walker, or Poltpalingada Booboorowie, was a leading figure among the community of Aboriginal people who lived on the fringes of white Adelaide society.
Robert Barr Smith had a genius for business. He was also a generous philanthropist, though his modesty dictated that much of the funding was dispensed anonymously.
Sarah Jane (Jeanna) Young (née Foster) (1866–1955), inspired by Catherine Helen Spence, became secretary of the Effective Voting League (1897), wrote and lectured on proportional representation and, with Spence, campaigned for eight weeks in Sydney to have the Hare-Spence voting system adopted in Federal elections. She would later run for parliament and receive an OBE.
Sir Charles Todd was a leader in the fields of meteorology, astronomy and communications, and is best remembered for masterminding the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line.