#GEORGE GOYDER BOOK COLLECTOR PLUS#

Many people called the inn Warland’s Hotel. The old Wheatsheaf Inn was opened in 1842 after William Warland purchased an original 80 acre section there in 1841. His linkages to this great house have not been forgotten. Perhaps because of his great significance to the state of South Australia previous owners have maintained an interesting set of framed photographs of the Surveyor General Goyder on the walls of the sitting room. The house is surrounded by a grand garden with English trees that date from Goyder’s ownership and above the front door a sand blasted picture of Warrakilla and the name enhances the entrance. The current owners feel sure George Goyder still roams the house as lights sometimes light up the front living room. This grand house has been partially destroyed by fire twice including in the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires but it has been rebuilt as it was. After several short term owners the property was acquired by the Ernest Crafter family in 1924 and they kept the property more than 30 years. After his own death in 1898 his second wife Ellen died not long after in May 1899 and Warrakilla was put up for public auction in the Adelaide Town Hall in December 1899 but it appears son David John Goyder stayed on the property at Warrakilla until he sold it in 1907. Goyder was interested in tree conservation and the property had extensive river flats along the Onkaparinga. The house which Goyder named Warrakilla was completed in 1883 when Goyder and his family took up residence on this magnificent country estate.

#GEORGE GOYDER BOOK COLLECTOR PLUS#

He then commissioned well known Adelaide architect Daniel Garlick to design him a grand Italianate house with several bay windows and 14 main rooms plus work rooms, cellar, stables etc on his 80 acre estate. But before he retired Goyder bought the old Wheatsheaf Inn at Mylor in 1879. Goyder held these posts and others until his own retirement in 1894 just a few years before his death in 1898. Despite this error Goyder was appointed as Surveyor General of SA upon Freeling’s retirement in 1861 as well as Valuator of Runs and Inspector of Mines. His boss Surveyor General Freeling had travelled around Lake Blanche before and had only found desert and his assessment was the correct one. Goyder made the mistake of thinking the lake always had fresh water and he never overestimated the nature of the South Australian countryside again. Goyder and three others went further and discovered a large freshwater lake teeming with ducks, birds and wildlife which was Lake Blanche. His survey took him to the Pitchi Richi gorge, the Willochra Plains and the Flinders Ranges. The State Library has a copy of his original 1857 diary which in simply marked 1857 Dy (for diary) Sr O (Survey Office). His explorations were reported in the press and Goyder become a known figure. Then in 1857 he wrote a diary on his explorations to the north of the state. From 1851 onwards Goyder worked in the drafting office of the SA public service and in 1855 he was promoted to General Superintendent of Field Surveys and First Assistant to the Surveyor General. He entered the SA public service in that year and later in the year he married Frances Mary Smith at Christ Church Anglican in North Adelaide followed by an unofficial wedding ceremony in the New Church in Carrington Street Adelaide. Both Goyder’s father and uncle were ministers in the New Church in England.

In 1851 George Goyder relocated to Adelaide to meet up with the Smith family from England who were members of the New Church or the Swedenborg Church like he was. George Woodroffe Goyder migrated to the colony of New South Wales in 1848 at the age of 22 years and settled in Melbourne in the Port Philip District. A collection of photogrpahs and Godyer in the house today. Built by Surveyor General George Goyder in 1883 incorporating the old 1842 Wheatsheaf Hotel building. Warrakilla homestead on the Onkaparinga River.

George goyder book collector