Village Settlements (South Australia)

The Village Settlements were communes set up by the South Australian government under Part VII of the Crown Lands Amendment Act 1893,[1] a scheme intended to mitigate the effects of the depression that was affecting the Colony.

It followed the New Zealand Village Settlements Act and similar schemes in Canada and New South Wales, and concurrently with Victoria.

Thirteen settlements were surveyed: Lyrup, Pyap, Kingston, Waikerie, Moorook, Ramco, Holder, Murtho, New Residence, Gillen, New Era and Charleston-on-Murray all on the River Murray, Mount Remarkable in the Mid North, and Nangkita to the south of Adelaide.

Holder and Murtho were proclaimed as Village Settlements by May 1896, Lyrup, Pyap, Kingston, Waikerie, Moorook and Ramco followed.

[citation needed] Some 2–3 miles (3–5 km) upstream (north) from Renmark, Murtho was better financed than the others, demanding £60 from families and £40 from singles as start-up capital.

[5] 160 acres of Government land on the banks of the Murray was allocated to the cooperative on perpetual lease; 98 men, 40 married women and around 70 juveniles left Adelaide by train on 20 February 1894 for Morgan, thence to Lyrup by steamboat.

The next settlement downstream from Lyrup, about 3 miles west of Loxton, it started out in March 1894 with 94 members on 9,145 acres (3,700 ha) and a total population of 388.

[4] On 19 February 1894, an advance party of twenty left for the Waikeri (as it was then spelled) settlement, for which 5,200 acres had been surveyed.

[14] Named for Peter Paul Gillen MHA, Commissioner for Crown Lands and champion of the Village Settlement scheme, it was one of the first to fail.

[4] "It was an example of communism in its worst phase, and the experiment at Gillen resulted in a dead loss to the State of 3,580 pounds.

"[15] 7 miles (11 km) upstream from Morgan was settled by 25 men, mostly married, many fishermen from Port Adelaide, and about 40 children on 2,000 acres (810 ha) .

597 acres (242 ha) around 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Melrose, on the western side of the Wilmington road, was settled by a party led by J. W.