Simpson Newland CMG (2 November 1835 – 27 June 1925), pastoralist, author and politician, was a pioneer in Australia who made significant contributions to development around the Murray River.

[1] Simpson Newland was at first a sickly boy, but the open air life improved his health, and he became a competent stockrider and bushman.

In 1864 Newland took up station life on the Darling River in New South Wales some 50 miles from Wilcannia, and became more and more interested in the indigenous people and the natural history of the country.

He is best known as author of the book Paving the Way, but was also a pastoralist from the River Darling area where his Marra Station had an out-station named Undelcarra which is said to be Aboriginal for 'under the hill with running water'.

[2] He entered the House of Assembly in 1881 as member for Encounter Bay, and soon afterwards brought in a measure to build a north to south railway on the land grant system which was defeated.

In June 1885 he became Treasurer of South Australia in the Downer ministry but, finding the strain of his duties too much for his health, resigned the position a year later.

In two pamphlets, The Far North Country (1887) and Our Waste Lands (1888), Newland gave an account of his journey and his views on the possibilities of the districts traversed.

On his return, encouraged by his friend Sir John Langdon Bonython, for whose paper (The Advertiser) he had written a number of articles, he wrote his novel, Paving the Way, which embodied many of his experiences as a pioneer and with indigenous people.

Newland also published a second novel, Blood Tracks of the Bush: An Australian Romance, in 1900, which was less successful than his earlier work, "partly because inferior, but also because he courageously and accurately portrayed horrific mass-murders of Aborigines by police and pastoralists.

[8][9][10] On Newland's return to Adelaide at the end of 1893, he began collecting material for a pamphlet on the Northern Territory, and the necessity for its being linked to the south by a railway.

A great step forward was made in 1914, when the Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Joseph Cook, pledged £1,000,000 from the Commonwealth if each of the three states interested would spend a similar amount, which is what occurred.

[citation needed] Major Victor Marra Newland MC, OBE (1876–1953), their third son, had a distinguished military career, was a successful business man, a member of the stock exchange, and in the period 1933–38 represented North Adelaide for the Liberal and Country League in the House of Assembly.