Art of William Light

In his Brief Journal Light wrote, 'The reasons that led me to fix Adelaide where it is I do not expect to be generally understood or calmly judged of at present ... I leave it to posterity ... to decide whether I am entitled to praise or to blame'. Boyle Travers Finniss, his friend and colleague, said, 'If Colonel Light had not stood firm ... the first colonists would have been ruined, the capital of the Company would have perished, and public feeling would have ruined the Commissioners'. Light gave Adelaide its belt of parklands, a feature of town planning ahead of the times. His fine self-portrait is in the National Gallery, Adelaide, and a portrait by George Jones, R.A., is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. In the Adelaide Town Hall there is another portrait which is a copy of the original held by descendants of the Light family in England. A statue by Birnie Rhind stands on Montefiore Hill, overlooking the city he founded. A monument over his grave, designed by Kingston and erected in 1843, soon crumbled and was replaced by a new one in 1905.