Hon. Henry Mildred, M.L.C.,
BORN at Portsea, England, March 9, 1795; one of the earliest settlers in South Australia, and a strong advocate for its colonisation. He bought 500 acres of land in New Zealand, intending to settle there with Baron de Thierry's party of colonists, but the colony of South Australia offering greater attractions, he dispatched his son Hiram in the surveying brig "Rapid," and had arranged to follow, when the South Australian Company engaged him to proceed to the North of England to purchase the appliances of a ship-building yard, to which was attached a patent slip, steam saw, and com mills. This he accomplished, and proceeded to the colony, with the manager, Mr. David McLaren, in the barque "South Australian," arriving at Kangaroo Island April 22, 1837. After some delay in the landing of this machinery and plant, the South Australian Company resolved to remove the whole to the main land, as Adelaide was then called. The engine and corn-mill were transferred to Parkside, and erected at the "Company's Mill," on the River Torrens. It was afterwards pulled down and removed, in consequence of the falling-in of the banks of that stream. Finding that their plans could not be successfully carried out, the South Australian Company made other offers to Mr. Mildred, which he declined, and retired into private life. He held a seat in the Municipal Council in 1841, which he occupied -for this and the two following years, taking also a leading part in most of the public questions that agitated the community. Among these may be mentioned the project to introduce the "Parkhurst" prison boys into the colony, which Mr. Mildred, with other leading colonists, resisted so strenuously that the scheme was abandoned. About this time he was defeated in a hard contest for the Burra representation in Parliament. In 1850 he was chosen one of the Commissioners of Main Roads, and in November of the same
