Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/403

 ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 7^11 The late George Fife Angas OF the men who took ;in active hand in founding South Australia, no one was greater in loftiness of purpose and in actual work than George Fife Angas. His position, enterprise, and elevated sentiments led him to join in this venture at a time when help was most needed, and his ingenuity and courage made possible the foundation of the Province in 1836 ; and he continued to the year of his death its candid, liberal friend. Ajxirt, also, from his work in colonisation, he was one of the b(st-known philanthropists of his time. Edwin Hoddcir, in the preface to his life; of George I'ife Angas, thus sums up his works : — "He was one of the fathers and founders of South Australia ; he originated the .South Australian C(Mnpany, and the Bank of South Australia ; he assisted in founding the Union Bank of Australia and the National Provincial Bank of P^ngland ; he fought the battle of the slaves in Honduras and the Mosquito Coast, and obtained an Act of Parliament for their emancipation ; he circumvented a reignini): monarch and assisted those who were subjected to, and helped to stay, a despotic religious persecution ; his foresight and shrewdness won for Great Britain the possession of New Zealand as a colony. He realised a large for- spink, Photo tune, lost it in pure philanthropy, and, after years of poverty and distress, regained it fourfold through the reckless land purchases of an adventurer ; he established the first Sunday-school union in the North of England, was one of the founders of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society and other well-known institutions, and was, 50 years ago, one of the leading 'philanthropists' of this countr) (England)." The name of George Fife Angas figures thus prominently in the history of South Australia ; and his life-work was of immense importance to the Province. He was born in St. John's Lane, Newcastle, England, on May i, 1789, and was de.scended