On 14 November 1853, Adam Lindsay Gordon arrived at Port Adelaide on the 510-ton three-masted barque SS Julia, under command of Captain GW Britton. The Julia was built only the previous year in Aberdeen by Alexander Hall & Sons for JJ Melhuish.

Besides Lindsay, there were 13 other passengers listed as being on board – Mr Taylor, Mr and Mrs Heegan, Dr Powell, Mr and Mrs Thompson and Mr Mortimor in the cabin; with Mr James Donaldson (District clerk) and two sons Charles and Ebenezer, Mr Bailey, Messrs Haigh (two), Mr Rayson, and Mr John, in the steerage.

Lindsay had just turned 20 during the voyage, on 19 October. The ship had departed St Katherine’s Docks, London, on 6 August.

Lindsay Gordon was met at the wharf in Port Adelaide by members of the Ashwin family of O’Connell Street, North Adelaide, with whom he initially stayed. The Ashwins were friends of Lindsay’s father. Charles Francis Godfrey Ashwin (a draughtsman for the Central Board of Main Roads) had arrived only two months previous and was staying with his older brother Alfred Jenkin Ashwin, an electoral clerk for North Adelaide. Three days later, on 17 November, Adam Lindsay Gordon enlisted with the South Australian Mounted Police as a trooper, despite letters of introduction from his father for a higher position.

Caption: Port Adelaide waterfront, 1848, Samuel Thomas Gill (State Library of South Australia, SLSA, B 3701). The light-coloured two-storey building at image centre is the second customs house, built in 1840.