Town plan with lots coloured and name index giving owners' names and lots selected. Details include Government House, reserves, street names, first telegraph pole, hachures indicating relief. Part coloured map photolithographed by Frazer S. Crawford, Surveyor General's Office

South Australia assumed control of the Northern Territory in 1863. Its official title was the Northern Territory of South Australia, until 1911, when it passed to the control of the Australian Government.

In 1863. B T Finnis had been sent north to select and lay out a town, but this attempt ended in disarray. A later attempt to select a site for the main settlement was made by John McKinlay, but this also ended disastrously. Finally in 1868, George Goyder, Surveyor General of South Australia went north himself with a large contingent of 150 men. Within months of arriving in early 1869, he had selected the site of Palmerston on Port Darwin. The port had been charted and named by Captain John Lort Stokes in the Beagle survey of the Northern Territory coast, 1837-1844. Goyder established a camp at Fort Hill (on the right of the plan). He laid out the town to the north of this using the same grid pattern as Adelaide, with its central square. Palmerston as laid out by Goyder, now forms the Darwin city centre. Street names commemorate the work of his surveying team.

In addition to laying out Palmerston, Goyder's team surveyed three other townships: Southport, Daly and Elizabeth. Of these, only Southport eventuated. A further 700,000 acres of land for farms were also surveyed so that settlement of the Territory could go ahead.

Palmerston on Port Darwin was more commonly known as Port Darwin, because shipping consignments were marked to the port rather than the settlement. This confusion was ended when the Commonwealth Government assumed control in 1911 and named the town Darwin. In 1980 a new town of Palmerston was laid out some 20 kilometres south of Darwin. It was declared a city in 2000.

Goyder, G.W. (George Woodroffe), 1826-1898

Kerr, Margaret The surveyors: the story of the founding of Darwin Adelaide: Rigby, 1971

Powell, Alan Far country: a short history of the Northern Territory 4th edition. Carlton South, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2000

Williams, Michael George Woodroofe Goyder : a practical geographer Adelaide, [S. Aust.]: Salisbury C.A.E., [1982?]

Australian Dictionary of Biography online, Goyder, George Woodroffe (1826-1898)

Northern Territory Library Exhibition: Goyder Expedition Exhibition

SA Memory: Did you know? George Woodroffe Goyder

State Records of South Australia: Goyder's Northern Territory expedition