General Edward Charles Frome (7 January 1802 – 2 November 1890) was a prominent

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

officer and Surveyor General of South Australia.

Early life

Born in

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

on 7 January 1802, Frome was orphaned early in his life. He was educated in

Blackheath, London Blackheath is an area in Southeast London, straddling the border of the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Lewisham. It is located northeast of Lewisham, south of Greenwich and southeast of Charing Cross, the traditional ce ...

, England, where he became a close friend of

Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...

Career

He received his commission in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

in 1825. He was involved in the

Rideau Canal The Rideau Canal, also known unofficially as the Rideau Waterway, connects Canada's capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, to Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston. It is 202 kilometres long. The name ''Rideau'', French for "curtain", ...

construction in Canada in 1827 to 1833. In September 1839 Frome arrived in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

on the ship ''Recovery'' to take up an appointment as the colony's third Surveyor General. He was also a member of the

South Australian Legislative Council The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the House of Assembly. It sits in Parli ...

(2 October 1839 to 14 June 1843). He made an important contribution in surveying large areas of South Australia for new immigrants to settle upon. He was also a competent artist and made many sketches and paintings of landscapes on his surveying expeditions. In one of his sketchbooks, there is a sketch of a Milmenrura village in the south-east of South Australia consisting of a cluster of about twelve established Aboriginal homes. It is annotated with the note "burnt by me, October 1840". This was apparently part of the retribution for the Maria massacre of shipwrecked survivors a few months earlier. In 1843 he led an expedition to the mid-north of South Australia and was the first to accurately map

Lake Frome Lake Frome / Munda is a large endorheic lake in the Australian state of South Australia to the east of the Northern Flinders Ranges. It is a large, shallow, unvegetated salt pan, long and wide, lying mostly below sea level and having a total s ...

. After his ten-year term expired he returned to England and was subsequently stationed in

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

, Scotland and Gibraltar. Between 1869 and 1874 he served as

Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey The Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey is the representative of the British monarch in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a Crown dependency of the British Crown. The role of the Lieutenant Governor is to act as the ''de facto'' head of state in Guernsey ...

Later life and legacy

He retired in 1877 with the army rank of general, and died on 2 November 1890 at

Ewell Ewell ( , ) is a suburban area with a village centre in the borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, approximately south of central London and northeast of Epsom. In the 2011 Census, the settlement had a population of 34,872, a majority of wh ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. His name was given to two lakes –

in the state's north-east and

in the state's south-east; Frome River in the

Lake Eyre basin The Lake Eyre basin ( ) is a drainage basin that covers just under one-sixth of all Australia. It is the largest endorheic basin in Australia and amongst the largest in the world, covering about , including much of inland Queensland, large porti ...

; and

Frome Road Frome Road is a connecting road in the South Australian capital city of Adelaide. It starts from North Terrace in the Adelaide city centre, running in a northerly direction past the University of South Australia, the site of the old Royal Adela ...

, a major thoroughfare in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

References

* McGrath, Sandra; & Olsen, John. (1981). ''The Artist and the Desert''. Bay Books: Sydney. , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Frome, Edward Charles Australian surveyors History of Adelaide Explorers of South Australia 1802 births 1890 deaths British Army generals Royal Engineers officers Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich 19th-century British painters British male painters Gibraltarian emigrants to England Surveyors General of South Australia Members of the South Australian Legislative Council Colony of South Australia people 19th-century Australian politicians 19th-century British male artists

Early life

Career

Later life and legacy

See also

References