Matthew Moorhouse

Matthew Moorhouse ( * 1813 in the UK, † March 29, 1876 in Bartagunyah in Melrose, South Australia, Australia) was a general practitioner, an official and a dairy farmer. He had studied medicine in London. He came in June 1839 to Australia and settled at the Encounter Bay, where he cultivated the first European country.

He was appointed the first Protector of Aborigines in South Australia. As Protector of Aborigines had to perceive the land interests of Aboriginal people to supervise agreements between the settlers and Aborigines to bring adjudicate disputes or violations of the law in court. Above all, he should evangelize the aborigines to Christianity. In the interest of perception for the Aboriginal sometimes came into conflict with the government and the colonists, which earned him the respect of the Aboriginal and many settlers.

Moorhouse was a member of the Adelaide Philosophical Society and its vice- president in 1853. He was also a leading member of the Literary Association as well as the Statistical Society and was in 1841 appointed Justice of the Peace. In 1849, he campaigned for the construction of the railway to Port Adelaide.

On 4 January 1842 he married Mary Ruth Kilner in Adelaide, with whom he had three children together.

1856 Moorhouse returned back to Britain, where he recruited immigrants to South Australia. After that, he traveled through North America and examined the local education system. When he returned to Australia, he thanked the Protector from and was elected to the City Council Adelaide and 1860 in the House of Assembly and worked for the British Crown. In 1862 he resigned from his offices and was a dairy farmer.

After a serious illness he died in 1876.