Arthur Henry Freeling

Major Sir Arthur Freeling, Bt
South Australian Commissioner of Public Works
In office 24 October 1856 – 20 March 1857
Premier	Boyle Finniss
Succeeded by	Samuel Davenport
Personal details
Born	26 July 1820
Died	26 March 1885 (aged 64)

Sir Arthur Henry Freeling, 5th Baronet (26 July 1820 – 26 March 1885) was the fifth Surveyor General of South Australia.

Freeling was the son of John Clayton Freeling and grandson of Sir Francis Freeling, Bt, and the elder brother of Sir Sanford Freeling, KCMG.^[1]

Freeling enlisted into the Royal Engineers and ultimately took service under the South Australian Government as Surveyor-General. In this capacity he did some valuable exploring work, and was a member of the Executive and Legislative Councils prior to the concession of responsible government.

He married, in 1848, Charlotte Augusta, daughter of Sir Henry Rivers, 9th Rivers baronet.

He was elected to the newly constituted Legislative Council in March 1857, and sat till August 1859, when he resigned.^[2] He was a member of the Finniss Ministry as Commissioner of Public Works from October 1856 to March 1857, when he retired rather than relinquish the permanent post of Surveyor-General, which he resigned in 1861, and returned to England. He was then a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Engineers, but became a major-general on retiring, and in 1871 succeeded as 5th Baronet of Ford and Hutchings, Sussex. In 1860, the Victorian government botanist, Ferdinand von Mueller named Eremophila freelingii in his honour. The type specimen of the species had been collected by George Charles Hawker on Freeling's expedition to Lake Torrens.^[1][3][4]

Sir Arthur died on 26 March 1885, when he was succeeded by his son Harry, the 6th Baronet of Ford and Hutchings, Sussex.

References

1. Buxton, Gordon. "Freeling, Sir Arthur Henry (1820–1885)". Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
2. "Memorabilia.". South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900). Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia. 3 January 1860. p. 3. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
3. von Mueller, Ferdinand (1860). "On the genus Eremophila". Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land. 3 (2): 295. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
4. "Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators (H)". Australian National Botanic Garden. Retrieved 25 January 2016.

• Mennell, Philip (1892). " Freeling, Major-General Sir Arthur Henry". The Dictionary of Australasian Biography. London: Hutchinson & Co. Wikisource