Major-General Sir Arthur Henry Freeling, 5th Baronet (26 July 1820 – 26 March 1885) was the fifth

Surveyor General of South Australia The Surveyor General of South Australia (also stylised Surveyor-General) is a position originally created for the Surveyor General for the colony of South Australia. The post is held by an official responsible for government surveying Sur ...

Early life

Freeling was the son of John Clayton Freeling and grandson of Sir Francis Freeling, , and the elder brother of Sir Sanford Freeling, . In 1848 Freeling married Charlotte Augusta, daughter of Sir Henry Rivers, 9th Rivers baronet.

Career

Freeling enlisted in the

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

and later served under the South Australian Government as Surveyor-General. In this capacity he did some valuable exploring work in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. He also served as a member of the Executive and Legislative Councils prior to the concession of responsible government. In March 1857, Freeling was elected to the newly constituted Legislative Council, where he sat until his resignation in August 1859. He was a member of the Finniss Ministry of South Australia as Commissioner of Public Works from October 1856 to March 1857, when he retired rather than relinquish the permanent post of Surveyor-General. In 1861, he retired as Surveyor-General and moved back to England. There, he served as a lieutenant-colonel and a major-general in the Royal Engineers before retiring. In 1871, he became the 5th Baronet of Ford and Hutchings, Sussex. In 1860, the

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

government

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria, Australia ...

named a newly discovered flowering plant '' Eremophila freelingii'' in his honour. The

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

of the

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

had been collected by

George Charles Hawker Sir George Charles Hawker (21 September 1818 – 21 May 1895) was a South Australian settler and politician. Early life Hawker was born in London, the second son of Admiral Edward Hawker and his first wife, Joanna Naomi (née Poore). He was edu ...

on Freeling's expedition to

Lake Torrens Lake Torrens ( Kuyani: ''Ngarndamukia'') is a large ephemeral, normally endorheic salt lake in central South Australia. After sufficiently extreme rainfall events, the lake flows out through the Pirie-Torrens corridor to the Spencer Gulf. ...

in South Australia.

Death

Freeling died in England on 26 March 1885. His son Harry succeeded him as the 6th Baronet of Ford and Hutchings, Sussex.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Freeling, Arthur Henry 1820 births 1885 deaths People educated at Harrow School Royal Engineers officers Surveyors General of South Australia Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom Members of the South Australian Legislative Council