General meeting
February 2025

Colonel William Light landed at Rapid Bay on 8 September 1836, and named the bay after his brig, The Rapid. Light left a survey party at Rapid Bay for nine weeks while he sailed north along Gulf St Vincent to find a site for settlement. The survey party included Dr John Woodforde, Light’s surgeon on The Rapid, and surveyor BT Finniss. They established a compound of tents and maintained a garden while they explored the region and hunted for food.
Taylor was introduced by Rob Kirk, a descendant of Dr John Woodforde. He described her as the new kind of ‘historical detective’ using the latest technology along with her detector.
Taylor started metal detecting at a very young age and has for a long time had a personal interest in history. Although she works in IT at a school, her hobby has led her to volunteer at State Records and for local historical groups. Murray Bridge RSL has praised her for her careful discovery of a soldier’s badge at Burdett.
Taylor’s Rapid Bay campsite project began in 2019 and she has been assisted by heritage and history professionals, including Heritage SA and by the Yankalilla District Council. The Aboriginal Affairs department has been contacted as the site may hold items of indigenous importance.
Her theory is that tents painted on the far-right hand side of J M Skipper’s watercolour of Rapid Bay are the site of her discoveries. The large audience, particularly residents of Rapid Bay, were rapt to hear this.
There have been five visits on public land at Rapid Bay where the ‘Rapid’ landed in 1836. Taylor’s findings include two Georgian Royal Naval buttons dating 1780s-1820s; an 1807 George III penny; a small copper/brass button and a small brass buckle; a brass pulley, a broken piece from possibly a harmonica and a bottle top. Other discoveries show the survey party cast lead musket balls for hunting. There are balls, lead offcuts and lumps of lead. Other items are stones and bones; the latter checked by State Heritage to be animal bones.