Cirrus@Austlit

‘Major Alexander Tolmer, South Australia’s first Inspector of Mounted Police, was one of the most remarkable men of his time. A cavalryman who was as much at home at sea as on the back of a horse, he was also a linguist, a musician, an artist and an author. After serving in the Portuguese Civil War in 1833, he joined the British Army, resigning in 1839 to come to Adelaide, where he took command of the newly-formed mounted police, afterwards becoming Commissioner, and taking part in several exploratory expeditions. Tolmer had many extraordinary experiences in the early days, when Adelaide was a frontier settlement, but few of the cases which he handled were stranger than the Gofton murder, with its fantastic sequel.’ (Publisher’s abstract p. 52)