Young Rowland had a strong bent towards art, as he showed when, at the age of thirteen, he won the prize, a handsome box of water-colour paints, offered by the proprietor of the _London School Magazine_ for “the best original landscape drawing by the youth of all England, under the age of sixteen.” He painted the scenery for the school theatre, and made many water-colour sketches in different parts of our island, his style much resembling that of David Cox. He was an admirer of Turner long before Ruskin “discovered” that great painter; and, as his diary shows, marvelled at the wondrous rendering of atmospheric effects exhibited in his idol's pictures. Nearly all my father's scenery and sketches perished in a fire which partially burnt down Hazelwood School; and few are now in existence. After the age of seventeen he gave up painting, being far too busy to devote time to art, but he remained a picture-lover to the end of his days. Once during the long war with France he had an adventure which might have proved serious. He was sketching Dover Castle, when a soldier came out of the fortress and told him to cease work. Not liking the man's manner, the youthful artist went on painting unconcernedly. Presently a file of soldiers, headed by a corporal, appeared, and he was peremptorily ordered to withdraw. Then the reason for the interference was revealed: he was taken for a spy. My father at once laid aside his brush; he had no wish to be shot. In 1835 Rowland Hill resigned to a younger brother, Arthur,[8] the head-mastership of Bruce Castle School, and accepted the post of secretary to the Colonisation Commissioners for South Australia, whose chairman was Colonel Torrens.[9] Another commissioner was John Shaw Lefevre, later a famous speaker of the House of Commons, who, as Lord Eversley, lived to a patriarchal age. But the prime mover in the scheme for colonising this portion of the “Island Continent” was that public-spirited man, Edward Gibbon Wakefield. William IV. took much interest in the project, and stipulated that the chief city should bear the name of his consort—Adelaide.