The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Cottar, Thomas Young
Cottar, Thomas Young, L.S.A., was the son of Richard Cotter, a purser in the navy, and was born at Bantry, Ireland, in 1805. He served in the West Indies as a naval cadet, and was for some time in charge of the Government store depot at Bermuda. Subsequently he returned to London, and qualified for the medical profession in 1832. In Dec. 1835 he was appointed surgeon to the inchoate settlement of South Australia by the Board of Commissioners of that colony. He arrived in South Australia in the Coromandel in August of the next year, and acted as colonial surgeon. Subsequently he went into private practice, and died at Port Augusta, where he latterly resided, on Jan. 9th, 1882. He was one of the editors of the South Australian Magazine, and founder of the Adelaide Institute.