George Taplin wanted to become a missionary from the time that he was a teenager. In 1859, after beginning training as a Congregational minister, he was accepted as a missionary with the Aborigines' Friends' Association. He wished to attempt to redress the wrongs that he saw being done to indigenous people. Taplin chose for the site of a mission a traditional camping place on the shores of Lake Alexandrina known as Raukkan to the Aboriginal people, but called Point McLeay by the Europeans. In 1864 Taplin published what were the first Bible passages translated into an Aboriginal language (Narrinyeri) in Australia. He recorded many of the customs and stories of the Narrinyeri, and he was greatly respected by them. His fight for better conditions for Aboriginal people often brought him into conflict with those who wished to exploit them. George Taplin died in 1879, aged 47. His dedication to his work, and consequent overwork, contributed to his relatively early death.

Australian Dictionary of Biography Online: Search for George Taplin