Captain Francis Cadell
26 October 1853 Captain Francis Cadell On 26 October 1853 the Legislative Council gave a dinner in honour of Captain Francis Cadell, one of the pioneers of river transport, who had just completed a successful trip up the River Murray from Goolwa to Swan Hill and return. In August the paddle-steamer Lady Augusta , named for the wife of the Governor, Sir Henry Young was brought through the mouth of the Murray after being sailed from Sydney. She was fitted to carry eight first-class and sixteen second-class passengers and had eight crew. Her passengers on the inaugural voyage up stream included the Governor, his wife and two members of the Legislative Council. Cadell also had built, in Goolwa, a barge called Eureka and with this in tow the party set out on 25 August and reached Swan Hill on 17 September. On the return journey 441 bales of wool and other cargo were loaded on to the barge for delivery to the wharves in Goolwa, hence to be transported to Port Elliot for shipment. This was the culmination of the plans of Young, Cadell and William Younghusband, merchant and politician, who saw the great river as playing an important part in South Australia’s trade. With others Cadell formed the River Murray Navigating Company which operated for several years before it failed, partly because Cadell apparently was not a good businessman and also because of difficulties with Victorian authorities, Eventually Cadell left South Australia and was murdered by South Sea Islanders while pearling near Torres Strait. Leslie McLeay and Nancy Cato, River’s End , Wakefield Press, 1985, pp54-60.
Covent Garden Restaurant Fire
27 October 1948 Covent Garden Restaurant Fire Two men and three women died when fire swept through the Covent Garden Restaurant in King William Street early in the evening of 27 October 1948. Five others were injured, three seriously. The fire began in a griller in the kitchen and spread quickly through the flue to the second and third floors and was soon burning fiercely. The public were ushered out safely, but some of the kitchen staff were caught in the rear of the building. A number of people jumped from the upper windows on to awnings or onto the street, while others slid down drainpipes, some suffering serious burns. Firemen, using extension ladders, rescued many diners. The fire was brought under control in about an hour in front of a crowd of 6000. It was one of the worst fires in Adelaide for over forty years, for although the Moore’s fire in March of the same year was spectacular no lives were lost. Advertiser , 28 October 1948.
Strike At Burra
29 September 1848 Strike at Burra After the first brief strike at the Burra Burra Mine in mid-September 1848, a more serious stoppage was triggered on 29 of the month when a notice was posted indicating a reduction in wages. This seemed unnecessary as, although there had been a slight fall in the world price of copper, the three dividends paid to shareholders in 1848 had been at the rate of 200%. A committee of miners wrote to the directors pointing out that they could not survive on the reduced rate of pay; however, the directors were adamant that the lower rates would be instituted and by mid-October many miners were leaving for other parts. The general strike began on Survey Day, 11 November, the day on which tributers bargained for pitches, but these had been reduced by the directors from 70-80 to 21, effectively throwing some 300 miners out of work. When the miners refused to work at all the directors gave notice that they must vacate the company’s cottages. As there were many unemployed Cornish miners ready to take their place, the case of the Burra miners was virtually a lost cause and by mid-November some began to go back to work, and although a few held out until January 1849 essentially the company won the battle. Ian Auhl, The Story of the ‘Monster’ Mine, Investigator Press, 1986, pp.96-100
Scots Church
3 September 1850 Scots Church The foundation stone of Scots Church was laid on 3 September 1850 by the Reverend John Gardner and opened for worship just over a year later under the name of Chalmers Church in memory of the late Reverend Dr Chalmers, Moderator of the First General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. The change to Scots Church came some 80 years later. The building was criticised for its ‘austerity’ and its ‘rather unsightly appearance’. Because of shortage of funds compromises had to be made and the roof was covered with shingles rather than tiles and the planned steeple had to wait. The tall, elegant spire, added in 1856, was deemed to complete the building giving it a much more pleasing appearance. An English bell given by Sir Thomas Elder, was placed in the steeple and an iron roof replaced the shingles. In the 1890s the church gained an organ and imported stained glass windows. It is the last surviving Presbyterian Church in the city erected before the Union of 1865 and is a pleasant feature of North Terrace. Max Lamshed, Adelaide Sketchbook , Rigby, 1967. p.46
The Warship Protector
30 September 1884 The warship Protector On 30 September 1884 South Australia’s first and only warship Protector arrived at Port Adelaide to an enthusiastic welcome. Two years earlier Governor Jervois had warned about the colony’s defenceless position and the government passed legislation allowing for a contract to be placed for a steel-hulled cruiser to be built at Newcastle-on-Tyne. The HMCS (Her Majesty’s Colonial Ship) Protector was 920 tons, 188 feet long with a beam of 30 feet and her armaments consisted of six main guns and five Gatling guns making her, said one paper, ‘the most formidable ship of her size afloat’. She cost £65,000 and was sailed through the Suez Canal to South Australia by Captain J.C.P. Walcot RN. Besides her naval duties she was used for other purposes and helped in a number of rescues of ships in distress and took over from the military forces the duty of firing the salute at Glenelg on Proclamation Day, a task she performed for years. After serving in China with the Royal Navy at the time of the Boxer rebellion in 1900, she became the property of the Commonwealth after federation in 1901. H.M. Cooper, A Naval History of South Australia, Adelaide, 1950, pp.96-109.
Radium Hill
4 September 1953 Radium Hill On 4 September 1953 the manager of the mine at Radium Hill announced the completion of setting up of the uranium mine for initial production would cost £5 million with an annual operating cost of £2 million. When W.B. Greenwood, who had been prospecting in the Flinders Ranges since the 1890s, sent a specimen of some minerals he had found to Adelaide for analysis in 1910 he probably did not realise the importance of his discovery. Douglas Mawson, lecturer in geology at the University of Adelaide, identified the emerald green material as torbanite which contains uranium. That year the Radium Extraction Company of South Australia was formed and secured leases at Mount Painter, in the northern flinders and at Radium Hill near Olary. In 1923 another company was floated in Melbourne and took over three other smaller companies to become the Australian Radium Corporation and erected a treatment plant and refinery at Dry Creek near Adelaide. But the failure to find high grade ore and the difficulties of the remoteness of the area, lack of water and transport costs, forced the leases to be abandoned in 1928. With the development of atomic research during World War Two the Australian Government decided to work the area again but the end of the war in 1945 terminated the Mount Painter work although Radium Hill operated until1961. Hans Mincham, The Story of the Flinders Ranges , Rigby, 1964, pp.294-96.
Blinman
5 September 1862 Blinman On 5 September1862 the new copper mine at Blinman in the Flinders Ranges was christened ‘in due form, and in the presence of about 80 persons’ according to a report in the Register of 19 September. Robert ‘Peg-leg’ Blinman, the discoverer of the copper deposit in 1859 made enough money, so it is believed, from the sale of the lease to the land to purchase Roundwood Hotel at Beautiful Valley, now Wilmington. Blinman died in Quorn in January 1880. The town of Blinman, some 300 miles north of Adelaide, at the head of Parachilna Gorge is his memorial and is still littered with remnants of the mining operations. The mine was sold to the Yudnamutana Mining Company in 1862 for £70,000 and from that time operated with some success to 1874 with ore worth £250,000 being extracted. The enterprise collapsed with the fall in copper prices in the mid-1870s. It was worked irregularly following the construction of the railway north of Port Augusta according to the fluctuations in the price of copper until it was finally abandoned in 1918. Hans Mincham, The Story of the Flinders Ranges, Rigby, 1964, pp.191-92. P.R.G. Dunlop, ‘Economic Importance or Moonta to S.A.’ in South Australiana , Volume X No. 1 March 1971.
Stock Exchange
6 September 1901 Stock Exchange The new Stock Exchange building was opened by the Premier J.G. Jenkins on 6 September 1901. One of its main features was to be the federation stained glass window, designed by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Burne Jones, which was described in the Register the next day: In the centre will be a representation of Britannia, and on one side the figure used by the artist in the picture ‘The Star of Bethlehem’. This is the form of a Negro and will typify South Australia. Alongside will be an Australian bushman and on the opposite side a representation of Canada and one of the inhabitants of the King’s Indian Dominion. The sun, which never sets on the British Empire, night and morning, will all be illuminated in the window, which will be a fine piece of work. In spite of being damaged by fire in 1938 and again in 1942, the exterior of the building and its window remain intact, although the red brick edifice with its corner turret is now overshadowed by taller, less ornate structures. City of Adelaide Heritage Survey 1981-86.
Cj Dennis
7 September 1876 C.J. Dennis C.J. Dennis was born on 7 September 1876 in the hotel in Auburn where his father was licensee. A few years later the family moved to Gladstone and then to the Beetaloo Hotel in Laura. After attending Christian Brothers College in Adelaide for a time the young Clarrie returned to Laura and worked for a while as a clerk to a solicitor. He then spent some time working for a small social weekly named the Critic in Adelaide, but before he was 21 he was back in Laura serving as a barman in his father’s hotel. This only lasted a short time before the restless C.J. set off for Broken Hill where he arrived with virtually no money and no prospects. Several jobs later he left there and re-appeared in Adelaide, back on the staff of the Critic of which he eventually became editor. In 1905 with others, he launched an illustrated journal called the Gadfly in which were printed some of his verses, but the venture failed in 1909 and Dennis began a career as a freelance journalist, soon moving to Melbourne where he was to remain. In 1913-14 ‘Backblock B allads’ was published and from these verses grew his most enduring work ‘The Sentimental Bloke’. With the success of the ‘Bloke’ Dennis married and settled down in Toolangi to continue his writing. He died on 22 June 1938. On 29 March 1953 a memorial drinking fountain was unveiled in Auburn and in 1976 a cavalcade of writers in Adelaide for the Festival of Arts made the journey to ‘Den’s’ hometown to pay homage to the author of the ‘Bloke’. Alec H. Chisholm, The Life and Times of C.J. Dennis, Angus & Robertson, Melbourne, 1982.
Bonython Hall
8 September 1936 Bonython Hall On 8 September 1936 1400 guests saw the Governor General Lord Gowrie open Bonython Hall in the University grounds. The medieval style hall was built with funds from a bequest of Sir John Langdon Bonython who left £40,000 for a Great Hall for the university. Shortly before construction began a letter to The Mail from ‘A correspondent’ pointed out Light’s original plan which had Pulteney Street extended by a road sweeping across the then existing Exhibition ground to Frome Road. He went on: To block future extension of Pulteney Street, even by the erection of a beautiful building, would be an unpardonable sin to posterity and probably serve to complicate the traffic problems in the future. However, land had already been invested in the University in fee simple by Act and the road would have cut the University in two. The matter was referred to parliament but the issue was not taken up by any politician and the building went ahead as planned. City of Adelaide Heritage Survey 1981-86 Volume 7 Parklands, p.29.