Whyalla
28 September 1900 Whyalla On 28 September 1900 the Honourable John Lewis MLC, (father of Sir Essington Lewis), presented a petition to the Legislative Council for leave to introduce a Bill for construction of a railway from iron Knob to Hummock Hill and jetties at False Bay for BHP who leased the iron ore deposits in the area. The railway was built and the first train ran on 28 August 1901. Ore was taken by barges, pulled by tugs, across the gulf to Port Pirie. The first quarter mile jetty was completed by 1902. The men working at Hummock Hill lived in bag humpies, tents, or wood and iron buildings near the jetty. Wool was also brought from pastoral leases to the bay and shipped to Port Adelaide by ketch. There was a bullock track through the bush to Port Augusta but it was a trip of more than 10 hours with a fast team with 10 vermin gates to open and close and many tall sandhills to negotiate. The place was terribly isolated but from this grew Whyalla, Aboriginal for a place of water, and the name was changed from Hummock Hill in 1920. Newspaper Cuttings Book Volume 3, p.18. Whyalla Historical Society Paper, March 1949.
John Flynn
28 August 1911 John Flynn On 28 August 1911 John Flynn, a Presbyterian Minister, wrote to his father in Victoria about his trip up the Birdsville track as far as Pandie Pandie station some 11 miles from the Queensland border. This was only one of his many journeys through outback South Australia to preach to all kinds of people in this desert region. Earlier in the year he had been posted to the Smith of Dunesk Mission at Beltana and it was from this centre that he began his great work for the people of the inland. In December 1911 he helped establish a nursing hostel at Oodnadatta and in 1912 he was appointed superintendant of the Australian Inland Mission which began with one padre, one nursing sister, a nursing hostel and five camels. He spread his caring missions through northern Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland and in 1928 established the Aerial Medical Services to Cloncurry, Queensland. For this to be successful he needed to have suitable radio transmissions and after much trial and error George Townes and Alf Treager were able to develop a transmitter which could cover the great distances of the inland. On 17 May 1928 Dr St Vincent, with pilot Affleck at the controls, answered the first call received by the Australian Inland Mission and the Flying Doctor was a reality. On 7 May 1932, at the age of 51, Flynn married his secretary Jean Baird. In 1929 he was elected for a three year term as Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia. He died in Sydney on 5 May 1951 and is fondly remembered as ‘Flynn of the Inland’. Australian Dictionary of Biography , Volume 8, pp.531-34.
Captain Freeling And Lake Blanche
29 August 1857 Captain Freeling and Lake Blanche On 29 August 1857 Captain A.H. Freeling, the Surveyor-General, was in the Flinders Ranges on the way to Lake Torrens to confirm the discovery of George Goyder who had reported finding a large body of fresh water. Goyder, the Assistant Surveyor-General had made his first trip to the northern part of the Ranges earlier in the year. There he came upon Lake Blanche, which at the time was thought to be Lake Torrens as discovered by Edward John Eyre, and which because of heavy rains that year held fresh water. On his return south Goyder reported his discovery which created great excitement in Adelaide and the eastern colonies. The government decided to send another expedition under the leadership of Freeling, complete with a boat, to explore this waterway. The main members of the party, which included George Hawker, were taken by the government schooner Yatala to Port Augusta where they picked up the drays and wagons sent from Adelaide. The boat was loaded on to a high-sided German wagon. The journey through the Flinders Ranges was rough and the going slow. At last on 3 September they reached the lake and set about launching the boat, but after pushing a smaller boat some quarter of a mile out into the shore it still did not float. Some of the party walked out into the lake for three miles and found water still only six inches deep. The boat was abandoned and the party returned to Adelaide to lodge yet another disappointing report on the difficulties of exploring further north. Hans Mincham, The Story of the Flinders Ranges , Rigby, 1964, pp.60-2.
Hugh Proby
30 August 1852 Hugh Proby On the side of a dirt road north of Quorn under the shade of a tree is the lonely grave of Hugh Proby who died on 30 August 1852. In 1851 Proby had taken three leases, two of which totalling 101 square miles were the start of Kanyaka. On the 30 August 1852 he had ridden after a mob of cattle which had broken away during a severe thunderstorm. On his way back he found the Willochra Creek was flooding and he was cut off; he attempted to cross, but it was running fast and deep and he drowned. He was buried two miles away and the gravestone reads: Sacred to the memory of Hugh Proby Third son of the Earl of Carysfort who was drowned while crossing the Willochra Creek August 30 th 1852 aged 24 years Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is Mark XIII This tablet was placed over this grave by his brothers and sisters in the year 1858 Newspaper Cuttings Book Volume 3, The Willochran , 1 April 1954, SLSA.
Falie
31 August 1923 Falie South Australia’s Jubilee sailing ship Falie was bought in the Netherlands by the Spencer Gulf Transport Company on 21 October 1922 and arrived at the Semaphore anchorage on 31 August 1923, after encountering rough weather in her passage across the Bight from Western Australia. From then on she was used for trade around South Australia transporting wheat from the West Coast and the Gulf. In 1936 she was put into interstate trade and carried timber to Tasmania. In 1940 the Navy Department requisitioned Falie for service and she was sent to Sydney. Commissioned as HMAS Falie on 4 October 1940 she was used as a tender to HMAS Rushcutter, the shore-based naval station at Rushcutter’s Bay. As an examination ship her job was to check the bona fides of ships approaching the port. In 1943 Falie was used as a store carrier in the north-east area moving stores into and around New Guinea. She arrived back in her home port or Port Adelaide after her war service on 16 October 1945, although the Naval Charter was not terminated until 2 August 1946 and Falie resumed work as coastal trader. Her last trip was to Kangaroo Island on 20 June 1982 and she was then put up for sale. Fortunately the Jubilee 150 Board bought her for the people of South Australia and after being restored and refurbished she continued to make a valuable contribution to South Australia’s maritime traditions. Robert Sykes and Gordon Pickhaver, Falie: Portrait of a Coastal Trader , Falie Project, 1985.
Caroline Herbig
4 August 1859 Caroline Herbig Caroline Herbig gave birth to her first child, a son, on 4 August 1859 in her home which was actually a hollow red gum tree near Springton. Caroline was a remarkable woman; she came to South Australia from Germany at the age of 16 years with two uncles and their families and within a short time one uncle, Johann Leske, was killed in an accident. On the day of the funeral Caroline was left to look after the two young Leske children at the farmhouse when a man, who thought there was money hidden in the house, attacked her, hung her from a tree and stabbed her in the chest. The tree bent with her weight and she was able to struggle free and in spite of her injuries run to neighbours for help. The next year, at 18, she married Friedrich Herbig and moved to his property where they lived in the tree – 70 feet high and 20 feet across the base at its widest – for several years. With the birth of a second son Friedrich built a two-roomed pine and pug house where Caroline was to bear another 14 children. She died in 1927 having outlived her husband by 40 years and seven of her 16 children. She could write only her name and speak just a little English, yet this child of peasant stock displayed amazing strength and endurance. The knotted and gnarled old tree is now a memorial to her and her family. Judith Brown, Country Life in Pioneer South Australia, Rigby, 1977, pp 81-5.
Edward John Eyre
5 August 1839 Edward John Eyre Edward John Eyre’s second trip into South Australia’s inland began on 5 August 1839 when he set sail for Port Linco9ln having decided to use that port as his starting point. From there, with four white men and two Aborigines, he followed the coast around as far as Streaky Bay where he made a depot. He and one Aborigine then rode on for another 100 miles but finding little water and inhospitable country they were forced back. The party then struck east across the peninsular which was later given Eyre’s name and after naming the Gawler Ranges they made their old camping site in the Flinders Ranges where there was a dependable spring. From there Eyre set out north again and travelled further than on his first trip and again sighted the large lake now named Lake Torrens and although he thought it contained water he was also sure it would be salt. In the meantime his offsider, Baxter, ventured east through the southern Flinders until he viewed the scrubland on the eastern side. They all returned through what is now known as the Clare Valley and reached Adelaide in October. As with his first expedition Eyre made this one at his own expense. Hans Mincham, The Story of the Flinders Ranges , Rigby, 1964, pp25-6.
Admella Disaster
6 August 1859 Admella disaster Early on the morning of 8 August 1859 two dishevelled men arrived at the Cape Northumberland lighthouse to report that disaster had befallen the ship Admella two days earlier. On Saturday 6 August at about 5 am the ship had been driven on to rocks some 20 miles west of the Cape. Part of the stern section had remained intact and some of the passengers and crew managed to cling to this. A rescue party was sent out as soon as it could be organised and a boat came from as far away as Portland in Victoria to help. The news reaching Adelaide was very scanty at first and it was not until 15 August that the whole drama unfolded and the Register was able to report that 80 lives had been lost, but 22 people had been saved from the wreck and those who managed to make it to the shore. The Admella , of 478 tons, had been commissioned in 1858 especially for the Adelaide to Melbourne run and her name derives from the two cities. South Australian Register , 9-15 August 1859.
Carl Linger
7 August 1849 Carl Linger Carl Linger, who was born in Berlin in March 1810, arrived in South Australia on 7 august 1849. He had studied music in Germany and had composed several symphonies, two operas, masses and other concert pieces and a number of sacred songs, some dedicated to the Princess Royal of Prussia. On his arrival in South Australia he invested in farming, but was not very successful so sold out and set up as a music teacher. For several years he was leader of the Adelaide Choral Society and one of the founders of the Liedertafel. He is probably best remembered as the composer of the music of Song of Australia which won a prize of 10 guineas offered by the committee of the Gawler Institute. The words are by Caroline Carlton, who also won 10 guineas, and their song was chosen from 93 competitors. Linger died on 16 February 1862 and was buried in the West Terrace Cemetery where he is remembered every year on Australia Day. George Loyau, Notable South Australians , Adelaide 1885.
Gladstone Gaol
8 August 1881 Gladstone Gaol On 8 August 1881, two months to the day after it had been opened, Gladstone Gaol received its first female prisoners. Some time before 1879 Charles Mann, MP for the district, was asked by the residents what he could do for the town. He asked them if they would like a gaol and two years later Gladstone Gaol, said by one writer to have a gloomy solidity, was opened. Mr Pollett from the Redruth Gaol at Burra was appointed head keeper and the gaol had accommodation for 60 male and female prisoners. It appears that it rarely had a full complement and the only ‘lifer’ was a cat called Lady Jane Grey. The gaol was closed in 1939 but was used in the early part of World War Two as an internment camp for German and Italian nationals regarded as a security risk. Later in the war a military detention barracks for soldiers absent without leave. In June 1953 the gaol re-opened as a medium security prison and was finally closed in December 1975 because the facilities were regarded as outdated. In 1979 the gaol was again used, this time for the making of the film Stir . Mail , 3 August 1952, Newspaper Cuttings Book Volume 3, p.51.