Regent Theatre
30 March 1967 Regent Theatre On 30 March 1967 a charity variety show was held in the Regent Theatre to mark its closure for major renovations and alterations. These alterations reduced the grand theatre to two small cinemas with the foyer, including the marble staircase, and stalls lost to create a shopping arcade. Since then a further small cinema has been incorporated into the complex. The Regent Theatre opened with glitter and glamour on the 29 June 1928. Described as a pleasure dome with its concealed lighting, soft carpets, paintings, tapestries, Italian statuary, and magnificent chandeliers, the theatre was the ultimate in movie theatre opulence. On opening night an 18 piece orchestra played the William Tell Overture to an accompaniment of changing coloured lights, followed by a stage show and a film, Flesh and the Devil, starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. The famous Wurlitzer organ was installed a few months later. Prices ranged from one shilling to two shillings and tenpence halfpenny. The theatre closed for a time during the depression, but renovations in 1939, saw it emerge again as one of the city’s leading theatres until the changes in the late 1960s. The Wurlitzer organ is now in St Peter’s College. Susan Marsden, Paul Stark, Patricia Sumerling (eds), Heritage of the City of Adelaide, Corporation of the City of Adelaide, 1990, pp. 121-122 Michael Burden, Lost Adelaide, Oxford University Press, 1983, p.181.
Sir William Henry Bragg And Sir Will
31 March 1890 Sir William Henry Bragg and Sir William Lawrence Bragg. William Lawrence Bragg was born in Adelaide on 31 March 1890. William Henry Bragg arrived in South Australia in 1886 to take up the post of Professor of Pure and Applied Mathematics at the University of Adelaide. He was also to give instruction in physics although he was not trained in the subject which was to become a major part of his life in later years. On 1 June 1889 he married Charles Todd’s daughter, Gwendoline. William Lawrence was the first born of his three children. In 1895 Ernest Rutherford visited Adelaide and he and Bragg became firm friends. The following year Bragg learned of W.K. Rontgen’s discovery of X-rays. Excited by this discovery he, with his able assistant, A.L. Rogers, set about producing a new radiation. William Lawrence Bragg was educated at St Peter’s College and the University of Adelaide. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge and after graduating became a fellow and lecturer in natural science. By this time his father was back in England and the two worked together on X-rays. They were both awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915. During World War I both men worked on different problems for the war effort. Bragg senior was appointed to the Chair of Physics at University College, London. He was knighted in 1920 and died in London on 12 March 1942. In 1938 William Lawrence succeeded Rutherford as Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge. He also received many honours in his career and was knighted in 1941. He died on 1 July 1971. Bede Nairn, Geoffrey Serle (eds), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, pp. 387-389.
Lunatic Asylum North Terrace
31 March 1902 Lunatic Asylum, North Terrace The old Lunatic Asylum on North Terrace was closed on 31 March 1902 although it was used as a consumptive home for a time afterwards. The asylum was commenced in 1850 and served until the Parkside Asylum opened in 1870. On 11 August 1866 134 acres at Parkside were purchased for a new complex. Architect Robert Thomas (son of Robert Thomas of The Register ) designed a building modelled on the latest asylums in England which were fireproof for safety and surrounded a central quadrangle. The buildings were constructed of iron girders with the spaces filled with concrete, the passages were partly paved and partly cement, the staircases were of colonial slate, and Glen Osmond stone was used for the walls, while there were fire proof ceilings beneath the timber and galvanised iron roof. Walls of stone were built around the buildings with a Ha Ha (deep trench or moat) on each side to discourage any escape attempts. Much of the ground was cultivated for vegetable gardens and fruit trees. The eight foot high stone wall surrounding the property was built in 1885. It was reduced in height to three feet in 1962. The rather grim looking institution was known as the Parkside Lunatic Asylum until 1913 when it changed its name to Parkside Mental Hospital, and this was again changed in 1967 to Glenside Hospital. Other buildings have been added over the years and the changing attitudes to mental illness and modern treatment has seen improvements within the hospital. Although the exterior of the original buildings looks much the same these are now used mainly for administration. The North Terrace Asylum was demolished in 1938 and the ground absorbed into the Botanic Gardens. 1870-1970 Commemorating the Centenary of Glenside Hospital, 1970.
Sir Richard Hanson
4 March 1876 Sir Richard Hanson Sir Richard Hanson died on 4 March 1876 and was given a State funeral in recognition of his service to South Australia. Hanson had worked in Canada and New Zealand before arriving in South Australia in 1846. A capable lawyer, he helped to draw up the constitution and other important measures, and became the colony’s first premier, serving from 1857, the year South Australia gained responsible government, to 1860. However, his term of office was not without problems. On 27 May 1859 the government faced a motion of no confidence over its conduct of the Babbage exploration expedition. The government had financed the expedition which was to examine and survey the country between Lake Torrens and Lake Gairdner. Not happy with the way Babbage was conducting the exploration, the government sent Captain Warburton to take over. Reports about the unsatisfactory nature of the expedition led to questions in parliament. As a result the Hanson Ministry resigned, but after a week of negotiations, which failed to produce a new Ministry, Hanson was asked to return. In 1861 he was appointed Chief Justice. Knighted in 1869, he acted as Governor from November 1872 to April 1873. He was the first Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, but died before he could give the inaugural address. Douglas Pike (ed), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 4, pp. 336-340.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
5 March 1958 Queen Elizabeth Hospital The Queen Elizabeth Hospital at Woodville was officially opened on 5 March 1958 by the Queen Mother who unveiled a portrait of Queen Elizabeth in the foyer. In the early 1950s it was realised that a new public hospital, preferably in the north-western area of Adelaide, was needed to relieve the demands on the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The site at Woodville was chosen as it was centrally situated in the fast expanding industrial area between the city and the Port. The first building to be completed was the Nurses Home in 1954, and this was used partly as a maternity block. The main maternity block was completed by the Architect-in-Chief’s Department in May 1957 and was opened for patients on 6 September. With extra work for the Government the work on the General Hospital block was contracted to a private firm and this was opened in 1959. The final cost of the hospital was £7 million. It is the state’s second largest teaching hospital and is affiliated with the University of Adelaide. In the last 30 years the hospital has been added to and updated and operates one of the best renal units in Australia. The first successful kidney transplant was performed there on 21 February 1965. Sunday Mail, 29 February 1964, Newspaper Cuttings Book, Volume 3, p. 104. SSLM. usan Marsden, A History of Woodville, 1977, pp. 220-222.
Royal Music Festival
5 March 1958 Royal Music Festival On 5 March 1958 some 200,000 people attended a music festival in Elder Park. The festival was staged to celebrate the visit of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The Queen arrived at the Park on a flower decorated barge. The official party viewed the proceedings from the Rotunda. The sound stage was filled with 1500 choristers, representing 144 choirs; there were 500 orchestral musicians and four pipe bands. As part of the evening’s entertainment a pageant of decorated boats passed down the lake, amongst them a swan chariot, golden carriage, river steamer, gondolas and a royal crown. At the end of the evening the Queen re-embarked on the barge for the journey back up-river to the eastern side of the City Bridge. Earlier in the day the Queen Mother met women at the Art Gallery, children at Victoria Park, and opened the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Flower day was held to coincide with the visit so the city was a mass of floral arrangements. The music festival was repeated the following night with the Governor’s wife, Lady George, standing in for the Queen. The Advertiser, 6 March 1958.
Caroline Herbig
19 March 1927 Caroline Herbig Caroline Herbig died on 19 March 1927. Caroline came to South Australia from Germany, at the age of 16 years, with her two uncles and their families. 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, Caroline married Johann Friedrich Herbig, a tailor by trade, who had taken up some land near Springton in the Barossa Valley. There they lived in the base of a large, old gum tree for several years. The tree was 70 feet high and 20 feet across the base at its widest. On 4 August 1859 Caroline gave birth to her first child, a son. With the birth of a second son Friedrich built a two roomed pine and pug house, and Caroline went on to bear another 14 children. Friedrich died in 1886 but Caroline lived another 40 years, and outlived 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 durability. On 24 November 1968 the descendants of Caroline and Friedrich Herbig held a reunion, and unveiled a plaque on the knotted and gnarled old tree as a memorial to a remarkable woman. The plaque reads: ‘This tree served as the home of Johann Friedrich Herbig in the years 1855-60’. The tree is a memorial to Caroline, and her family, and a reminder of the hardships many early settlers had to endure. David Herbig, Once there was a very old Gum Tree, 1979. Judith Brown, Country Life in Pioneer South Australia, Rigby, 1977, pp. 81-85. Eric Gunton, Memorial in Stone , 1984.
Lionel Hill
19 March 1963 Lionel Hill Lionel Laughton Hill died at Norwood on 19 March 1963. Hill was born in Adelaide on 14 May 1881, the son of a farmer, and lived in Maitland until he was 12 years old. He first worked for a city chaff merchant and then at the railway workshops at Islington from 1901-1914. Known as ‘Slogger’, he came to prominence as a footballer, playing for Norwood, West Adelaide and North Adelaide, and played in the first interstate match in Melbourne in 1901. From 1910 to 1924 he was State Secretary of the Tramways Employes’ Union and Federal President from 1912 to 1924. He was President of the SA Branch of the Labour Party 1917-18. He was elected to the House of Assembly in 1915 for East Torrens, but from 1918 -1933 he represented Port Pirie. He became Premier of SA in 1926 on the resignation of John Gunn, but was defeated at the polls in 1927. He was again Premier from 1930-33 when he left to become Agent-General in London. From 1934 to 1943 he was Chairman of the ACT Industrial Board. The Advertiser, 20 March 1963, p. 3. Bede Nairn, Geoffrey Serle (eds), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9.
First Agricultural Show
2 March 1840 First Agricultural Show The first competitive Agricultural Exhibition was held at Fordham’s Hotel in Grenfell Street on 2 March 1840. Some two years later, on 24 January 1842, a meeting was held to discuss the formation of a permanent Agricultural and Horticultural Society. The Governor, Sir George Grey, became the Patron and the first show of this Society was held on 16 February 1842 in the Schoolroom on North Terrace. The show attracted a large crowd and was said to be ‘a most creditable one’. Two years later in February 1844 the show was held in the parklands towards the eastern end of North Terrace. A pavilion, 100 feet by 40 feet, was erected under old gum trees. Large samples of wheat and other cereals were arranged on two sides. Two rows of tables, each 80 feet long and six feet wide were ‘crowded with the rarest and most valuable fruits, vegetables, dairy produce and samples of various colonial manufactures and minerals’. Twelve hundred people attended. Prices for fruits at this time were: 1s 9d – 2s per pound for grapes, while peaches sold for 1s 6d, 2s – 3s per dozen. James Blacket, History of South Australia , Adelaide, 1911, pp. 128-130
Moores Fire
2 March 1948 Moore’s fire Charles Moore’s department store in Victoria Square was destroyed by fire on 2 March 1948. The building was reduced to a shell three and a half hours after the fire broke out at about 6.30 p.m. The fire began in the space between the roof and the second-floor ceiling and spread quickly causing an estimated £500,000 damage. It was a most spectacular fire with flames leaping 20 feet high through the roof before it collapsed. By morning the building, built in 1916, was a scene of devastation, although amazingly the marble staircase, a well known feature of the store, survived relatively unscathed. Luckily, as the fire started after closing time, no-one died in the inferno although a number of firemen were treated for injuries and the effects of smoke. The store was rebuilt and continued trading as Charles Moore’s until 1980 when the business closed down. The State Government bought the building and turned it into law courts, adding a central dome above the handsome staircase. This is now the Samuel Way Building, named for a former Chief Justice of South Australia. It is an impressive example of how historical buildings can be ‘recycled’ rather than destroyed and replaced. The Advertiser, 3,4 March 1948.