Visit Of British Warships
15 March 1924 Visit of British warships On 15 March 1924 the squadron of British warships, which had been visiting Adelaide for four days, sailed for Melbourne. The two battleships, Hood and Repulse , and five light cruisers, Delhi , Dauntless, Dragon, Danae and Dunedin , were on a ten-month world tour. The two huge battleships had to anchor off Glenelg, but the cruisers were berthed at Outer Harbour and open for inspection. On 11 March 1000 men drawn from the ships marched through the city, and for the next three days the crews were entertained by the people of Adelaide. Rear-Admiral Sir Hubert Brand, of the flagship Delhi , who heard of the death of his wife in England, was invited to Victor Harbor to stay at Mount Breckan for a few days. In recognition of the town’s hospitality the squadron sailed to Encounter Bay on their way to Melbourne. A flagpole was raised on the Bluff where the Union Jack was dipped in salute as the ships passed Rosetta Head. The ships also passed as close as possible off Robe with the battleships five miles off-shore and the cruisers closer at two miles off. The two battleships were lost during World War II. The Hood was sunk, when a salvo from the Bismarck exploded ammunition on her deck, off Greenland, on 24 May 1941. Only three of her complement of 1419 men were rescued. The Repulse was sunk by Japanese bombers, on 10 December 1941, off Malaya. Advertiser, 11 March 1924, pp. 16 &17, 12 March 1924, p. 13, 15 March 1924, p. 14. Victor Harbor Times, 21 March 1924, p. 2. History of the Second World War, Volume 2 No 5, Purnell, 1967. Martin Middlebrook, Patrick Mahoney, Battleship, Penguin, 1979.
Castle Hotel And William Maxwell
16 March 1959 Castle Hotel and William Maxwell The Castle Hotel on South Road at Edwardstown, which was demolished in 1984, was licensed on the 16 March 1959. Looking at the vast expanse of car park and shopping centre which replaced it, it is difficult to imagine that at one time there was a large house, surrounded by trees, which was called ‘Woodlands’. The house began as the modest dwelling of Alfred Weaver, who arrived in 1839, and additions were gradually made. When William Maxwell, a Scottish sculptor, took over the property in 1875 he decided to make it into some resemblance of a Scottish castle to remind him of home. Having a large family, more additions were made over the years and a tower and parapets adorned the large house. His work as a sculptor was also being recognised and he was commissioned to complete the porch at the University and to design the figure of Industry which was to top the old Savings Bank building in Currie Street. His most notable work, and his labour of love, is the statue of Robert Burns on North Terrace. Maxwell was working on the statue of John McDouall Stuart, which is now in Victoria Square, when he died on the 20 July 1903, and it was finished by a Sydney sculptor. Eric Gunton, Gracious Homes of Colonial Adelaide , 1983, p. 143.
St Francis Xaviers Cathedral
17 March 1856 St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral The foundation stone of St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral was laid on 17 March 1856. Bishop Murphy first convened a meeting in February 1848 to consider the building of a cathedral, but it was some time before the plans were under way. The design of architect Richard Lambeth was selected and work on the foundations began in April 1851. However, the withdrawal of state aid that year together with the large exodus to the Victorian goldfields brought the project to a halt. In 1854 Bishop Murphy obtained revised plans from England and construction of the first portion of the building began again in 1856. This was dedicated on 11 July 1858, and in 1860 the chancel was sanctified. The building remained at this stage for twenty years until it was enlarged in the 1880s. In the 1920s further work costing £60,000 was done to enlarge the cathedral, complete the facade, and raise the tower to a height to include a temporary bell chamber. The completion of the long-awaited spire was begun in 1995. Susan Marsden, Paul Stark, Patricia Sumerling (eds), Heritage of the City of Adelaide, Corporation of the City of Adelaide, 1990, pp. 179-181.
The Royal Visit
18 March 1954 The Royal Visit Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived for their first visit to South Australia on Thursday, 18 March 1954. Some 200,000 people lined the route from the Parafield Airport, where they were met by the Premier, Tom Playford, to Government House. In 1952 the people of Australia had been disappointed when the visit of the then Princess Elizabeth was prevented by the death of her father, King George VI, while she was en route to the country, and she had to return to London. This time she came as reigning monarch and was greeted enthusiastically by huge crowds everywhere. On Friday, 19 March, the Royal Progress through Adelaide was attended by an estimated 300,000 people. In the afternoon the Royal couple were taken to the races at Morpettville and to the Adelaide Oval for a cricket match between country teams. During the following week the Royal couple visited Whyalla and Port Lincoln, saw children gathered at the Wayville Showgrounds, visited Renmark, and the Queen opened Parliament. The newspapers were full of the Royal visit and for the week the Royals were here their activities dominated the scene. Advertiser, 19 March 1954.
Destitute Asylum
9 March 1849 Destitute Asylum The first meeting of the Destitute Board, appointed by the Government, took place on 19 March 1849. At first they dealt with people in need of immediate assistance, but as the problems of the poor, infirm or orphaned in the colony escalated the Board had to find accommodation for those without anywhere to live. In May 1851 some of these dependents moved into temporary new premises which were part of the barracks complex next to Government House. The first building, around which the Destitute Asylum on Kintore Avenue grew, was built in 1857. Over the years other buildings were added, and were divided into nearly 50 separate usages, grouped around quadrangles. One of the main buildings was the Lying-in Hospital which was a large complex by 1881, but it had declined by 1900 and closed down in 1919 partly because the Queen’s Home (Queen Victoria Hospital) built in 1902, began to take unmarried mothers in 1917. This building was remodelled and renovated for use by the Chemistry Department although few structural changes were made. The chapel was built as a schoolroom for orphanned children in the Asylum in 1865 and became the chapel for the Imperial Garrison when the children were moved to the Industrial School at Magill and the Grace Darling premises at Brighton. The conglomeration of buildings also included a nursery, store, wash-house, stables, and morgue. Only four of the buildings now remain and are used to house the Migration Museum. Susan Marsden, Paul Stark, Patricia Sumerling (eds), Heritage of the City of Adelaide, Corporation of the City of Adelaide, 1990, pp. 258-260.
Gold Escort
19 March 1852 Gold Escort On 19 March 1852 the Commissioner of Police, Alexander Tolmer, and his party of troopers trotted down King William Street to the Treasury Building to deposit the gold, valued at £18,456, they had brought back from the diggers in Victoria. This was the first of several gold escorts which, under the Bullion Act, helped to restore South Australia’s dwindling finances. The idea of providing the escort was Tolmer’s, and he suggested to the Lieutenant-Governor that he could find a shorter route to the Victorian fields by taking a direct line to Mount Alexander from Wellington, through what he called the 100 mile scrub, in all a distance of something over 300 miles. The return trip took 14 days and, apart from a brief encounter with ‘half a dozen of the most cut throat looking scoundrels I ever beheld’, as he described them, the journey was uneventful. For his enterprise Tolmer was honoured with a public meeting to express the thanks of all South Australians. The second escort arrived on 4 May with £70,000 worth of gold. The journey was re-enacted as part of the Bicentenary celebrations in 1988. Alexander Tolmer, Reminiscences, Volume II, Sampson Low, London, 1882, pp. 19, 148.
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.