Proclamation
28 December 1836 Proclamation Some 550 colonists gathered on the shore of Holdfast Bay on the afternoon of Wednesday 28 December 1836 to hear Captain Hindmarsh read the proclamation authorizing his Commission as Governor and Commander in Chief of the new Province of South Australia. Entries in the Buffalo log-book give some idea of the events of the day. The morning was moderate and fine with a westerly wind. In the afternoon the marines and Captain Hindmarsh and other officers landed. A 21-gun salute was fired after the Governor’s Commission had been read and the flag hoisted. A further 13-gun salute was fired as the Governor left the shore to return to the ship. Apparently the Aborigines gathered there, not to be outdone, set fire to scrub that, according to a settler, ‘burned grandly’. The new colony’s inauguration was marked with fireworks! H.M Cooper, A Naval History of South Australia , Adelaide, 1950, pp.52-3.
Elder Park Rotunda
28 November 1882 Elder Park Rotunda The Rotunda in elder Park was given to the people of Adelaide by Thomas Elder and officially opened on 28 November 1882. It was fabricated by MacFarlane’s Saracen Foundry in Glasgow and shipped from London on 14 February. The task of erecting it was taken by Charles Farr who raised the floor eighteen feet. Reporting on the event on 29 November the Observer said: The portion of ground between King William Road and the Lake is admirably situated as a recreation ground of the kind so frequently met with in continental cities and when it has been levelled and the edges sloped down to the Torrens bank … there will be no prettier spot around Adelaide than the unpromising looking hollow on which for months past the operation of filling up has been carried on. City of Adelaide Heritage Survey 1981-86 , Parklands, p.62.
Port Misery
29 November 1839 Port Misery T. Horton James wrote in the South Australian Register of 29 November 1839: The shore is an uninhabitable swamp and the few people who are living in wigwams at Port Adelaide are too busy engaged in landing boards and rolling up casks to take any notice of a party of ladies and gentlemen up to their knees in mud, trying to reach the shore … This is Port Adelaide! Port Misery would be a better name, for nothing in any other part of the world can surpass it in everything that is wretched and inconvenient … Colonel Light had decided on establishing the main harbour in the Port River but instead of making it four miles upstream, as he would have wished, it had to be placed a further two miles upriver because it was nearer firmer ground and closer to Adelaide. But at low tide there was a great expanse of mud and sudden high tides hindered the landing of passengers and goods in flat-bottomed boats as there was no wharf. It is hard to imagine now that the area of West Lakes down to Port Adelaide was for years a mosquito-ridden swamp with Port Misery as the first introduction into South Australia for many immigrants. Susan Marsden, A History of Woodville , 1977, pp.13-4.
Bhp Port Pirie
3 November 1888 BHP Port Pirie On 3 November 1888 Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd (BHP) invited tenders for the supply of building materials and a builder for the erection of silver refining works at Port Pirie. In 1889 the refinery began operations, alongside the smelters which had been established by the British Broken Hill Blocks, an offspring company of BHP. Later BHP acquired the British operation and concentrated the smelting of ore at Port Pirie, closing down the smelters in Broken Hill. In 1915 the other mining companies in Broken Hill, North Broken Hill and Broken Hill South, decided to co-operate in forming the Broken Hill Associated Smelters and shortly after the Zinc Corporation joined the company and later became the principal shareholder through their association with Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd. After enlarging the plant in 1925 the Port Pirie smelters became the largest of its kind in the world. With the installation of the complicated machinery necessary to extract a variety of metals the plant was able to refine lead, zinc and silver as well as some gold and other by-products. The growth of the town through the influence of this industry led to it being declared a city in 1953, the largest provincial centre outside Adelaide. V.M. Branson, Port Pirie Sketchbook , Rigby, 1976, pp.16-8. Nancy Robinson`, Reluctant Harbour , Nadjuri, 1976.
Pope Pauls Visit
30 November 1986 Pope Paul’s visit On Sunday 30 November 1986 Pope Paul, on his first visit to Australia as head of the Catholic Church, conducted Mass for all South Australians at Victoria Park Racecourse. More than 180,000 people gathered under a hot sun to witness the Pope’s arrival in the Pope-mobile and join in the service. He led the congregation through the Mass which involved nine languages, including Pitjantjatjara, Polish and Vietnamese. Many ethnic people dressed in their national dress, particularly the Pontiff’s fellow Poles. The visit to Adelaide came towards the end of a tour of Australia; the day before the Pope had been in Darwin and after the service in Adelaide he left for Perth. On his arrival on the Saturday night the route from the airport to the Town Hall, where he was given an official welcome, was lined by thousands of people holding candles. At the Town Hall the Pope lit the Advent Candle on the balcony as a symbol of peace and Christian faith. Advertiser , 1 December 1986.
Santos
4 November 1966 SANTOS On 4 November 1966 the SA Gas Company signed a contract with the South Australian and Northern Territory Oil Search (SANTOS), which had been formed in 1954 to search for oil and gas on leases covering 860,000 square kilometres of SA and Queensland. In 1963 discovery of natural gas at Gidgealpa and then at Moomba in July 1966 made the supply of natural gas to SA an economical proposition. The contract, the first for natural gas signed in Australia, gave the Gas Company the franchise to supply to consumers the gas produced from the SANTOS fields and was due to run for twenty years. Of course, prior to this all gas was manufactured from coal but because natural gas was drier than ‘town’ gas and burnt with a hotter flame, all existing appliances had to be converted for its use. This mammoth task was given to an American firm who began the conversions in August 1968 and by mid-1970 over 100,000 consumers had had their appliances converted. The phasing in of natural gas took over a year but the Osborne plant continued to supply manufactured gas to ICI and was finally shut down in October 1979. Peter Donovan and Noreen Kirkman, The Unquenchable Flame , Wakefield Press, 1986, pp.265-68.
Olympic Dam
5 November 1988 Olympic Dam The Premier, John Bannon, officially opened the Olympic Dam mine at Roxby Downs on 5 November 1988. The Western Mining Company discovered the mineral deposit, which contains copper, gold, silver and uranium oxide, in 1973 and the total resource is estimated at 2000 million tonnes, one of the largest metallic mineral occurrences discovered in modern times. The presence of uranium brought protests from some areas of the community but the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act was passed on 21 June 1982 and the final decision to proceed with the project was made in 1985. Construction work on the plant and the new township which is built on the red soil of the desert some 13 kms away and 600 kms north of Adelaide was begun in 1986. The mine which has about 30 kms of underground tunnels has the capacity to produce annually 45,000 tonnes of copper cathode, 1900 tonnes uranium oxide, 27,000 ounces gold and 555,000 ounces silver. There is a grinding and flotation mill, hydro- metallurgical plant and a copper smelter and refinery to treat the ore. Advertiser, 5 November 1988, pp.20-4.
Barbara Polkinghorne
6 November 1988 Barbara Polkinghorne On 6 November 1988 a memorial service for Barbara Polkinghorne was held at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens. She was accorded this honour for her work over many years in women’s affairs. The Garden, just below the grounds of Government House near the Torrens Parade Ground, called the Garden of Remembrance and the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Statue, was unveiled by Lady Muriel Barclay-Harvey, wife of the Governor, on 19 April 1941. The inscription on the pedestal of the statue reads: This Garden of Remembrance and the Flying Doctor Base at Alice Springs were established in the Centenary Year of 19356 by the women of South Australia as a tribute to the pioneer women of the State. Money for the Garden and the Flying Doctor Base was raised through various activities conducted by women of the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Trust, set up in 1935. The land for the Garden was donated by the City Council and the statue, in Waikerie limestone, was sculptured by Ola (Carola) Cohn of Melbourne. Also on the pedestal is a sun dial, designed by George Dodwell, the government astronomer, and the words ‘The hours vanish yet they are recorded’. M. Broughton, Chronicle Cameos , Nadjuri, Jamestown, 1977, pp.19-23.
Sir John Morphett
7 November 1892 Sir John Morphett Sir John Morphett who died on 7 November 1892 was one of South Australia’s earliest settlers. He had met Colonel Light while living in Egypt and on his return to London was one of the supporters of the colonisation scheme. He came to SA in the Cygnet which reached Kangaroo Island in September 1836. In the early years of the colony he made many excursions into the hinterland and bought properties for himself and many people in England for whom he was agent. He took up sheep farming at various places and because of his explorations was able to obtain some of the best country. In 1837 he owned one of the only two horses in the colony and in later years continued his interest in horses and racing. He was appointed a Member of the Legislative Council in 1843 and continued in politics until he retired in 1873 when he was President of the Council. He also served on many committees including the Botanic Gardens and the Agricultural Society of SA, was a director of the SA Railway Company and in 1840 became Treasurer of the City Corporation. He built his house, ‘Cummins’, at what is now Morphettville and the property remained in the Morphett family until 1977 when it was bought by the State Government to be used as a museum. Rodney Cockburn, Pastoral Pioneers of South Australia , Lynton Publications, 1974.
Myponga Reservoir
8 November 1962 Myponga Reservoir The official opening of the Myponga Reservoir was conducted by the Governor, Sir Edric Bastyan, on 8 November 1962. Investigations into a proposal for a dam on the Myponga River began in 1930 but the proposal was deferred in favour of the construction of the Mount Bold dam on the Onkaparinga River and the South Para dam to the north of Adelaide. However, by 1954 it became apparent that another major storage was required and the plans were revised. Work began on 9 November 1956. The dam is constructed of concrete and contains 72,900 cubic yards; it is 156 feet above the stream level and the roadway on top of the wall is 742 feet. The reservoir has a capacity of 5905 million gallons from a catchment area of 48 square miles. The trunk main to Happy Valley Reservoir is 29.5 miles long and had to traverse difficult terrain in parts. The dam supplies towns on the Fleurieu Peninsular. In 1962 the Mount Bold dam wall was raised to increase the capacity from 6,662 million gallons to 11,500 million. Souvenir Official Opening Myponga Reservoir , 1962.