First Adelaide Hospital
24 November 1840 First Adelaide Hospital On 24 November 1840 Dr Litchfield, Chairman of the Board of the Adelaide Infirmary, announced that the building of the new hospital on Hackney Road was progressing rapidly and part of it would be ready for occupation before the end of the year. The first Adelaide Hospital had its beginnings through the efforts of Governor Gawler who approached the people of the city for donations and used government funds, at a time of financial troubles in the colony, to make up the difference in the estimated cost of £1200. The 24-bed hospital, designed by G.S. Kingston, was built a little to the north of Botanic Road, the foundation stone was laid by Gawler on 15 July 1840 and the hospital was opened officially on 15 February 1841. Patients were charged £2 2s per week, although destitute people were admitted free. However, patients (presumably those at least well enough) were expected to assist in cleaning the wards and possibly even work in the garden. The hospital, with some additions, served Adelaide until 1856-57 when the first buildings of the present Royal Adelaide Hospital were erected. The old hospital was used for a time as part of the Lunatic Asylum built nearby until that institution was moved to Parkside, after which it was used for infectious diseases; t was demolished in 1938. G.L. Fischer, ‘Flour and Philanthropy: Some Notes on the First Adelaide Hospital’, S.A. Clinics: The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Volume 1, February 1961, No 1 pp.8-9.
Victor Richardson
28 October 1967 Victor Richardson On 28 October 1967 many sportsmen gathered to witness the official opening of the Victor Richardson gates at the eastern entrance of the Adelaide Oval. Grandfather of the Chappell brothers of Australian cricket fame in the 1960s and 1970s, the plaque on the gates lists the achievements of one of Australia’s greatest sportsmen: Cricket Football Capt. of Australia Capt. of SA 1922-23 NZ – 1928 Capt. Sturt 1920, 1922-23 th Af. – 1935-36 Played Sturt 1915-27 Eng. – 1930 Played – 3 Sturt p’ships Aust. – 1932-33 1915 – 1919 – 1926 Captain Sturt Club 1921-41 Lacrosse Baseball Sturt player 1921 Played for SA 1921 Honoured with American Helms award in 1925 for best Australian athlete. Presented by his many admirers together with the Adelaide City Council, SA Cricket Assn., Inc., SA National Football League and Sturt Sports Club Inc. Eric Gunton, Memories in Stone , 1984, p.97
Horse Tramway
29 October 1877 Horse Tramway On 29 October 1877, a wet and windy day, the Governor, Sir William Jervois, laid the first rail of the new tramway system from the city to Kensington, outside the Norwood Town Hall. A Bill authorising the construction of the horse tramway was passed on 27 September 1876 after the Adelaide and Suburban Tramway Company Limited had been successfully floated in August 1875 with a nominal capital of £25,000. The line was double except for a short section in Rundle Street between East Terrace and Pulteney Street. The car shed and stables were situated on a triangular piece of land on the north-west corner of Shipsters Road and Regent Street, Kensington. The stone shed could hold twelve cars and the stables housed 120 horses. The route ran along Shipsters Road to Kensington Road, down High Street to The Parade, north to Sydenham Road, west along Beulah Road and then along Rundle Street, Kent Town to east terrace and then the single track to Pulteney Street, around into Hindmarsh Square, Grenfell Street, north into King William Street, thence back into Rundle Street. The line was opened to the public without ceremony on 10 June 1878 with a half-hourly timetable and the fare to Kensington was threepemce. L.S. Kingsborough, The Horse Tramways of Adelaide and its Suburbs 1875-1907, Libraries Board Adel. 1967, pp.1-4.
East End Market
30 October 1903 East End Market On 30 October 1903 a Bill which provided for the Adelaide Fruit and Produce Exchange to be established was passed in the South Australian Parliament. This enabled William Charlick, proprietor of Charlick Brothers fruit and grocery business to form a company with a capital of £40,000 to build a new market area on land which had been purchased on East Terrace between Rundle and Grenfell Streets. The memorial stone was laid by the Governor, Sir George Le Hunte, on 24 April 1904 and on 2 May the market opened for trade. Further extensions were made over the years to cover the four aces allowed under the Act. The rather ornate building with its cantilevered, gabled canopies and symbolic cornucopia with the inscription ‘The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof’ came under attention again in the 1980s with plans for redevelopment of the site. The markets, including the section first built in the 1860s, were relocated to Pooraka and thus this colourful city institution came to an end on 30 September 1988. City of Adelaide Heritage Survey, 1986 , Volume 2, Hindmarsh Ward, p.88/c.
Royal Visit
31 October 1867 Royal Visit The first royal visit to South Australia, that of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, was made into a great occasion. In the afternoon of 31 October 1867 the Prince came ashore from his ship Galatea at Glenelg promptly at 2 pm and set out in a procession of cavalry and carriages containing the hierarchy of Adelaide to an official reception at the Town Hall. A triumphal arch 30 feet wide and 35 feet high had been erected as the south-west corner of the city and an even larger one, in all 90 feet wide and 40 feet high, at King William Street and Victoria Square, covered in green boughs and decorated with flags, bunting and garlands of flowers. Even shop-keepers not on the royal route had entered into the spirit of the occasion and put up flags and bunting, lamps and flowers over their premises. The highlight at the Town Hall was an enormous star 25 feet across and lit by gas. The Mayor, Mr Fuller, in his address to the Prince, no doubt echoed the sentiments of the citizens of Adelaide when he said: Though separated from Great Britain by many thousands of miles, we have lost none of our attachment to the mother country. The colony of South Australia was only 31 years of age and still felt strongly the ties with England. Thomas Worsnop, History of the City of Adelaide , 1878, pp.275-83
Test Flight
4 October 1911 Test flight At the Cheltenham racecourse on 4 October 1911 Lieutenant Watkins took his Vickers monoplane for test flight around the course. Reaching a height of 400 feet he completed five circuits, but on landing the end of the left wing struck a post and broke a stay. The following day on a further test flight the plane was caught in a gust of wind and as one wing touched the ground the plane overturned and although the pilot stopped the engine the plane was wrecked. The accident was an unfortunate blow to Watkins and Douglas Mawson as it was intended to take the plane to the Antarctic for exploration work there. The plane of nickel steel weighing 1200 pounds was 34 feet long and 45 feet from wing tip to wing tip. It was capable of covering 300 miles in five hours and was fitted out to travel on ice in the form of a sledge. Mawson’s party left Adelaide for the Antarctic trip in November 1911 without the plane. 125 Years of the Advertiser , Advertiser Newspaper, 1983, pp.87-8.
Colonel William Light
5 October 1839 Colonel William Light Colonel William Light who was responsible for the siting of Adelaide and the colony’s first surveyor-general led an exciting life before his appointment by the Commissioners for South Australia. He was born in Malacca, the son of the captain of a free-trader to India who had married the daughter of the sovereign of Malacca territory, King Quedah. The King gave his daughter the island of Penang as a dowry, but on the captain’s insistence this was handed over to Britain. William Light was educated in England and served as a Cavalry Officer in the 4 th Light Dragoons in the Peninsular War. As he was a linguist he was used in the Intelligence Service at one time narrowly escaping the enemy. Later he served in the Spanish Revolutionary War and then saw service in the navy of the Pasha of Egypt where he met John Hindmarsh who was destined to be the first Governor of South Australia. Colonel Light died of consumption in Adelaide on 5 October 1839 at the age of 54 years. He is buried in Light Square and a monument was placed over his grave in 1844. George Loyau, The Representative Men of South Australia, Adelaide, 1883, pp.155-58.
Captain Henry Roach
6 October 1889 Captain Henry Roach Captain Henry Roach who died on 6 October 1889 named Redruth at Burra after his home in Cornwall. The rank of ‘Captain’ was a title given to the man in charge of running a mine and Roach ran the copper mine at Burra for some 20 years. At the height of its mining operations Burra was a large town and to accommodate its law breakers a gaol was built at Redruth in 1856 to hold 30 prisoners, male and female. It was the first gaol built outside Adelaide but was closed in 1894 sometime after mining ceased. It was re-opened in 1897 to serve as a Protestant girl’s reformatory and operated until 1924. The solidly built gaol has survived the years well and it had a brief moment of fame when it was used in the filming of Breaker Morant, portraying a South Africa prison. The Burra area was chosen as the location of the film as its low, bare, rounded hills resemble the South African veldt. Eric Gunton, Tracing Our Towns , 1986, p.111.
Richard Hamilton
7 October 1837 Richard Hamilton Richard Hamilton with his wife and five of his six children arrived in South Australia aboard the Katherine Forbes on 7 October 1837. Son Henry joined them after completing his schooling in London. Hamilton had taken out a land order before leaving England and after living in a camp near the Torrens for a time the family moved to their land on the Sturt River in May 1838. Hamilton had some vine cuttings from a friend in South Africa and these were planted that winter. In 1854 Henry bought more land and built wine cellars which he named ‘Ewell’ after a village in Surrey. After the death of his mother at the age of 97 in 1886 Henry and his son Frank gradually bought all of Richard’s property which had been equally divided between the children in his will. After Henry’s death in 1907 Frank continued the business and had 1156 acres under vines. By 1929 the storage capacity of the winery was 400,000 gallons and probably one of their best known wines was Ewell Moselle. In June 1979 what was left of the vineyards, after they had been reduced by compulsory acquisition and urban spread, was sold to Mildara Wines Ltd who also purchased Hamilton’s Springton and Eden Valley properties. Alison Dolling, The History of Marion on the Sturt , Peacock Publications, 1981, pp.56-60.
Colin Ballantyne
8 October 1988 Colin Ballantyne Many people connected with the theatre in Adelaide gathered in the Playhouse of the Festival Centre on 8 October 1988 to honour Colin Ballantyne who had died earlier in the year at the age of 79. Colin Ballantyne had been chairman of the board of governors of the South Australian Theatre Company, president of the Arts Council of Australia and co-founder of the Arts Council of South Australia and was also a prime force behind the concept of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. For over 50 years he had been an important figure in the theatrical world in South Australia and between 1948 and 1970 he produced or directed more than a hundred plays. The Performing Arts Collection, a collection of more than 40,000 items of South Australian theatre memorabilia, was named after him. It is now housed in the Festival Centre. Advertiser , 10 October 1988, p.5.