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.
Adelaide Steamship Company
9 October 1875 Adelaide Steamship Company The Adelaide Steamship Company was registered in Adelaide on 9 October 1875 with a nominal capital of £100,000. The aim of the company was the trade between the colonies of both cargo and passengers. The first venture was trading between Adelaide and Melbourne and this service commenced in December 1876 with the steamer South Australia of 716 gross tons. On her maiden voyage, in spite of bad weather, she made the passage between Port Adelaide and Melbourne in 38½ hours. A sister ship, the Victorian , arrived from England shortly after and was put into similar service. With full passenger lists and plenty of cargo the company prospered. The next addition to the fleet was the Aldinga in 1877 and in 1882 the company acquired the Spencer Gulf Steamship Company so gaining its ships. Over the years more vessels were bought and the services extended to Western Australia. By 1950 there were twenty-six steamers and motor vessels with the passenger ship the Manoora as the flagship This was the period when the ‘Gulf Trips’ were popular with holidaymakers. With the decline in coastal trade in later years the company turned to other areas and the Adsteam Company had many diverse interests. ‘Development Coastal Shipping Services’, Australian Coal, Shipping, Steel and The Harbour , 1 November 1950, pp.31-31. www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm%…
Harry Butler
11 October 1958 Harry Butler On 11 October 1958 a memorial building to Harry Butler, housing his Avro monoplane, was unveiled in Minlaton by C.B. Tilbrook. Harry Butler, born in Yorketown, had little schooling but was fascinated by flight. In his twenties he travelled from the family farm near Minlaton to Smithfield where C.W. Wittber was building a plane from components he made himself. In February 1916 Butler went to Point Cook to join the Air Force, but impatient with delays there paid his own way to England and enlisted with the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an air mechanic. After three weeks he was made a 2 nd Lieutenant and by July 1916 he was flying in France. He became a flying instructor and was made Flight Commander. On his return to Australia in 1919 he became involved with another aviation fanatic. and gave exhibitions and displays of stunt flying. He and his partner formed a company operating from a hangar at Northfield. In 1920 Butler bought an aerodrome at Albert Park from which he operated an air mail service until 1921 when the field was sold to the Commonwealth Government who used it as the Adelaide Aerodrome until Parafield was built. On 11 January 1922, on a flight from Minlaton, his Avro crashed on take-off and he suffered very serious head and facial injuries and in spite of his courageous efforts to resume his career he died as a result of his injuries in 1924. Harry Butler Story , SLSA.
Governor Gawler
12 October 1838 Governor Gawler When Lieutenant George Gawler arrived in South Australia on 12 October 1838 to take over as Governor of the colony from John Hindmarsh he had to face many problems. The surveying of land in country areas was going ahead very slowly which meant that many new settlers were forced to remain in Adelaide while waiting for land to become available for farming. This put additional strain on the existing facilities as well as housing and food. To overcome some of these difficulties Gawler set in motion a series of public works such as improving the roads, the building of the Customs House, the Adelaide Gaol and a new Government House. He also had to form a police force and barracks which added to the colony’s spending. To pay for all these works he issued drafts on the British Treasury, but when these were dishonoured in 1840 the colony was bankrupt and Gawler was dismissed. His replacement, George Grey, in May 1841 began a policy if retrenchment and cut wages and public spending. There was an improvement in land cultivation and a great boost to the revenue of the colony came with the discovery of copper at Kapunda and Burra. By the time Grey left in 1845 South Australia was on a much firmer financial footing and could look forward to better times. George Loyau, The Representative Men of South Australia , Howell, Adelaide, 1883, pp.13-15.
David Shearer
15 October 1936 David Shearer David Shearer, who died on 15 October 1936 at the age of 85, had established, with his brother John, a successful agricultural implement manufacturing firm in Mannum. The Shearers were born in the Orkney Islands and arrived in South Australia in1852 and lived at Port Adelaide and Clare. David began a business near Clare in 1874 but sold it in 1877 and joined his brother in Mannum. They began to manufacture farming implements and by 1886, using wrought iron instead of brittle cast iron for their ploughshares, had established a demand for their stump jump ploughs throughout Australia. In 1900 they made a steam driven car, actually built by their nephew J.M. Shearer, which caused a sensation when driven to Adelaide. The vehicle was the result of 13 years of experimentation. The engine weighed over 200 lbs and the horizontal boiler produced 350 lbs per square inch, developed 20 horsepower and could run at 15 miles an hour. It was driven to Adelaide to be shown at the Exhibition of SA Chamber of Manufacturers and the Shearers had to obtain permission from the City Council to drive through the city streets, but this was only granted on the Terraces. On the way to Adelaide the car scared horses on the road and it was reported that a group of women in a buggy threw themselves from the vehicle to escapee. In 1904 the brothers parted company to follow their own interests. David remained in Mannum where he served on the Council for 40 years. Shearers’ car is now in the Birdwood Mill Museum. Advertiser, 16 October 1936.
Fort Glanville
2 October 1880 Fort Glanville The big guns at Fort Glanville were fired for the first time on 2 October 1880. The fort, started in 1878, had a garrison of 40 men and a battery of two 64-pounder guns and two 10 inch guns and had been built to defend shipping in the Semaphore anchorage. Fort Largs, completed in 1884, had all its fortifications on the sea side and only a wooden fence at the back which prompted some wag of a journalist to write that a notice should be posted stating: ‘This fort must not be attacked from the rear’. There was a proposal to build another fort at Glenelg but this never eventuated. Forts Glanville and Largs were put on alert in 1885 when it was feared there could be a Russian attack because of hostilities between Britain and Russia over Afghanistan, but the argument was settled peaceably. No shot was ever fired in anger from these forts. Fort Glanville was later used for the Fort Glanville Historical Society and Fort Largs became the Police Academy. H.M. Cooper, A Naval History of South Australia, Adelaide, 1950.
Grace Darling Hotel
20 October 1849 Grace Darling Hotel The grand opening of the Grace Darling Hotel at Brighton took place on 20 October 1849. The hotel was named after the British heroine who rescued survivors from the wreck of the steamship Forfarshire which ran on to rocks near the Longstone lighthouse on the Farne islands off the coast of Northumberland in England in September 1838. The Register of 10 October reported that the licensee, Charles Calton, stated the hotel would have ‘the comfort of an English home’ and also that ‘boats and bathing machines will be supplied as the season advances’. Another large banquet was held there on 16 December1854 after the laying of the foundation stone of St Jude’s Church by Bishop Short. In March 1855 the Brighton Council began to hold its meetings in the hotel; but by 1867 the building was being used as an Industrial School for children and was under the control of the Destitute Board and later still, in October 1874, became the first home of the Blind, Deaf and Dumb Institute established by William Townsend. H.A.F. Taylor, History of Brighton South Australia, 1958, pp.69-70.
Television
24 October 1959 Television The Governor, Sir Robert George, officially opened Adelaide’s second television station, ADS 7, on the night of Saturday 24 October 1959. One hundred and fifty guests in the main studio saw a ‘Variety Spectacular’ featuring many South Australian artists including Bobby Limb. The programme was received well in the city and some country areas. NWS 9, the first television station to go on air in Adelaide, commenced transmission on Saturday 5 September that year without ceremony except for a short speech by the Premier, Tom Playford at 7 pm. The evening’s feature programme was ‘An evening with Fred Astaire’. In the early days of television daily programmes ran from early afternoon to about 10 pm, by 1963 the two commercial channels were transmitting more than seventy-seven hour per week and in the 1980s this increased to a full twenty-four hour service from two channels. The national station ABS 2 began in March 1960 and SAS 10 in July 1965. Colour television was officially introduced in SA on 1 March 1975. Broadcast listeners’ and television viewers’ licences were abolished from 17 September 1974. Advertiser , 5 September and 24-26 October 1959. South Australian Yearbook , 1975, pp. 254-55.
Deaths Of Winemakers
25 October 1938 Deaths of Winemakers A major blow to the wine industry in South Australia occurred on 25 October 1938 when three of the leading vignerons were killed in a plane crash in Victoria. The fully loaded ANA Douglas airliner ‘Kyeema’ left Parafield en route for Melbourne, but at 1.43 pm some thirty miles beyond the Essendon airport it crashed into Mount Dandenong in dense cloud. It was the worst aviation disaster in Australia to that time and of the eighteen dead, seven were from SA. Charles Hawker, MHR of Hallett was one victim and the three winemakers were: Hugo Gramp, Managing Director of Gramps’ Orlando Wines, Sidney Hill Smith, Managing Director of Yalumba and Thomas Hardy, Managing Director of Thomas Hardy & Sons. They were on their way to Canberra for discussions with the government on the wine industry. Advertiser, 26 October 1938.
Captain Francis Cadell
26 October 1853 Captain Francis Cadell On 26 October 1853 the Legislative Council gave a dinner in honour of Captain Francis Cadell, one of the pioneers of river transport, who had just completed a successful trip up the River Murray from Goolwa to Swan Hill and return. In August the paddle-steamer Lady Augusta , named for the wife of the Governor, Sir Henry Young was brought through the mouth of the Murray after being sailed from Sydney. She was fitted to carry eight first-class and sixteen second-class passengers and had eight crew. Her passengers on the inaugural voyage up stream included the Governor, his wife and two members of the Legislative Council. Cadell also had built, in Goolwa, a barge called Eureka and with this in tow the party set out on 25 August and reached Swan Hill on 17 September. On the return journey 441 bales of wool and other cargo were loaded on to the barge for delivery to the wharves in Goolwa, hence to be transported to Port Elliot for shipment. This was the culmination of the plans of Young, Cadell and William Younghusband, merchant and politician, who saw the great river as playing an important part in South Australia’s trade. With others Cadell formed the River Murray Navigating Company which operated for several years before it failed, partly because Cadell apparently was not a good businessman and also because of difficulties with Victorian authorities, Eventually Cadell left South Australia and was murdered by South Sea Islanders while pearling near Torres Strait. Leslie McLeay and Nancy Cato, River’s End , Wakefield Press, 1985, pp54-60.