Welcome!

Welcome to the blog of the Pioneers Association of South Australia Incorporated.

The Pioneers Association of South Australia Incorporated was founded in 1935 and has the following principal objectives:

• To perpetuate the memory of the pioneers of early settlement in South Australia.
• To establish and maintain a faithful record of the pioneers for the benefit of present and future generations.
• To encourage the preservation of records, portraits, relics and historical materials associated with pioneer settlement.
• To promote awareness and knowledge of South Australian history.
• To affiliate with any other organisation with objectives similar to those of  the Association.

Port Misery Remembered

The Jacobs Family Heritage Association’s 175^th Port Misery event was well attended by family and friends.

The surrounds of the suburb of West Lakes lay neatly nestled alongside the river, which is a vastly different scene from when the early pioneers arrived in 1837 on the ship John Renwick.

Ken Jacobs opened proceedings, followed by myself and the President of the Woodville Historical Society, Jan Cutler.

In my address, I made mention of the unity of the Jacobs family in celebrating the day, and that of their ancestors who helped make the fabric of early South Australian society. I am sure it motivated thoughts of these early pioneers and their fellow passengers, wondering perhaps how to handle the future hardships in the new settlement. They, like those before and after them, would have been greeted by mosquito infested waters and large tracts of mud as immediate obstacles to being able to just stand on solid land, let alone travel the road to Adelaide.

President Lyn Gill addressing the Port Misery gathering

I sincerely invited members of the Jacobs family attending to join our Pioneers Association, which was formed to remind us, and future generations, of such ancestors and their deeds.

The evening concluded with the large group of Jacobs family and friends enjoying a meal together at the Alberton Hotel.

Lyn Gill – President

What a difference 175 years make!

We all know the song “What a difference a day makes” but what a difference 175 years makes.  The ladies who attended the Proclamation Day festivities 175 years ago would have been horrified at the skimpy clothing of women in 2011.  They would have thought we were no ladies at all!!  And the men would have been equally horrified, although perhaps rather envious, at the casual and much cooler attire of the gentlemen.

The view of the Adelaide Hills has changed somewhat from the original Proclamation Day ceremony, but Mount Lofty still stands supreme.

PASA President Lyn Gill with Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the Old Gum Tree Ceremony

Professor Eric Richards gave a very entertaining talk about migration to South Australia, focussing in particular on three different émigrés.  One was James Bell who arrived on “The Planter” and wrote a diary detailing the drunkenness and debauchery of the passengers.  One wonders if the other passengers had a different story to tell.

Professor Eric Richards

Thank you to the organisers of the lunch – it was superb.  Thank you to Ken Jacobs for his table decorations of flowering gum – probably the only thing 2011 had in common with 1836.

Report by Rose Miller.

    

Pioneer Memorial Church Service

St Augustine’s Anglican Church of Unley was the setting for a Pioneers Memorial Church Service held on 30^th October 2011.

This church was chosen because it has a stained glass window portraying the Proclamation of South Australia.

An ‘old fashioned service’ was run by the Parish Priest Reverend Peter Chilver, assisted by the Associate Priest Russell Simmonds and Reverend Brett Williams. An interpreter assisted with the Chinese Ministry led by Pastor Coria Chan.

Pioneer Member Pauline Brinkworth led the Hills Choral Society who sang two hymns, ‘Bless this House’ and ‘Song of Australia’. Pioneer Member Ken Horsnell narrated a powerpoint presentation outlining events leading up to the first settlement and the Kids Church put on a dramatisation of a young family who emigrated to Adelaide.

A combined lunch in the church courtyard followed the service which was attended by St Augustine’s parishioners, about 25 Pioneer Members (some in colonial costume) and the Patron of PASA, His Excellency Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce, Governor of South Australia and Mrs Liz Scarce.

This was one of the events organised to mark the State’s 175^th anniversary.

Report by Jill Davy

Grand Claremont Garden Party

President Lyn Gill and husband Christopher represented the Pioneers Association at the Glenelg Historical Society Vice Regal Function on Saturday 19^th November 2011.

It was held at Claremont, a stately home in the heart of Glenelg.

Guests were entertained with a Brass Band, a traditional Punch & Judy show, and a delightful afternoon tea all in the company of the Governor and Mrs Scarce.

The society has only been formed during this year and is to be congratulated on this fine event.

PASA Annual General Meeting – President’s Report

The following report was presented by President Lyn Gill to the Annual General Meeting of the Pioneers Association of SA on 7 November 2011, at the Burnside Community Centre.

I have had members say to me that they enjoy the “sense of belonging” when associating with a group of fellow descendents at our Pioneer functions.

This captures my feelings also, which is why I answered the call to be President during such an important anniversary year of the state.

Council

To those who are retiring from council, to say your work is appreciated is the mere tip of the iceberg. As retiring presidents and council members take a back step, all of us have endeavoured to put in place something during our tenure, for the betterment of our members. In the words of Sir Christopher Wren “look around you”, perhaps not quite as ostentatious but by no means any less sincere.

This year we have played together, prayed together and like all families have had our challenges.  This is a growth process and as the new ones appear on the lists to govern the association we should always be mindful of those who in the past have put their hard work, efforts and love for the association, making us what we are today.

My thanks go to….

Vice President Margaret Grierson: Our receptionist & membership officer. Thank you for your counsel over the year.

Secretary and past President Pam Skurray: For her untiring work in the areas of office procedure and as Honorary Secretary.

Treasurer Pam Trinidad: Thanks to her for stepping into the treasurers spot when we needed her most, and keeping us financially compliant.

Thanks also to-

Bob Allan for his assistance in financial areas

Pauline Brinkworth for her assistance in maintaining Association records

Peter Brinkworth as editor of the Journal

Sue Coppin our resident bloggist and webmaster

Jill Davy for her work maintaining the library

Peter Dunn a great team member with his kind and unassuming manner

Rose Miller who was our standby during times of crisis

Bob Stace champion survey analyst and spokesman

Di Skull, for reviewing the council minutes since the inception of the Association and proof reading.

Peter Whimpress our auditor

And to Past President Jenny Neill, a big personal thank you.

Membership

I am delighted that we have 3 new life members this calendar year, and as members pass away, for whatever reason, we continually strive to generate more interest for those coming into the Association.

As at 30^TH June 2011 our secretary advises me that we have 684 members comprising of:

Life Members                  210

Members                419

Associates              36

Complimentary      16

Legal deposit                   2

Patron                             1

Events & Projects

After reading an account by a past president in one of the journals, I planned that this year should be full with activity choices for our members. Some of the ideas were a case of “capture the moment while we can”- and proved highly successful. Others were months in the planning and success also reigned there. I commend the level of competence by those who have convened and organized these events. I believe the business world catch phrase is Team synergy.

These projects resulted in gaining public awareness of the Association, and we worked with other bodies as an integrated body of enthusiastic members contributing our knowledge back into society.

Community TV channel 44 conducted an interview with me focussing on the plans and the purpose of the Association, and also on membership recruitment. I thank Philip Gregory for that golden opportunity.

Returning after the Christmas recess, the Messenger Press management requested our help to celebrate this special year. We took advantage of this opportunity to be able to integrate members’ historical profiles with the States 175^th birthday feature.

The Association was approached by the Adelaide Cemeteries Authority to assist in research for creating a History Month Display at West Terrace Cemetery to be opened during May. I asked Past President Jenny Neill to form a committee to research a selection of pioneers. Thanks go to Peter Dunn, Laurie Hunt and Rose Miller for a great result.

The plaque of Edward Gibbon Wakefield adorning Parliament house was reported as becoming overgrown with vegetation. As our Association donated this plaque in 1951, we followed this up and received correspondence that action would be taken to make it clearer for our citizens and visitors to view. Thank you to Peter Dunn for his input.

Colonial William Light’s initial survey trig point was another initiative & with the help of the Adelaide City Council, we are reassured that this historic point of interest stays intact and unharmed in storage until its reassembly once the new hospital has been completed. My thanks go to Deane Kemp and Deputy Lord Mayor David Plumridge.

Replacement stocks of lapel badges were addressed and with the newest graphic skills available, a precise more vibrant badge was developed and approved by council in keeping with the basic design of past years. The first to be presented with one was our Patron His Excellency Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce AC CSC RANR Governor of South Australia. My thanks go to Honorary member Richard Venus for the professional result.

Name badges in the format of corporate style plastic sleeves have also been changed from the previous elastic neck design. These will be issued to members who attend functions and reissued to them on arrival at future events.

The Kangaroo Island Good Will Tour by members to celebrate the first white settlement in South Australia when the Duke of York barque arrived on the island was a rewarding success. The saying “seize the moment” was just that and it was rewarding to see members willing to pay their way on the day I announced it as a pilot idea only. Together with the help of new life member Ken Jacobs we did exactly that, seized the moment, perhaps the same way our ancestors did so 175 years ago. To Ken, my sincere thanks.

Our annual dinner had a birthday theme to celebrate the 175^th year since reading of the Proclamation to the new colony. We were honoured to have our patron the Governor accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Liz Scarce attend the evening. We also enjoyed a paper presented by associate Professor Peter Howell. He was most gracious in the quick 10 hour turn-around of replacing the bereaved Prof Eric Richards as speaker, who had to fly immediately to the UK for family arrangements with his father’s passing. Eighty members and guests enjoyed the evening which concluded with coffee, birthday cake and port. My thanks to Dean Kemp for being MC on the night.

Pam Skurray convened The Pioneers Cup Race Day at Morphettville and we were invited to enjoy the fellowship and fun by dressing in colonial costume. Ken Horsfall, members of the Victoriana Society and Jeff Nicholas were among those who helped make the day a success. Also I would like to thank Vice President Margaret Grierson for stepping in for me at this function due to a medical emergency.

Younger generations are taking a keener interest in their South Australian pioneer ancestors. This was reflected in the good attendance of Junior Pioneer members at the recent event we held at Carrick Hill estate. Our next move is to capture the interest of the varying age groups into more pointed activities, such as the older youth age bracket into what they too would enjoy. They are the future of our association, and we must treasure their membership.

OFFICE

Mail boxes have recently been installed in the foyer area. This ensures greater mail security, which has been of concern to me this year. We have formed a good working relationship with a competent IT professional, and have installed a new modem.  A new printer has been commissioned and seating replacement has continued.

Willing helpers in various capacities have included:

Dympthia Bailey

Glenda Cameron

Laurie Hunt

Cecil Ireland

Pennam & Don Nicholson

Tim & Sally Porter

Pam Stace

Ian Schomburg

Our thanks to them all and to anyone that I have inadvertently missed, my sincere apologies, the Association appreciates their service.

CLOSING REMARKS

I feel that we as members of the Pioneers Association of South Australia have a responsibility not only to the community with our place within, but more importantly so with our members.

From 2012-13, Schools will again have a syllabus containing History. I see us playing a very important role in the formation of the curriculum.

Further refining and defining all areas of the Association is a constant agenda of vigilance and action. Let us not merely rest on our laurels, but continually strive to create new ones!

Seventy six years young, not stagnant but going forward we remember all those efforts of the past members and carry on with their ideals and what we stand for today and the future.

It has been my honour to represent the Pioneers Association of South Australia as President in such an important year, thank you for this privilege, I know, I have done my best.

Lynette Gill

A Day at the Races to Celebrate SA’s 175th

The Pioneers Association of South Australia Inc celebrated South Australia’s 175^th Anniversary with an event at Morphettville Race Course on Saturday 17^th September 2011.  73 patrons including members and guests attended a luncheon, and a further 28 guests from The Victoriana Society joined us for afternoon tea provided by Heather Dunn, Jill Davy, Lauris Biggs, and Pam Skurray.

Many guests were dressed in colonial dress, and the Victoriana Society members wore both colonial and Edwardian costume.   The costumes were delightful, and enjoyed by not only The Pioneers Association, but all patrons attending Morphettville Race Course on the day.

         

We were entertained by several guest speakers including Ken Horsnell who spoke on the formation of the South Australian Company, the role played by The Freemasons, and of course on John Morphett, after whom Morphettville Race Course was named.  Ian Schomburgk (dressed as Governor Hindmarsh) read the Constitution, after which there was a toast to The King, and subsequently everyone sang God save the King.

Jeff Nicholas’ topic was ‘Correct Weight and the Colony: six thoroughbreds who streeted ahead’ at the first Adelaide Race Meeting on January 1^st 1838.  Sally Hopton read an article on her ancestor, E M Bagot, who was Secretary of the South Australian Jockey Club and is credited with laying out Morphettville Race Course, one of the finest in Australia for observing races.

Another guest speaker was Samantha Taylor who gave an interesting talk on the history of side saddle riding and we were entertained by jockey Emily Taylor who gave a beautiful demonstration.   Emily lives with her family at the Kondoparinga Homestead on Rymill Road, Ashbourne, which is also the home of the Side Saddlers Association.  The costume she wore was from the Castle Howard collection.

We were fortunate in having a race named after The Pioneers Association of South Australia Inc and a trophy was presented to the owners of the winning horse in the Winner’s Lounge. PASA members and guests enjoyed champagne & canapés with David Peacock (Chairman of SAJC) and other board members.

     

To organize an event like this requires many helpers, and I would like to say a special thank you to Ken Horsnell, Glenda Cameron, Ian Schomburgk, Jeff Nicholas, Heather & Peter Dunn, Jill Davy, Margaret Grierson, Margaret & John Lewis, Di Skull, Libby King, Lauris Biggs, Laurie Hunt and Sally Hopton.  Special mention of Morphettville Race Course who were so helpful in assisting us with everything that we asked for and more.

Pamela Skurray

Cherry Gardens Tour

Thanks to Ken Jacobs’ pact with the weather gods, the day tour of Cherry Gardens and Clarendon was blessed with a brilliant spring day. We met Ken, our tour organiser, at Walkerville Town Hall and were set up for the day with an all-too-tempting morning tea provided by the Walkerville Historical Society. Ken gave us a potted history of Walkerville and the Mayor, Heather Wright, greeted us. After group photographs, we set off at 10.15 in a luxury coach driven by John Wright, who comes from a dairy farm south of Cherry Gardens and knows the district well. His route took us through Unley, Belair and Coromandel Valley with Ken providing a commentary from Manning’s Place Names of South Australia.

Mayor of Walkerville, Heather Wright

We learnt that Cherry Gardens had been first settled by Ken’s great grandfather, Isaac Jacobs. He, Henry Field (or Feild as the family’s headstones have it) and Edward Burgess explored the hills behind Burgess’s property at Happy Valley in 1838. They discovered there what they were looking for, a lightly wooded area with plentiful kangaroo grass for fodder, as well as an unusual tree. This was the Native Cherry Exocarpus cupressiformis, which has a fruit which reddens like a small cherry, and they named the locality after it. Isaac Jacobs and Henry Field settled there in 1840 on adjacent holdings. Cherry Gardens was on a stock route and its well, Jacobs’ Well, was a landmark. Today the area appears to be on the back doorstep of Adelaide but Ken said that in the early days his family managed only two trips a year to Adelaide to collect mail. Undeterred, the Jacobs family still occupies the property.

Arriving at Cherry Gardens Memorial Hall we were met by Ken’s cousin, Margaret, who gave us the history of the area and guided us around Cherry Gardens. She took us past the Jacobs’ property; the original house no longer stands but Margaret lives in a later house (probably of the 1860s) closer to the road, near where the Memorial Garden to fallen soldiers was set up in 1935 on land donated by the family. Further down the road we passed the Salvation Army Hall, now converted to a residence, and an animal refuge on the way to the cemetery. This was the second cemetery for Cherry Gardens, begun in 1882 after the original cemetery in the tiny churchyard of the Methodist chapel was full. We then set off for the chapel itself, now a Uniting church, down Hicks Hill Road. On the way we passed two massive pits which provided clay for tile making, one for the Sydney-based Wundlerlich Co (the site now of an advanced tree nursery) and one for J Hallett and Son of Hindmarsh. Between them we saw many specimens of the Native Cherry.

The Uniting Church community greeted us warmly. Alan Dubé and Joan Button told us how the building had seen 162 years of continuous worship. A small two-bay Wesleyan chapel was erected in 1849/50, with a jarrah floor from the Globe Mills at Port Adelaide, on land donated by Henry Field. Henry Strange, a local preacher, began holding services there in 1881, and was still doing so in 1928. In 1882 the cemetery surrounding the chapel was closed and two years later the church was extended and a day school begun. Between 300 and 400 people gathered at a dinner in 1949 to celebrate its centenary and in 1977 it became a Uniting church.

The pastor, Christine Manning, then said grace and we were treated to a lunch that typified ones idea of ‘country’ hospitality and generosity. We fortunately had no farther to go immediately after lunch than the churchyard where Lance Bails told us about his family beside the headstone, brought from Cheltenham, of his early relatives. These included the patriarch Thomas Bails and his son (?) John Bails, who married Mary Ann Lewis in the eleventh wedding recorded at Cherry Gardens in 1862. Ken then took us to the family grave of Isaac Jacobs and his wife Elizabeth. Although Isaac died in 1894, years after the churchyard cemetery had been closed, this pioneer was honoured by being interred in the family plot there. Then Margaret rang the church bell, cast by Wyatt of North Adelaide in 1851; this bell hung in a tree up the hill as a call to worship and as a call to turn out to fight any fires threatening the community until 1962. This prevented the koala in a neighbouring tree from enjoying the siesta that many of us envied at this stage.

As our final treat in Cherry Gardens, we were kindly invited by Christine to visit to the former Primary School, where she now lives. Passing the Rechabite Hall of 1895 (now a private home), we arrived at the school, which comprised a single schoolroom joined to the teacher’s residence. This was built in 1879 to accommodate 25 students and replaced the earlier pug building thatched with straw. Margaret Jacobs reminisced about walking to that school across the paddocks and could remember where she sat in the schoolroom. It closed in 1970.

Then it was on to Clarendon, reached by a short drive down to the Onkaparinga. The Bible Christian church, built in 1853 and later used as council chambers, has very recently opened as a museum of local history. The collection is beautifully presented in well-organised displays. Next door, the old police station, with the lockup and stables behind, now houses an antique shop, whose owner, Andrew Macdonald, kindly gave us access to the Victorian building. Further up the road, the Methodist church, built in 1875 and enlarged in 1880, opened its door to us so that we could admire its renovated interior.

By the time 3 pm arrived, we climbed back into the coach for the return via Happy Valley and South Road, tired but very appreciative of a glorious day.

Report by Chris Durrant.