The Austral Hotel (then Newlyn's International Hotel) in about 1887 [SLSA, B10255]
Looking west down Rundle Street from what is now the north-east corner with Frome Street. The balconies on the Austral were not added until 1907. The shop-front immediately west of the corner entrance to the hotel is most probably the hotel's separate bottle department. The Tavistock Hotel, demolished in 1962 to make way for Frome Street, is on the far right of the photograph. (From the advertising above the enterance, it seems that at this time the Austral favoured Waverley Ale from the Waverley Brewery at Mitcham.)
The Austral Hotel, 140 years old next year
A chance meeting in the front bar of the Austral Hotel with its owner led to a discussion about the early history of the Austral and prompted some research on the beginnings of Cohen's Family Hotel as it was known from 1880 to about 1885. Like many colonial public houses and other institutions, the origins of the Austral pull together many strands that illustrate South Australian colonial society from the boom of the 1870s through the depression of the 1890s: the changing role of public houses, development and building, the Jewish community, finance and insolvency, political influence, individual enterprise and Emanuel and Sarah Cohen.
As a small contribution to our understanding of how the Austral came to be what it is and by way of kickstarting the celebration of the 140th anniversary of the Austral next year, I have compiled a 'scrapbook', a collection of newspaper cuttings, advertisements, photographs, maps and other miscellany, arranged more or less chronologically but otherwise not intended to impose a particular point of view; and as a 'scrapbook' other bits will be added in future versions, to enrich and extend the story of the Austral.
can be downloaded freely for non-commercial purposes here (12MB).
Posted: 21 June 2019. Original content © Craig Hill 2019.
The front bar of The Exchange Hotel, corner of Hindley and Gresham Streets, Adelaide, in 1946