Gawler, South Australia
|Population||20,006 (2006 Census) |
|Elevation||75 m (246 ft)|
|Location||40 km (25 mi) north of Adelaide|
|LGA(s)||Town of Gawler|
Gawler is the first country town in the state of South Australia, and is named after the second Governor (British Vice-Regal representative) of the colony of South Australia, George Gawler. It is 44 km (27 mi) north of the centre of the state capital, Adelaide, and is close to the major wine producing district of the Barossa Valley. Topographically, Gawler lies at the confluence of two tributaries of the Gawler River, the North and South Para rivers, where they emerge from a range of low hills.
A British colony, South Australia was established as a commercial venture by the South Australia Company through the sale of land to free settlers at £1 per acre (£2/9/5d per hectare). Gawler was established through a 4,000-acre (1,600 ha) "special survey" applied for by Henry Dundas Murray and John Reid and a syndicate of ten other colonists.
The town plan was devised by the colonial surveyor William Light, and was the only town planned by him other than Adelaide. William Jacob used Light's plans and laid out the town.
Adelaide became a model of foresight with wide streets and ample parklands. After Light's death, it also became a model for numerous other planned towns in South Australia (many of which were never built). As the only other town planned by Light, Gawler is dissimilar to Adelaide's one square mile (2.6 km²) grid; the heart of Gawler is triangular rather than square, a form dictated by the topographical features. The parkland along the riverbanks and a Victorian preference for public squares are present, but Light was aware that he was planning a village, not a metropolis.
Gawler prospered early with the discovery of copper nearby at Kapunda and Burra, which resulted in Gawler becoming a resting stop to and from Adelaide. Later, it developed industries including flour milling and manufacturing steam locomotives.
With prosperity came a modest cultural flowering, ("The colonial Athens" was its nickname in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), the high point of which was the holding of a competition to compose an anthem for Australia in 1859, four decades before nationhood. The result was the Song Of Australia, written by Caroline J Carleton to music by Carl Linger. This became, in the next century, a candidate in a national referendum to choose a new National Anthem for Australia to replace God Save the Queen - the latter being omitted from the list since it was too popular and the Labor Party wanted it changed.
Gawler had a horse street tram service from 1879 to 1931.
Gawler is a commercial centre for the Mid-North districts of South Australia and, increasingly, a dormitory town for Adelaide. The hit Australian television program about the McLeod sisters, McLeod's Daughters, was shot at "Kingsford", a working property outside Gawler's northeastern fringe.
Former Australian cricketer Darren Lehmann was born in Gawler in 1970.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (25 October 2007). "Gawler (Urban Centre/Locality)". 2006 Census QuickStats. Retrieved 28 June 2008.
- History of Gawler 'Shawfactors'
- New Council Chambers, Gawler South Australian Register 18 April 1878 p.6 accessed 10 March 2011
- Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, August/September 1950 pp55-56/75-76