27 December 1936     Pioneer Memorial

The Pioneer Memorial on the west of Moseley Square, Glenelg was unveiled by the Governor, Major-General Sir Winston Dugan on Sunday 27 December 1936 as part of the centenary celebrations. It was designed by G. Beaumont Smith to commemorate the foundation of South Australia and to honour the early settlers. On the western side facing the sea the panel depicts the proclamation ceremony and the inscription reads: ‘Here, at Holdfast Bay, landed the Pioneer Settlers and Governor Hindmarsh Announced the Establishment of the Government on December 28^th 1836’. The eastern face inscription reads: ‘Erected to Commemorate the Hundredth Anniversary of the Province of South Australia 1836-1936’. On the south and north faces are bronze tablets listing the names of the first explorers: Nuyts, Flinders, Baudin, Sturt, Barker, Light and the first settlers, and the north tablet lists the founders: Wakefield, Gouger, Torrens, G.F. Angas and others. At the top of the four panels are portraits of Wakefield, Hindmarsh, Gouger and Angas and crowning the tip of the 12.9 metre high monument of Kapunda marble with its base of Murray Bridge granite is a bronze replica of the Buffalo. The Latin phrase on the southern face is perhaps the most eloquent: Si Momumentum Requiris Cicumspice: If you seek a memorial, look around you. 

Historic Glenelg, Glenelg City Council, 1979, pp. 105-06.