29 December 1871     Old Colonists Festival

On 29 December 1871 the South Australian Register reported on the Old Colonists festival held the night before to celebrate the 35^th anniversary of the settlement of the colony of South Australia. The convener of the dinner, Emmanuel Solomon, had gathered many of the early settlers still surviving, now noted citizens of Adelaide and the country, including Henry Ayers, Sir John Morphett, Sir George Kingston, Captain Hart and many more. There were representatives from all walks of life, from doctors to farmers, from the miner to the lawyer. Twenty years earlier a similar gathering had been held in a tent at the rear of the City Bridge Hotel in Hindley Street but this event was held in the more opulent surroundings of the five-year old Town Hall, considered to be the best in Australia. The dinner was time for reminiscing and as the editor remarked: ‘These old colonists were men who could tell many a tale of early struggles and privations of which more recent comers have very little conception’.

South Australian Register, 29 December 1871, p.4.