Aimed at reviving ‘ancient wisdom’ as an antidote to modern materialism and promoting universal brotherhood, the Theosophical Society (TS) was founded by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott in New York in 1875. It gained a foothold in South Australia on 26 May 1891 when, during a lecture tour, Olcott and seven ‘truth-seekers’ from the professional classes established Adelaide lodge.
At the height of its activity in the 1890s, the wine company of B Seppelt & Sons was the largest in Australia. In 2007 an Australian consortium called The Seppeltsfield Estate Trust bought the Seppeltsfield winery with a view to maintaining its winemaking traditions and reputation for hospitality.
Over more than 40 years the Adelaide City Mission provided English-language teaching for Chinese men in the hope of facilitating their conversion to Christianity. No other metropolitan mission in Australia ran such a school.
One of the three state political parties to form the Liberal Union in 1910, the FPPU began on 10 August 1904 at a general Show Week meeting in Adelaide of small farmer groups.
Could the problem of infant mortality be dealt with by giving expert advice to mothers? The Mothers’ and Babies’ Health Association certainly thought so.
The National Council of Women of South Australia argued for pensions for widows with children, raising the marriage age for girls from 12 and other reforms.
The Port Adelaide Institute served as a centre for social and cultural activities within Port Adelaide for over a century, and was the predecessor of the South Australian Maritime Museum and Port Adelaide Public Library.
Sailors' aid societies were first established at Port Adelaide in the 1860s to provide accommodation, entertainment, moral guidance and religious instruction to visiting mariners, and most remained in operation until the late twentieth century.