page_title: State Library of South Australia
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: State Library of South Australia / History and governance / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Old State Library Building and Institute Building, North Terrace, Adelaide, Winter 2008.
context_page_description: The State Library of South Australia, or SLSA, formerly known as the Public Library of South Australia, located on North Terrace, Adelaide, is the official library of the Australian state of South Australia. It is the largest public research library in the state, with a collection focus on South Australian information, being the repository of all printed and audiovisual material published in the state, as required by legal deposit legislation. It holds the "South Australiana" collection, which documents South Australia from pre-European settlement to the present day, as well as general reference material in a wide range of formats, including digital, film, sound and video recordings, photographs, and microfiche. Home access to many journals, newspapers and other resources online is available.
context_section_description: On 29 August 1834, a couple of weeks after the passing of the South Australia Act 1834, a group led by the Colonial Secretary, Robert Gouger, and solicitor Richard Hanson and a number of prominent colonists, including  Ernest Giles, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, John Morphett, Robert Torrens Snr, and John Hindmarsh formed the South Australian Literary Association was formed in Adelphi Chambers, London. Within a month, the more title was changed to the more inclusive South Australian Literary and Scientific Association. Its aim was "the cultivation and diffusion of useful knowledge throughout the colony". Although the Association lapsed and meetings ceased, a collection of books donated by members was intended as the basis of the new colony’s library, and the colonists brought the collection to the Colony of South Australia aboard the Tam O'Shanter, which arrived on 18 December 1836. 
  The first Adelaide Mechanics' Institute (based on the concept of mechanics' institutes developed in Scotland and England in the 1820s, to provide adult education to working men) met on 23 June 1838, reported by the Southern Australian newspaper. Running into difficulties, the organisation was merged with a revived Literary and Scientific Association, with the new name  of the Adelaide Literary and Scientific Association and Mechanics' Institute, electing a committee in July 1839. Over this time, the membership of the association varied between upper-middle-class and lower-middle-class. The library reopened, but the Institute did not have a permanent location, and the focus was on a programme of lectures. However the lectures dwindled and attendances varied, as the Institute tried to function as an adult education institution as well as a learned scientific society, and its last meeting was held in June 1844.
  In September 1844, a group of men founded the South Australian Subscription Library, with a collection created by donation and subscriptions, and in 1845 it took over the collection of the Literary and Scientific Association and Mechanics' Institute. A permanent librarian was employed at this time, and the library served its middle-class members. 
  In 1847, a new  Adelaide Mechanics' Institute was founded, by a group of lower-middle class men, led by schoolteacher W.A. Cawthorne. Various talks, discussions and displays were put on.  This organisation merged with the South Australian Library in 1848, creating the Mechanics' Institute and South Australian Library, based in Peacock's Buildings, Hindley Street, and with membership moving back to the upper-middle class. Nathaniel Summers was appointed as the first librarian. It subsequently moved to Exchange Chambers, King William Street, but by 1855 had gone into decline.
  Meanwhile, other institutes and societies were established throughout the Adelaide suburbs, including the Adelaide Philosophical Society, later evolving into the Royal Society of South Australia. Some of these institutes asked the government for financial assistance, and Unitarian publisher John Howard Clark suggested the conversion of the Institute into a public institution. A Bill was proposed in Parliament in 1854.
  In June 1856 the South Australian Legislative Council passed Act No. 16 of 1955–6, the South Australian Institute Act, which incorporated the South Australian Institute under the control of a Board of Governors, to whose ownership all materials belonging to the old Library and Mechanics' Institute was immediately transferred. This Act also ensured the library would be open to the public free of charge, and granted funding was allocated to it. This made the library very popular particularly amongst artisans and workmen who filled it to capacity in the evenings. At this point it was a lending library, and held a large amount of fictional work. The Act also provided for a museum as part of the new organisation. The suburban institutes became subsidiaries of the SA Institute, as did the Adelaide Philosophical Society and the South Australian Society of Arts.
  As new books arrived from Britain, the library expanded and so
caption: Home of the library before the building of the Mortlock Wing
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