The new name honoured Sir William Birdwood, the Australian Imperial Force general who led the ANZACs at Gallipoli.

The town prospered by the 1850s, and the area was producing enough grain to justify the construction of the Blumberg Flour Mill (now the site of the motor museum).

[5] Birdwood is also home to the National Motor Museum (in what used to be the Old Mill), and is the endpoint of the annual Bay to Birdwood run [1], in which vintage motor vehicles are driven by their owners from Glenelg past the city and through the hills to finish at the museum where a festival is held.

The museum was started by Jack Kaines and Len Vigar in 1964, and was purchased by the South Australian Government in 1976, holding a large and historically important collection of cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles.

Next door to the Museum is the Birdwood Motel (2015),[6] Just north of Birdwood is the Cromer Conservation Park, proclaimed in 1976, with an open-forest formation of long-leafed box with Pink Gum and an open woodland formation of Red Gum, which forms an important habitat for honeyeaters.

Birdwood once had a train station on the Mount Pleasant railway line at 44.13 miles (71 km) from Adelaide.