Government House, Adelaide

Government House, located in Adelaide on the corner of North Terrace and King William Road, is the official residence of the governor of South Australia.

Governor John Hindmarsh wrote in May 1837 "I have but one end of my mud hut finished and all my family lay on the floor of one room while two smaller ones serve for Mrs. H., myself and a female servant", When Lieutenant Colonel George Gawler replaced Hindmarsh in 1838, he abandoned plans for a permanent house of timber and gave directions for the erection of a new building of masonry to cost £4,000 - if possible, but not to exceed £5,000.

[1] A plan had been obtained from an English architect, Edward O'Brien, but this was amended by George Strickland Kingston, who had come to South Australia as an assistant to the Surveyor General, William Light, and who had had some experience in architecture and building.

After Governor Gawler was recalled to England in 1841, partly because of his "extravagant" building programs, his successors George Grey and Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Holt Robe found it necessary to spend the least possible amount on the house.

In 1880, this building was superseded by a larger residence at Marble Hill near Norton Summit, until it was destroyed in the Black Sunday bushfires of 1955.