The Province of South Australia was established by an Act of the British Parliament and was assented to by King William IV on 15 August 1834.
South Australia became a legal and political entity on 19 February 1836 when letters patent proclaiming its boundaries were officially sealed.
The first ships carrying colonists for the new settlement left England that same month, arriving in July.
Each year since the proclamation of South Australia at the old Gum tree in Glenelg, a re-enactment of the ceremony has been held with the current Master of The Lodge of Friendship invariably being in attendance.
Those first colonists arriving in South Australia in 1836 lived in scattered tents or portable dwellings until permanent structures could be erected and it was because of this lack of facilities that the lodge did not hold its first meeting in the colony until 1838.
As authorized the Lodge held its first meeting at the rooms of the South Australian Association, 7 John Street, Adelphi, London on 27 November 1834.
Mawley, Arthur Hardy, JF Taylor, GS Kingston, Col. Leslie Walker, B Breakfit, and R Doig.
The following five men were then elected to become members of Free Masonry: John Morphett, Richard Hanson, Thomas Gilbert, Robert Gouger, and Daniel Wakefield with John Morphett, Richard Hanson and Thomas Gilbert being initiated into the craft later in the same meeting.
This meeting took place in Adelaide on 11 August 1838 at the Assembly Rooms, Black's Hotel, Franklin Street (later the site of Rosetta Terrace).
Morphett was raised to the degree of MM and Bro GS Kingston was nominated for the office of Master.
First, a notice appeared in the newspaper the South Australian Register of 31 March 1841 as follows: The evening of entertainment took place on Tuesday 13 April 1841.
St John's Day, 27 December, was celebrated in 1842 by a dinner held at the Shakespeare Tavern from 5 o'clock.
The Lodge changed meeting place in 1843, to Lambert's auction room, Hindley Street.
On 3 February the two Lodges together laid the foundation stone of a Scottish Church in Grenfell Street.
1 still exists in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, and has operated continuously since those early days.