Concrete 'castle' as a sour sequel to Herschel Babbage’s contribution to South Australia
The concrete "castle" built by Herschel Babbage near South Road, St Marys.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Babbage’s "Castle", a huge concrete structure in fantastic baroque at St Marys, is a lost South Australian 19th Century oddity from Herschel Babbage’s life in Adelaide. Babbage, an engineer, was eldest son of Charles Babbage, the renowned Cambridge mathematician who originated the concept of a programmable computer.
He also was nephew of William Wolryche-Whitmore, the British House of Commons MP who lobbied for the colony of South Australia and introduced the South Australia Foundation Act in parliament.
In 1851, British colonial secretary Earl Grey assigned Babbage to perform a geological and mineralogical survey of the colony of South Australia requested by the colony's government. Babbage worked on government projects, first setting up the Government Gold Assay Office in Victoria Square and later as chief engineer by the company building the city to Port Adelaide railway.
Babbage was among first members of Mitcham District Council and its first chairman in 1853. In 1855, Babbage served as president of the Adelaide Philosophical Society.
Babbage was elected to the House of Assembly at its first elections in 1857, representing Encounter Bay. He resigned to lead an expedition to explore the north of the colony between Lake Torrens and Lake Gairdner.
When the government grew tired of his slow methodical pace, the crown lands commissioner Francis Dutton replaced Babbage with Peter Warburton in 1858.
After Babbage complained of this treatment, he withdraw from public life except as a 1877 Legislative Council elections candidate who refused to be part of any public meetings and didn’t go to the polls.
Babbage spent his last years building a mansion near South Road, St Mary’s, where he had made wines from his vineyard (nine varieties on 25 acres in 1878). He called the mansion The Rosary, although locals referred to it as Babbage's Castle. It was built in 1873 near the burned-out cottage of John Wickham Daw on Daws Road. The building developed structural defects and remained deserted from 1905 to around 1935, when it was demolished.
