Early Adelaide homes and streets lit by candles and lamps fuelled by the oil from whales or Egypt

A street lamp is attached to electricity poles in this scene from Rundle Street, Adelaide, between Stephens and Gawler places, about 1898.
Image by Ernest Gail, courtesy State Library of South Australia

From the earliest days of settlement, Adelaide lit its streets and homes by candles and lamps using oil from whales or from Egypt.

Hotels were responsible for most of the lighting of the city's streets at night. As part of hotelkeepers' licences, they were required by law to provide a light over the front door of their hotel from dusk until dawn, even after gas lighting of the streets started in 1865.

Offenders were heavily fined and could lose their licence altogether for repeated offences. This law remained until the 1870s. Some hotelkeepers were killed by falling off ladders trying to light their front lamps.

Tallow candles were made in several candle and soap factories in the city. One was the much-complained-of factory of Burford & Son, which caused much pollution and was destroyed by fire on several occasions, before being pressured to move from Grenfell Street in the city. (This site was later taken over by the South Australian Electric Light and Motive Power Company for a coal-fired powerhouse.)

There was also the option to buy five-gallon jars of oil imported from Egypt. Until the former Lord Raglan Hotel was rebuilt at 109 Waymouth Street, Adelaide, in 1915, several walls of the former structure were made from these old oil jars about 400mm high.

The publican, James Davey, was a contractor for importing the jars of oil but went out of business when gas was introduced. When he went into the hotel business, not wanting to waste his stock of jars, he used them to rebuild the Lord Raglan.