Institute building by colonial architect Edward Hamilton who also serves Adelaide's elite little court society

The South Australian Institute building on North Terrace, Adelaide, was among colonial architect Edward Hamilton's many works.

Edward Hamilton epitomises early ornate Adelaide architecture serving the colony’s “little court society” that was made up of those enriched especially by the Burra Burra copper discoveries and the “pastoral aristocracy”.

Hamilton, as a member, designed the Adelaide Club (1864) on North Terrace for the new gentry. His work in the 1860s for the “pastoral aristocracy” includes St Michael’s Church for George Hawker at Bungaree, near Clare, and Karatta House at Robe.

Son of a civil engineer, Hamilton arrived in South Australia in 1849 and became colonial architect and supervisor of works (1856-60).

As colonial architect, Hamilton oversaw extending government house and new treasury buildings in the Italianate style, the South Australian Institute building, the Lunatic Asylum at Parkside, the Agricultural and Horticultural Society Exhibition Building on North Terrace and the colonial store (behind the present art gallery), Dry Creek Labour prison (now Yatala), Port Adelaide police station and courthouse, lighthouses and five jetties, including Glenelg.

Hamilton went into private practice with his brother George until 1866 when he joined partner with Edmund Wright and Edward Woods, forming the practice known as Wright, Woods and Hamilton to complete its work on the Adelaide general post office project.

In 1859, Hamilton and Edmund Wright had won the design competition for the Congregational Church in Brougham Place, North Adelaide. The design had to be in the Grecian or Graeco-Itanian style, built of the best hard stone from Dry Creek or Glen Osmond and “continuing a tradition begun in Wren’s London churches”.