Emanuel Solomon a prominent achiever and a Jewish patriarch in not-so-convict-free early South Australia
Emanuel Solomon and Australia's oldest mainland theatre building, the Queen's, off Currie Street, Adelaide,
Inset image courtesy State Library of South Australia
South Australia wasn’t born convict-free. Escapees were already on Kangaroo Island when the first colonists arrived in 1836. Many who came from the east were employed by pastoralists as stock keepers and other jobs They were employed by pastoralists and others as stock keepers, shepherds, paling and shingle splitters, sawyers, whalers, sealers fences and house builders and even police constables.
One of Adelaide’s most prominent Sydney ex convicts was Emanuel Solomon. London-born, he was convicted in 1817, with brother Vaiben, of larceny at Durham Assizes and sentenced to seven years transportation. After release, Solomon in 1826 married Mary Ann Wilson who’d been convicted of larceny 1825 and sentenced at the Old Bailey to life imprisonment.
With his brother, Solomon went into business in George Street, Sydney, as general merchants and auctioneers and they gathered property and land. In 1835. Solomon bought a share in a South Australian land grant, and in 1838-44 he was resident partner in Adelaide of trade with Sydney carried in its brig Dorset.
In 1840, Solomon, opened the Queen's Theatre, Adelaide’s first. He built city home blocks and promoted the Burra mine. Although affected by the early 1840s depression, Solomon recovered and in 1848 established Solomontown near Port Pirie, providing an endowment for religious observance. Solomon was a member of the House of Assembly for West Adelaide in 1862-65 and of Legislative Council 1867-71.
Although politically conservative, he advocated important reforms, particularly to help the working classes. He provided a home for Mary MacKillop during the 1971-72 months when she was excommunicated from the Catholic church. In 1871 he financed in Adelaide a pioneers' banquet for 520 people to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the South Australia being colonised.
A founders of Adelaide Hebrew Congregation, Solomon has been described as “the paterfamilias of the Jewish community”.
