First Adelaide German Club loses its elegant home and Albert Hall on Pirie Street in 1890 as the class divide widens
The ornate facade of the former German Club building at 89 Pirie Street, Adelaide.
The Adelaide German Club (Der Deutscher Verein), founded in 1854, represented a class divide in the South Australian German community.
The club was for educated Germans wishing to foster German language and high culture in their new land. But, with names such as Kraegen, Schumacher, Drechsler, Beyer, Kopsch, May, Praehm, Wendt, Senn, Ziegler, Gunther and Uhlmann among founders, it was predominantly for wealthier Germans in North Adelaide and Walkerville.
They were steeped in fine German literature and classical music, socialising with and even marrying British settlers of that strata, and making the club accessible to cultured British Australians. They loosened ties to the Lutheran church and sent their children to parochial schools. Many found the Adelaide Club was more benefit to their social and business success and they left the German Club.
This wealthier class also spawned the reactionary Club Teutonia (1889-1938) and more-cultured Fortschrittsverein (progress association).
After 20 years of meeting in hotels (the Hamburg in Rundle Street, then the Europe in Grenfell Street), the German Club had saved £3,000 to buy land and build a French Renaissance-style elegant clubhouse, including a library and billiard room, at 89 Pirie Street, aelaide. It was opened in 1879 by club president Frederick (Martin) Basedow.
The club’s next project, behind the clubhouse, was Adelaide's 1,500-seat Albert Hall, opened in 1880. The hall cost about ₤2,000, with every member contributing ₤1 to be repaid, interest free, out of profits.
The scheme backfired: membership dropped dramatically and the focus of those remaining was on repaying the growing debt. From around 1890, Albert Hall was neglected and a special meeting of German Freehold Company, owners for the club, accepted the £4,000 offer by the Salvation Army for the property.
From 1899, the club met in a house owned by Patrick Gay (of Gay’s Arcade fame) in Grenfell Street, Adelaide, until it folded in 1909.
