First driver's licence in Australia in 1906 issued to South Australia's government scientist William Hargreaves
William Hargreaves with the first driver's licence issued in South Australia and Australia in 1906. Inset: South Australia, 111 years later, was the first Australian state to issue a digital version of its drivers' licences in 2017.
William Arthur Hargreaves, state government chemist and analyst, in 1906, became the proud holder of South Australia’s – and thus Australia’s –first motor vehicle driver's licence.
South Australia also the first tiin Australia o issue motor vehicle registration plates on that day. (In October 2017, South Australia resumed the lead as the first Australian state to officially roll out digital driver's licences via its mySA GOV smartphone app.)
As first South Australian licence holder in 1906, William Hargreaves combined his interest cars and transport with his science by trying to solve the problem of alternative fuels during both 20th Century world wars and drove his car on a mixture of molasses and petrol at the end of World War I.
Born in 1866 at Ipswich, Queensland, Hargreaves was educated at Ipswich Grammar School and Melbourne University where he won the university prize in natural sciences. A part-time instructor in geology and mineralogy at the Working Men's College, Melbourne, in 1889-91, he was director of the Gordon Technical College, Geelong, from 1891. Two years later, he returned to Queensland to teach science at Brisbane Grammar School but found science held in low esteem: he “was the lowest paid master on the staff, and held no hope of advancement in status”. In 1897, he left to be assistant government analyst in Queensland mines department. He also taught courses in science at the pharmacy college and technical college, and as an extension lecturer for Sydney University.
In 1899, Hargreaves moved to South Australia as government analyst and chief inspector of explosives. In 1916, he became director of the state government's new chemistry department, set up by industry, mines and marine minister Reginald Blundell. Besides chemical analyses, the department took on tasks recommended by a state advisory committee as part of a nationwide push to harness science more efficiently during World War I.
In a 1917 public lecture, Hargreaves emphasised that universities should train scientists more practically so that they could be employed in industry rather than pure science: he outlined a curriculum for such a course. Hargreaves’ chemical investigations into foodstuffs, drinks, and explosives were published in official South Australian journals. Some of his research gained an Adelaide University science doctorate.
From 1916 until 1940, he was on the state committee of first the Commonwealth Advisory Council of Science and Industry and then the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Hargreaves was a foundation member of the (Royal) Australian Chemical Institute in 1917 and of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, in 1920. From 1927, he sat on the Australian National Research Council and he was a member of the science faculty of the university (1918-49) and of the council of the South Australian School of Mines and Industries (1936-50).
