Henry Wigley the first resident magistrate in Adelaide from 1837; both courts housed in Queen's Theatre 1843-50
From 1843-50, the resident's magistrate court shared the original Queen's Theatre in Gilles Arcade, Adelaide, as its home with the supreme court.
Drawing by C.W.Calvert.; engraved, printed & published by H. C. Jervis, Adelaide. 1842. Courtesy State Library of South Australia
English solicitor Henry Wigley was appointed South Australia’s first resident magistrate in December 1837, retaining a right of private practice.
This went some way to ending the South Australian colony’s first year of law-and- order chaos with no police, no prison and no magistrate. The first statute enacted in South Australia on January 2, 1837 – only a few days after HMS Buffalo and first settlers arrived at Holdfast Bay – provided for courts of petty sessions to be presided by magistrates and justices of the peace.
The controversial statute offered tthe first magistrate only £100 per annum (and the right to private practice) so first governor John Hindmarsh was unable to find a solicitor to accept the role. Justices of the peace were appointed and sat occasionally. The first court hearing seems to have been at Holdfast Bay on January 7, 1837, when colonial secretary Robert Gouger sat with another JP to resolve a quarrel between a master and servant. During the first 12 months, there was no way settlers could recover small debts.
In November 1837, an act to start the resident magistrates court was proclaimed. For 12 months, resident magistrate Henry Wigley conducted his court in a building in Gilles Arcade, Adelaide, near the Queen’s Theatre site. From 1838-43, he switched between buildings on Gilles Arcade and the northern side of Currie Street, including a house owned by first Port Adelaide harbor master Thomas Lipson.
In 1843, for a short period, the resident magistrate was required by governor George Grey, to cut costs, to use the police commissioner’s office as his home in the parklands between North Terrace and the River Torrens almost opposite Morphett Street. Briefly in 1843, the magistrates court used a billiard rooms next to the old Queen’s Theatre and from 1843-50 shared the theatre itself with the supreme court.
With the South Australian province insolvent, governor Grey cut back the police force and decided the police commissioner, with reduced administration, had time to hear charges of minor offences. When the first police commissioner from 1840, Major Thomas O'Halloran, refused and resigned, B.T. Finnis (a career soldier) took on the dual role of police commissioner and police magistrate in 1843. At first he heard only minor offences but gradually, sitting with two justices of the peace, he took more and more of the resident magistrate's work.
The next police commissioners, Frederick Dashmore and Alexander Tolmer, also acted as police magistrate. Dashwood also sat at Port Adelaide and was appointed stipendiary magistrate there for just over 12 months before returning as police commissioner in 1850. Samuel Beddome, clerk of the Adelaide police court since 1845, was appointed police magistrate in 1856. He remained in the office until 1890.
