South Australian Gas Company lighting Adelaide streets from 1865; resists electricity being introduced

A gas street lamp on the intersection of Hindley and King William streets, Adelaide city, in 1885, installed by the South Australian Gas Company.
Image by Samuel White Sweet, courtesy State Library of South Australia

The South Australian Gas Company was incorporated by an act of parliament in 1861 – 25 years after the colony was founded. It was supplying the gas that lit Adelaide streets by 1865.

A chief promoter of the South Australian Gas Company and its first chairman was Henry Ayers, who become premier and was among prominent Adelaide residents enriched by the Burra Burra copper mines boom.

The first coal-fired  gas works were at Brompton with others at Port Adelaide, Glenelg, Thebarton, Osborne and regional areas when the Provincial Gas Company merged with the South Australian Gas Company in 1878.

Gas works were also built beyond Adelaide. The Provincial Gas Co. of South Australia, formed in 1868 to provide gas for major country towns, supplying Kapunda in the mid north in 1869 and Strathalbyn on the Fleurieu Peninsula the next year.

From 1870, gas supply gradually spread throughout Adelaide's suburbs. New gas works at Glenelg began production in 1875 while the South Australian Gas Company bought the Provincial Gas Co. in 1877 and rationalised the Adelaide and suburban supplies.

The gas company’s powerful shareholders resisted attempts to introduce electricity until 1895.

To face electricity’s threat, the gas company (to become known as SAGASCO) opened a showroom in its Grenfell Street, Adelaide city, headquarters in 1892. The South Australian Gas Company responded to competition from electric lighting from 1897 by promoting the sale of gas appliances, initiating cooking demonstrations in 1902. Moving to King William Street, Adelaide city,  in 1903, the company had female instructors demonstrate cooking and visit homes of people who’d bought stoves.