State Records of South Australia builds on the first government archives to be set up in Australia in 1919

State Records of South Australia files at its repository in the Adelaide northern suburb of Gepps Cross.
Images courtesy State Records of South Australia

State Records of South Australia became the later name of the first government archives in Australia established in 1919. State Records held almost every facet of state and local government administration within South Australia, including maps, plans, registers, films and photographs plus thousands of documents dating from the earliest days of European settlement to recent times.

The need for a South Australian government archives was identified earliest by historian Henry Hussey in 1862 while compiling a history of the early colony days. Following George Cockburn Henderson’s 1915 proposal, the South Australian parliament granted £700 in 1918 to the public library board to adapt the former armoury building on North Terrace, Adelaide, to store government archives. George Henry Pitt was appointed archivist for its opening in 1919.

In 1925, destruction of South Australian government records was prohibited without Libraries Board of South Australia approval. The board was empowered to take records into its custody and recover government documents from “unauthorised persons”. In 1939, the archives department was incorporated into the Public Library of South Australia that took over control of records in 1961. This was consolidated in 1967 when the archives, with both public and private records, moved to the basement of what had become the State Library of South Australia on North Terrace, Adelaide city.

In 1973, the state government adopted a general rule of giving access to government records after 30 years. In 1985, the South Australian archives separated its government record holdings (as Public Record Office of South Australia) and private collections. The archival records of private individuals, churches, societies and businesses held by the South Australian Archives were combined with published material from the South Australian Collection of the state library to set up Mortlock Library of South Australiana.

From 1987, the public record office staff and collection left the state library basement for a purpose-built archival repository at Gepps Cross, shared with Australian Archives (later the National Archives of Australia) – the first such arrangement between an Australian state and commonwealth archive. The public reading room was operated from Norwich Centre building, King William Road, North Adelaide, from 1987.

The public record office of South Australia in 1990 became State Records of South Australia, administering the Information Privacy Principles and the Freedom of Information Act 1991. In 1995, Norwich Centre reading room was closed and a new public reading room opened at Netley Commercial Park. The National Archives of Australia also reduced holdings at the Gepps Cross Repository and, by 1999, only the State Records collection was stored at the Gepps Cross site. The State Records Act 1997 set up the state records council that took over deciding what government records could be disposed.

In 2004, Netley reading room was closed and a research centre at Gepps Cross site was opened to the public. The Gepps Cross repository storage rose to 75,000 linear metres and was barcoded for the first time. ArchivesSearch was also launched, enabling online searching and ordering.

The city research centre, in the heritage-listed Bickford North building in Leigh Street, Adelaide city, opened to the public in 2004, offering public research, training rooms and exhibition space. In 2011, the Adelaide office of National Archives also moved into the Leigh Street building and repository space was secured at the former Australian Archives at Collinswood, increasing capacity by about 30,000 linear metres.

In 2014, State Records of South Australia moved its research centre from Leigh Street and Gepps Cross to the state’s library’s Somerville reading room until 2015 when the State Records Research Centre reopened at Gepps Cross the next year.