Temperance has major win in 1915 with the referendum vote in South Australia for 6pm closing of hotel bars

A poster during the 1915 referendum campaign on 6pm closing of hotel bars.
Image by William Charles Brooker, courtesy State Library of South Australia

The most famous South Australian temperance achievement, with strong female support, was the state-wide referendum win in 1915 when 100,418 voters, out of 176,537, favoured 6pm closing of hotel bars.

The Rev. Joseph Kirby, a militant social reformer from Port Adelaide Congregational Church, became the leader of the campaign lobbying the South Australian parliament for hotel bars to close at six o'clock.

Some who voted for 6pm in the 1915 referendum were influenced by World War I patriotism and expected a return to late closing after the conflict. But achieving 6 o’clock closing boosted support for prohibition and kept the temperance movement’s faith in the struggle to hold on and extend earlier gains.

The temperance movement wasn’t about moderation. It stood for total abstinence and for many years its goal was to end the liquor trade for the “incalculable benefit to the health, good order and progress of the community”.

Among the movement’s earlier victories was the enshrining in law from 1880 of the principle of local options, where electors living near a hotel could exercise control over hotel liquor licences in their district.  It also achieved restrictions to Sunday trading hours and raising the legal drinking age.

These helped maintain the temperance movement’s faith in the ongoing struggle to hold on to and to extend earlier gains and push on to total prohibition.

Total prohibition of alcohol became law in the United States of America in 1920. In Adelaide, the issue was discussed and a referendum suggested. Adelaide Anglican archbishop Arthur Nutter Thomas printed and distributed a sermon in support of prohibition but it never seriously progressed.