Temperance has major win in 1915 with the referendum vote in South Australia for 6pm closing of hotel bars
A poster during the 1915 South Australian 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.
With the advent of World War I, it was suggested to the South Australian parliament that the time for closure of liquor bars in licensed venues be amended. Any amendment capping the hours of trade required a change to the Lincensing Act. Although a strict prohibition applied to the sale of liquor to Aboriginal communities from 1839 to 1915, changes to general trading hours in the same period saw liberal hours for operating licensed venues. Mostly, 11pm was the standard closing hour for hotels.
Calls for the fixing of bar-room hours came in response to morals’ campaigns waged by churches and temperance organisations under the premise it was dutiful to cut back on leisure activity when Australian men were fighting and dying in Europe. Campaigners espoused such views that pubs open until late at night kept many a wage earner from his family and that much housekeeping money went down the throats of hard-drinking or drunken men.
Joseph Kirby, a militant social reformer as minister of Port Adelaide Congregational Church, became the leader of the campaign lobbying the South Australian parliament for hotel bars to close at six o'clock.
A referendum was held, with the state election, on March 27, 1915 (on April 3, 1915 in Renmark). A multiple choice format was offered,with voters aske to vote ‘Yes’ to one option to indicate their preferred closing time. It was presented to votersas:
Referendum as to the Hour for Closing of Bar-Rooms in Licensed Premises
a) that the hour be 6pm
b) that the hour be 7pm
c) that the hour be 8pm
d) that the hour be 9pm
e) that the hour be 10pm
f) that the hour be 11pm
With a ‘Yes’ vote of 56.3%, 6pm closing was affirmed as the voters choice. 11pm was the next most popular choice with 34.4%; all other times received relatively insignificant votes. As a result of the 1915 referendum, 6pm closing became law and remained in force for more than 50 years, until 1967, when closing times again began to be liberalised.
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.
