Walter Gooch leads the push for Belair national park – South Australia's first, Australia's second – in Adelaide Hills, 1891
South Australian park commissioners in about 1902. Back row: John Murray, Alfred Corker Minchin, Maurice Holtze. Middle row: W.H. Sanders (curator), Lawrence O'Loughlin, Edwin Smith, Walter Gooch, Lewis Cohen. Sitting: Walter Gill, Samuel Dixon.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Belair national park, gazetted in 1891 in South Australia, was Australia’s second national park (after the Royal near Sydney from 1879) and 10th in the world. From 1840, the Belair area in the Adelaide Hills had become the government farm and was used to agist cows owned by the destitute asylum, and police horses. It also included the summer home of South Australian governors (built in 1858) and the woods and forests nursery supplying trees to the public.
When the South Australian government moved to subdivide the area, a strong campaign was launched in 1877 to preserve it as a national park. Adelaide businessman and Belair resident Walter Gooch led the campaign and funded a petition to parliament. He was supported by the Register newspaper, Adelaide city council, field naturalists of the Royal Society of South Australia and many prominent citizens. Gooch arranged a large picnic in the bushland valleys of the government farm, taking potential supporters on a guided walk to show the area’s recreational values and beauty.
In 1883, the government legislated to prevent subdivision of the area. Edwin Smith was first chairman of the park board of commissioners, after the parliament passed the national park act in 1891. The voluntary commissioners oversaw the park combining revenue-earning public recreation spaces and wilderness areas.
Along with walking and mountain biking trails plus tennis courts and ovals for hire, the park remained one of the few relatively undisturbed areas of native vegetation in the Adelaide Hills region, making it an important refuge for native plants and animals. Also in the park was State Flora, the oldest plant nursery in South Australia.
