From Mary Colton start in 1879, Rosetta Birks expands the Young Women's Christian Association in Adelaide
The Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide city, building opened in 1900 as the Lady Colton Institute, honouring the Young Women's Christian Association's founder in Adelaide in 1879.
The former Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) 1900 building in Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide city, is one of its best surviving examples of Edwardian/federation style building with neo-classic details.
The building was opened in 1900 as Lady Colton Institute, honouring Mary Colton, wife of South Australian premier (1876-77, 1884-85) John Colton, who formed Adelaide’s Young Women's Christian Association in 1879 from a Bible class of young women at the Pirie Street Wesleyan Methodist Church Sunday school. The YWCA was closely identified with Wesleyan Methodism and concentrated upon spiritual guidance and moral welfare. It also closely shared the Women's Christian Temperance Union stress on evangelism, temperance and social purity.
After Colton died in 1898, Rosetta Birks became YWCA president and took the emphasis away from religious instruction, introducing new rules and activities for young women of all denominations who were seeking vocational, social and recreational opportunities.
Birks planned the Lady Colton Institute as the YWCA’s first permanent home. In 1899, G. de Lacy Evans and R.J. Haddon of Melbourne won a competition for its design. The influence of Haddon, a champion of art nouveau and a pioneer of architectural modernism, is evident in the detailing of the Lady Colton Institute building, decribed by the South Australian Register as “a handsome ornament to a part of the city where architectural beauties are quite unknown.”
Able to organise many new and more varied activities in its new building, the YWCA attracted increasing young women living away from their families to work in factories and businesses, and membership increased from 156 in 1901 to 1,000 by World War I. By 1912, several branches had been organised: the Lady Colton Guild for girls of leisure, Lyceum Club for young businesswomen, the Girls Progressive Club for young girls, a tennis club, a rowing club and a savings club for factory girls called the Thrift Club.
YWCA staff came not only from the national level but from England and the United States of America. Another service was an employment bureau to recruit women for domestic service that increased during the 1930s economic depression. After World War I, the association met falling membership by changing its rules making it no longer compulsory to be a member before privileges were granted. By the 1930s, the YWCA had affiliated with several other sporting organisations.
The Hindmarsh Square building became the home of the Royal Automobile Association (RAA) in 1929 until the 1950s. The RAA bought the building again in the 1980s, before it build its new multi-storey headquarters next door on the Grenfell Street corner.