Riverton History & Information Centre in Riverton, South Australia | Tourist information centre

Riverton History & Information Centre

Locality: Riverton, South Australia

Phone: +61 8 8847 2705

Address: 21 Torrens Road 5412 Riverton, SA, Australia

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25.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 10

25.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 12

24.01.2022 Roman Catholic Church of St John and St Paul The gracious Roman Catholic Church of St John and St Paul is located at the northern edge of town. It was consecrated in 1877. It is believed that a church at Navan was demolished in 1876 and the stone was used to build this church.

23.01.2022 David Unaipon (1872-1967) Preacher, inventor and the first published Aboriginal author. Precocious, urbane and self-possessed, Unaipon subverted popular notions... of an inarticulate and primitive Aboriginality. Drawing inspiration from boomerang flight he designed a prototype perpetual motion machine, lectured on Aboriginal astronomy, botany and bushcraft. With two legends in print by 1930, he became the first published Aboriginal author. David Unaipon was born on 28 September 1872 at the Point McLeay Mission, South Australia, fourth of nine children of James Ngunaitponi, evangelist, and his wife Nymbulda, both Yaraldi speakers from the lower Murray River region. James was the Congregational mission's first Aboriginal convert. David attended the mission school from the age of 7. In 1885 he left to become a servant to C. B. Young who encouraged his interest in philosophy, science and music. Back at Point McLeay from 1890, Unaipon read widely, played the organ and learned bootmaking at the mission. A non-smoker and teetotaller, he grew frustrated at the lack of work for educated Aborigines at mission settlements and in the late 1890s took a job as storeman for an Adelaide bootmaker before returning to assist as book-keeper in the Point McLeay store. On 4 January 1902 at Point McLeay he married a Tangani woman from the Coorong, Katherine Carter, née Sumner, a servant. By 1909 Unaipon had developed and patented a modified handpiece for shearing. He was obsessed with discovering the secret of perpetual motion. In 1914 his repetition of predictions by others about the development of polarized light and helicopter flight were publicized, building his reputation as a 'black genius' and 'Australia's Leonardo'. Between 1909 and 1944 Unaipon made patent applications for nine other inventions, including a centrifugal motor, a multi-radial wheel and a mechanical propulsion device, but the patents lapsed For fifty years he travelled south-eastern Australia, combining this work with lectures and sermons in churches and cathedrals of different denominations. In addresses to schools and learned societies he spoke on Aboriginal legends and customs, and about his people's future. He also demonstrated his inventions, but his public requests for financial support provoked the disapproval of the mission authorities. His wife (d.1928) stayed at home; their marriage was not happy. See way more of David's Life Story via the following Link, Photo and Information above is from this Webpage. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/unaipon-david-8898 See more

23.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 11

23.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 5

22.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 9

22.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 9

22.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 6

21.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 4

21.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 14

21.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 1

20.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 18

20.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 19

19.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 1

19.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 4

19.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 13

19.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 7

18.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 11

18.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 17

18.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 17

18.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 8

17.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 18

17.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 10

16.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 13

15.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 39

13.01.2022 RIVER MURRAY VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 5

13.01.2022 Well big day! Thanks to Lions members and helpers, Jim, June, John, David & Stewy. As well as Cemetery Care Group members Vicki & Jim Nurse. 21 cemetery Section/block markers installed at the Riverton Cemetery.

13.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 16

12.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 15

12.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 1

11.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 7

11.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 7

11.01.2022 Constance Muriel Davey Psychologist, (1882-1963) Please se Note This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8, (MUP), 1981, Some T...erms/Name used have since Changed. Constance Muriel Davey, was born on 4 December 1882 at Nuriootpa, South Australia, daughter of Stephen Henry Davey, bank-manager, and his wife Emily Mary, née Roberts. She was educated at country schools, including Mrs G. L. Barnard's at Clare. An accident, in which she was thrown from a trap and permanently injured her hip and spine, delayed her further education, but in 1908 she began teaching with the Anglican Sisters of the Church, at Port Adelaide. Next year she joined St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School as a mathematics and economics teacher and began studying part time at the University of Adelaide (B.A., 1915; M.A., 1918). In 1921 'Consie' won the Catherine Helen Spence scholarship, which she took up next year at University College, University of London, to study psychology (Ph.D., 1924). She observed pioneer work with disturbed children at Leicester and visited the United States of America and Canada to study the teaching of intellectually retarded and delinquent children. In 1924 she became a psychologist in the South Australian Education Department, at a salary of 438. She examined, by testing, and observation of home conditions, all children who were retarded educationally: in 1925 the State's first 'opportunity class' for problem cases and slow learners was established in which twenty children could learn at their own rate, based on Davey's testing of their intelligence. She organized after-care guidance for these pupils to help them find employment after leaving school and provided vocational advice to other school-leavers. In 1931 she introduced a course to train teachers to work with the retarded, modelled on her old course at Birmingham in 1923. It included lectures on the psychology of retardation and behaviour problems, appropriate teaching methods, legal and social implications, remedial physical training and handwork. Dr Davey was often consulted by other community bodies: she co-operated with the Children's Court and the Children's Welfare Department, ran a clinic at the Adelaide Children Hospital, and advised Minda Home and other agencies handling problem children. Although she continued with experiments to standardize tests for scholars throughout Australia, Davey always insisted that she was not just an intelligence tester: as a psychologist she handled problems of behaviour. In 1927-50 she lectured in psychology and logic at the university and in 1934 helped establish courses there to train the State's first social workers. She went to England in 1938 and visited child-guidance clinics. On her return she sat on the 1938-39 government committee which made a detailed examination of the State's approach to child delinquency, and recommended important humanitarian reforms based on the idea of 'guardianship'. In 1942 Davey resigned from the Education Department; there were now 700 children in opportunity classes. The founder of all psychological services to the State's children, in her early years she had been resisted by some colleagues who thought her work a useless frill. But she gradually created a welfare section, and her ability, intelligence and persistence wrought great changes. She introduced teachers to the idea of organizing single classes at different levels to accommodate the varying abilities of their pupils and was concerned for gifted children in a system which emphasized mediocrity. As supervisor in the opportunity classes she was compassionate, unassuming and good humoured: it was her habit to arrive with a box of 'penny sticks' for the children. Davey belonged to the Women's Non-Party Political Association (League of Women Voters) for thirty years and was its president in 1943-47. The league worked to have women represented on public boards and commissions; it prepared the bill for the Guardianship of Infants Act 1940 which introduced the principle of equal parental guardianship; and brought about reforms in the Children's Court.. From 1945, as a senior research fellow at the university, Davey worked on a historical study of the State's laws relating to children, Children and their Law-Makers (1956). In 1950 she was elected a fellow of the British Psychological Society; in 1940-47 she was president of its South Australian section and in 1947-48 president of the Australian branch. She was appointed O.B.E. in 1955. Dr Davey was a skilful bridge player and loved cricket. The last six years of her life were made difficult by cancer of the thyroid; she died on 4 December 1963 and was cremated. A room in the psychology department at the University of Adelaide is a memorial to her long and useful career. The information and Photo above are from http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/davey-constance-muriel-5891 See more

11.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 8

11.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 2

09.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 3

09.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 4

09.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 9

08.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 15

08.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 14

08.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 38

08.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 40

08.01.2022 LYRUP, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 5

07.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 10

07.01.2022 Esmond Gerald "Tom" Kruse MBE (28 August 1914 30 June 2011) Tom was a mail carrier on the Birdsville Track in the border area between South Australia and Que...ensland. He became known nationally as the result of John Heyer's 1954 film The Back of Beyond. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1955 New Year Honours, "for services to the community in the outback". He was born at Waterloo in South Australia to Harry (Heinrich) and Ida Kruse. He was the tenth of their twelve children. He left school when he was 14 years old, and worked as a casual labourer on local farms. However, due to the Depression, he "went 'bush'" around 1934 to work in John Penna's haulage business which ran out of Yunta in the mid-north of South Australia Kruse married Audrey Valma Fuller (known as Val) on 24 January 1942 in Adelaide, South Australia. They had four children: Pauline, Helen, Phillip and Jeffery munity in the outback". In 1936 Henry Edgar (Harry) Ding (19071976) bought the mail contract from John Penna, and Kruse began his first run on 1 January of that year. Kruse bought the mail contract in 1947. He sold the contract in 1963. Kruse worked the Birdsville Track mail run from 1936 to 1957, driving his Leyland Badger truck. He delivered mail and other supplies including general stores, fuel and medicine to remote stations from Marree in north-west South Australia to Birdsville in central Queensland, some 325 miles (523 kilometres) away. Each trip would take two weeks and Tom regularly had to manage break-downs, flooding creeks and rivers, and getting bogged in desert dunes. Tom Kruse came to fame with the release of John Heyer's documentary The Back of Beyond in 1954. While the film follows a "typical" journey made by Kruse, showing the various people he met along the Track and the sorts of obstacles he faced, this particular journey was closely scripted and includes a number of re-enactments and a 'lost children' story. John Heyer had undertaken a research trip with Kruse earlier. Shooting on the film began in late 1952. He was appointed MBE in 1955 Kruse's abandoned the truck on Pandie Pandie Station near Birdsville in 1957. It was located in the desert in 1986 during the Jubilee Mail Run re-enactment, and retrieved in 1993. A group of enthusiasts led by Neil Weidenbach, with the help of Tom, fully restored the Badger between 1996 and 1999. The truck was gifted by Tom and Valma to the people of Australia and is now on display in the National Motor Museum, at Birdwood in the Adelaide Hills. It is one of the featured vehicles in the National Motor Museum's installation Sunburnt Country, Icons of Australian Motoring. Kruse retired in 1984, and moved to Cumberland Park in Adelaide. In May 1986, South Australia's 150th Jubilee, Tom re-enacted his run, with 80 vehicles joining in the northbound convoy. There was a second re-enactment In 1999, and in October of that year the Leyland was trucked to a few kilometres out of Birdsville so Tom could drive it into the township for celebrations. The next morning it was loaded with mail for "The Mail Truck's Last Run" to Marree. A major reason for the event was to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This run resulted in another documentary, Last Mail from Birdsville the Story of Tom Kruse. As well as a book about Tom's life written by Kristin Weidenbach entitled Mailman of the Birdville Track. In 2000 Tom was inducted into the National Transport Hall of Fame in Alice Springs, and in 2003 he was officially recognised as an Outback Legend by Australian Geographic magazine. Also in 2003, Tom and his truck, the Badger, were nominated South Australian icons by the National Trust of Australia. In 2008, bronze busts of Tom were placed in the National Transport Hall of Fame in Alice Springs, National Motor Museum at Birdwood, at Waterloo (his birthplace), and at Birdsville and Marree. Publicans Phil and Marilyn (Maz) Turner of the iconic Marree Hotel commissioned Ian Doyle, Executive Producer of 'The Tom Kruse Collection' to curate and with Mark Metzger to build the Tom Kruse Museum in the renamed Tom Kruse Room in the Marree Hotel. The collection includes hundreds of photographs, documents and memorabilia from Tom's Marree to Birdsville mail run, including a floor board and the original grille from the 1936 'Back of Beyond' Leyland Badger and a signed and framed mailbag used in the production of 'The Last Mail from Birdsville - the Story of Tom Kruse' in 1999. Kruse died in Adelaide, aged 96, on 30 June 2011. Above information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Kruse_(mailman) Photos from https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/back-of-beyond/ http://www.marreehotel.com.au/attractio/the-tom-kruse-room/ & https://www.australiangeographic.com.au//outback-legend-t/

07.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 11

05.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 6

05.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 41

05.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 2

05.01.2022 RIVER MURRAY VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 1

05.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 12

05.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 3

04.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 5

04.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 2

04.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 12

04.01.2022 William McHughes, Australia's First Aboriginal Stone Mason. When we Post a Story featuring the South Australian Town of Raukkan, we often get Comments stating o...r photos showing, the Church there. That is because that Church features on the Australian Fifty Dollar Note. But Thanks to Vern Leng who inboxed the South Australia, Australia's Best Kept Secret. Page the following lead, Hi Pete & Dea, "You may also wish to consider a story on William McHughes, the first Aboriginal stone mason who learnt his trade whilst building the famous Point McLeay (Raukkan) mission church. McHughes went on to build many outstanding stone buildings in the lower lakes and Coorong area including the historic Wellington Court House and the Wellington East Chapel, now cafe’ on Ferry Rd.' We found out, That this Church, and the Legacy of William McHughes, has so much more History to Tell, I have not been able to find a Photo of William, But the following information is just a little of what is listed on the webpage in the Link below. The late 1860's were formative times for William as he participated in the achievements of his people. The Ngarrindjeri of Raukkan had raised the funds themselves to build their church and they were financing and building some of their own cottages. Theirs was also the only church in the area at the time so both Aboriginal people and Europeans attended and made up the numbers on its council, not to mention sacraments being accepted from both Taplin and his assistant, James Unaipon. By 1870 William McHughes was probably 25 years old give or take a few years. While the original idea the colony had was that for every run of land a white man took up, a portion had to be set aside for use by the local people, of course the portion set aside was always the least likely to have food or water. Since the parcels of land were rarely occupied permanently by the original owners, the European land owners slowly but surely pressured the government to let the blocks be absorbed back into the main holdings. As the opportunities diminished for Aboriginal people to lease and farm their own land, a few Ngarrindjeri men actively sought to lease where they could from the government. also listed on the Story in the link is the Following On the 28th August 1900, Sarah, William’s wife of twenty-seven years, died. An indication of how this impacted William might be glimpsed in the extraordinary thing he did next. In May of 1901 the Aborigines Friends Association sent their superintendent to East Wellington to report back to them. What Garnett found was William McHughes building the East Wellington Chapel entirely at his own expense even as he struggled to support his family on his small block of land. I can only imagine that it was into this building that William poured all his grief for the loss of Sarah. He had built, or helped to build many significant buildings in the region including private residences, the Raukkan Church and the Wellington Courthouse, but it is the East Wellington Chapel that stands even today as a memorial to his great love and to his extraordinary skills, compassion, vision, leadership and courage. https://thedirtsa.com.au/william-mchughes-the-east.../ Church Photo by P.W.Lohmann.

04.01.2022 RIVER MURRAY VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 4

04.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 11

03.01.2022 Henry John Bulter (18891924) Henry John Butler, aviator, was born on 9 November 1889 at Yorketown, South Australia, son of John James Butler, wheat-farmer, and... his wife Sarah Ann, née Cook. Harry Butler showed his enthusiasm and aptitude for mechanics by building models of primitive aircraft while still at school in Koolywurtie; he later accorded farm-work a lower priority than collaboration with a neighbour and lifelong mentor S. C. Crawford in building and flying one of Australia's early aeroplanes. Among the February 1915 candidates, Butler alone gained entrance as an aeromechanic to the Australian Flying School at Point Cook, Victoria. Commissioned three weeks after joining the Royal Flying Corps in 1916, he became fighting-instructor at Turnberry, Scotland, in 1917, and chief fighting-instructor at No. 2 Yorkshire School of Aerial Fighting in 1918. He alternated teaching with studying German aerial combat tactics over France, and he received the Air Force Cross in 1918. Demobilized as captain, Butler brought back to Australia in 1919 a 2000 Bristol monoplane, a type which had proved its superiority in speed and manoeuvrability. He also purchased an Avro 504-K and three 110 horsepower Le Rhone rotary engines: he converted the Avro to carry two passengers on joy-rides at 5 for fifteen minutes. The monoplane, popularly termed the 'Red Devil', made the first Australian mail-service flight over water on 6 August 1919 when Butler covered the distance of 67 miles (108 km) from Adelaide to his home town, Minlaton, in twenty-seven minutes, reaching an altitude of 15,000 feet (4572 m). With 'luck, pluck and ability' as a formula for success, he also raised funds for patriotic purposes in several daring aerobatic exhibitions, notably a stunt-flying display before a crowd of 20,000 at Unley oval on 23 August 1919, the provision of a low-flying escort for Prime Minister W. M. Hughes's train from Salisbury to Adelaide that year, and the winning of an aerial Peace Loan Derby on 7 September 1920. With Crawford's administrative help and the mechanical services of H. A. Kauper, Butler operated as the Captain Harry J. Butler & Kauper Aviation Co. Ltd. The firm used the Albert Park field which later became South Australia's government airport; it was voluntarily liquidated in 1921, as a result of the public's waning interest in aerobatics. Butler retained the equipment and operated on his own until his flying career was terminated by a crash south of Minlaton on 10 January 1922. Upon recovery he established an aviation and motor-engineering garage at Minlaton and in 1924 became a director of Butler, Nicholson Ltd, motor distributors and engineers. He died suddenly on 30 July 1924 from an unsuspected cerebral abscess and was buried in North Road cemetery, North Adelaide. He was survived by his wife Elsa Birch Gibson, a nurse from Bool Lagoon whom he had married on 21 July 1920 at St Paul's Anglican Church, Adelaide. The restored 'Red Devil' is housed in the Captain Harry Butler Memorial Museum at Minlaton; an oil portrait of him is held by the Art Gallery of South Australia. Information above is by Leith G. MacGillivray and via the following Webpage: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/butler-henry-john-5446 Photo From: https://adelaidia.history.sa.gov.au//henry-john-harry-butl

03.01.2022 PINNAROO, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 8

03.01.2022 RIVER MURRAY VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 3

03.01.2022 RIVER MURRAY VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 2

03.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 8

02.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 16

02.01.2022 RENMARK, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 5

02.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 9

02.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 3

01.01.2022 MORGAN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Part 10

01.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 6

01.01.2022 WAIKERIE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA PART 20