In June 1856 the South Australian Institute Act was established to ‘promote the general study and cultivation of all or any of the various branches of . . . art, science, literature and philosophy’ in the colony.
In that year two institutes were formed, the East Torrens Institute in Kensington and the Norwood and Stepney Institute, each beginning in a schoolroom. The two institutes had a program between 1856 and 1858, holding monthly lectures and gaining regular publicity in The Adelaide Observer, The Adelaide Times, the South Australian Register and occasional notices in The Advertiser and The SA Weekly Chronicle.
In 1857 the East Torrens Institute attracted as many as 200 for its July lecture and hosted two soirees and concerts. Its lectures were monthly through 1858 and into 1859 and it staged an art exhibition which ‘attracted large companies’. However, by March 1859 this institute was struggling to pay the £80 per annum rent on the schoolroom, was seeking new subscribers and its president was concerned that there was no money for new books. By August that year the rented premises had been given up and its 400 or so books and other possessions were auctioned off.
Meanwhile the Norwood and Stepney Institute, which began in a rent-free schoolroom in Beulah Road in Norwood before moving to Chapel Street, had been fitted with shelves for its 200 books and seven periodicals. That Institute held monthly lectures until May 1859 when the Institute reported the formation of a class in ‘readings and conversation’. No social activities were recorded. Unaccountably, that was the last report of that institute in the newspapers.
Why did these institutes have such short lives when they appeared to be so well-supported initially? Several of the active members in both institutes had been lobbying the government to establish funding for the institutes in South Australia. One or both of the institutes was supported by men such as Charles Bonney, HJ Clark, George Waterhouse, Richard Hanson and WD Glyde, all of whom held prominent positions in SA at the time.
The Act of 1856 resulted in the appointment of a permanent secretary as manager and librarian of the South Australian Institute and a promise to find money in its estimates for a building to house that Institute. But funds for that central building were not committed in either the 1856 or 1857 budgets. But the 1858 budget did provide for the SA Institute building – still prominent on the corner of North Terrace and Kintore Avenue .
Why did the prominent men on the two institutes’ committees not continue to maintain the institutes?Had the two institutes achieved their goal? Could the institutes have failed because of a narrow membership base and a small range of activities? Did the small number of books in the libraries lose subscribers? Did interested people shift to more attractive institutes in nearby Glen Osmond or at Magill?
Who can throw light on why these institutes collapsed?