Right from the start . . .
‘It’s worth remembering that 10 years is a brief hiatus in an 160-year history.’

Since the early days of the colony of South Australia, Hindley Street and its surrounds has experienced ebb and flow in activity and cycles of prominence. Named after Charles Hindley, a director of the first board of directors of the colony’s founder, the South Australian Company, it was to become Adelaide’s first main street and commercial hub for trade and city life as people made their way from the Port to the City. The first schools, churches, business houses, factories, warehouses and residences sprang up.

The area soon became known as the 'West End' rich in a diversity of cultures and activities. The arts were represented very early with the construction of two of the first purpose built theatres on mainland Australia, The Queens and Royal Victoria Theatres in a lane off Currie Street in 1840–1. The gracious and ornate Theatre Royal stood in Hindley Street from 1868 until 1963. The West End Brewery was located in the West End of Hindley Street from 1859 till 1980. In addition to theatricals, the first 'moving pictures' shown in Adelaide were screened at the Theatre Royal in 1896, less than a year after, the world premiere in Paris in 1895. Australia’s famous vaudevillian comic Roy Rene, alias "Mo", spent his childhood in Hindley Street with his parents until they moved interstate.

The early grand days of the West End were symbolised in the stately colonial buildings, such as Adelaides own "Raffles", the South Australia Hotel, the Newmarket Hotel, West’s Coffee Palace and there are numerous other examples among the 50 or so remaining West End buildings on the State Heritage Register.

As the impact of the new economy of the 20th century started to be felt, and businesses and residents left, the fortunes of the West End waxed and waned. In the 1950s it again held prominence as a street of all nations, a hub for post-war Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Lebanese, Chinese, Palestinian, Yugoslavian, Romanian, French and Russian business people, restaurateurs and traders.

As a result, almost every Adelaidean has fond memories of Hindley Street and the West End as a destination for spaghetti, gelati, cappuccino . . . a tailored suit . . . a risque nightclub . . . a beehive hairstyle.

photo (c) 2006 Mark Cnotek