Respectable, Sober, and Industrious? Attitudes to Alcohol in Early Colonial Adelaide

Abstract

An integral part of the plan for systematic colonisation in South Australia was an intended balance between landowning employers and their labourers. Class distinctions were to be preserved, not broken, in the new colony.2 The Colonisation Commissioners in London campaigned for emigrants with an interest in purchasing land, and for an industrious labouring class to work the investment. The commissioners promised economic prosperity, freedom of religious worship, and isolation from convicts; in short, a progressive colony in which the so-called 'social evils' of Britain, such as improvidence, intemperance, and moral depravity would be left behind, not imported.3 These were topical issues in the 1830s, since Poor Law reformers had suggested that such 'social evils' were principal explanations for poverty.4 Consequently, socio-economic problems were said to derive from individual rather than structural causes. This belief in individual agency was shared the planners of South Australia, for, as we will see, British emigration agents sought to attract labourers of 'good character' to the new colony. However, the future of South Australia was also said to depend upon the establishment of a two tiered social structure of capitalists and labourers. With these two ingredients ? an intake of 'respectable' immigrants and a 'balance' of class forces ? socio-economic progress in South Australia was thought to be assured. The first edition of the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register was published in London in August 1837. In this newspaper George Stevenson wrote for 'Intending migrants', with particular expectations of male labourers. He preached: 'We want no idlers here ? no drunkards. But steady, sober men, who are not ashamed to live by the sweat of their brow, will be welcomed'.5 In order to attract labourers to South Australia the commissioners