“Gone Postal”
Murder & Suicide at the Adelaide General Post Office
Adelaide’s General Post Office (GPO) design came from the minds of
Edmund Wright and Edward Woods who won a competition to design the new building
that was replacing the old, much smaller post office further up King William
Street. Designed in the style of Monumental Italianate, the Post Office is a grand cornerstone of
Victoria Square and changed the face of that part of Adelaide when it was
completed in 1872.
Even before
construction had begun, the building attracted a crowd, with the laying of the
foundation stone by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Alfred on the 5th of November
1867. The event attracted an estimated 3500 spectators.
The GPO also housed
Adelaide’s first telephone exchange and is where our first message was
received from the Overland Telegraph Line in 1872.
Extensions were made from 1891 until 1893 to house an improved
telephone exchange.
In 1926 the General
Post Office became the scene of a horrific attempted murder shooting and suicide.
The day prior, employee James Hannagan was fired from his job for
assaulting two of his fellow employees.
Hannagan entered the
General Post Office at about one o’clock in the afternoon and opened fire with
a revolver. First, he shot Ernest Doble, a clerk, wounding him, before opening
fire on the Post Officer Director, James Mason, shooting him in the chest.
Hannagan, then fired shots towards the women’s clerical division, narrowly
missing the working women with a volley of shots, before fleeing the building.
As Hannagan made his way down the steps, out into Victoria
Square, a witness to the events, Mr J Beare, tackled Hannagan to the ground.
The two men struggled in the street until Hannagan freed his revolver and shot
himself dead in the gutter.
On Friday, October 28th, 1927, another horrific fatality occurred in the building when an unidentified man jumped from the
interior balcony of the GPO and killed himself. His last words, spoken to an
employee who had stopped to ask him what he was doing, were; "I'm going to
commit suicide. Goodbye.”
He jumped the railing and fell 30 feet onto the
floor below.
Researched and written by Allen Tiller.
© 2018 Allen Tiller
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Selected Bibliography
1926 '"YOU'RE KILLED
FORTHWITH!"', News (Adelaide, SA: 1923 - 1954), 27 December, p. 1. (HOME EDITION), viewed 02 Jan 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article129334986
1926 'POST OFFICE
SENSATION.', Recorder (Port Pirie, SA: 1919 - 1954), 18 December, p. 1. , viewed 02 Jan 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article95968304
1926 'POST OFFICE
TRAGEDY.', Recorder (Port Pirie, SA: 1919 - 1954), 28 December, p. 4. , viewed 02 Jan 2018,
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article95968855
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