Extreme Emergency Causing Notice – Kapunda – South
Australia
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| Lord Palmerston Hotel - Main Street Kapunda |
During World War Two, the Japanese military had spread its
army across Asia, marching towards Australia with a ferocity never before
witnessed in modern warfare. City after city fell to the Empire as they moved
ever southwards. Singapore fell, and soon Australian soldiers were fighting
even closer to their Island, and the threat of coastal invasion became much
more real and terrifying.
By 1942 however, the
tide was beginning to turn, and it was now the Japanese who were beginning to
worry, so much so in fact that they began to evacuate their own people from
possible invasion points by moving them to their furthest north Island of
Hokkaido.
If the Japanese had of
made it ashore and invaded Australia, the South Australian Government had
devised a plan that would come into action if an “extreme emergency causing
notice” had to be served, which would demand all banks in South Australia in metropolitan areas would have to transfer
their head office, or State headquarters, if the banks head office was
interstate, into country regional areas as a means of isolating them and making
them harder to capture before important documents could be destroyed.
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| Bank of Adelaide - 1907 - Kapunda |
The clearinghouse for
Associated Banks in South Australia was to find its new home in Burra, where
several of the States banks were already represented, these being the Bank of
Australia, The National Bank of Australasia Ltd, and the Commercial Bank of
Australia Ltd.
Banks that were
choosing to station their headquarters in other towns, would also have to have
a representative stationed in Burra to change their cheques through the
clearinghouse.
Other banks were
choosing other regional areas, the Bank of Adelaide made plans for its
administration to work from Saddleworth whilst the Adelaide office would be
moved to Kapunda, the headquarters to Balaklava and its Port Adelaide,
Hindmarsh and Rundle Street branches would all be moved to Angaston in the
Barossa Valley.
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| English, Scottish and Australia Chartered Bank - Kapunda 1871 |
The Bank Of Adelaide
also made plans to move its Enfield, Keswick and Unley branches to Freeling,
whilst its Hindley Street, Pultney Street and Gouger Street branches were to go
even further north to Spalding, and the office on North Terrace to Booborowie!
The English, Scottish
and Australian Bank Ltd was looking towards Clare, while the Head Office of
Sydney based bank the Commercial Banking company of Sydney Ltd, was looking to
go south to Naracoorte. The Commonwealth Bank made moves for Waikerie, and our
very own State Bank had chosen Yacka as its escape plan.
The Savings Bank of South Australia chose Kapunda, and made
moves to secure buildings in the town, one being the former Baptist Church on
Hill street (now the Kapunda Museum) of which the basement, measuring 60ft by
40ft, and having two stair wells was considered extremely valuable to the bank,
but they also needed somewhere to use as accommodation for the staff they would
need to move the former copper mining town.
The bank also
purchased the once grand Lord Palmerston Hotel which was situated in the main
street of the town, and after service as a hotel, and horse sales yards, became
the Kapunda Coffee Palace before falling into a state of disuse and neglect.
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| Kapunda's Main Street circa 1880 |
The Hotel, on the
ground floor had a bar, dining room, four other rooms and a kitchen, and on the
first floor another 11 rooms that could be used as bedrooms, more than ample
for the staffs requirements if ever the move had to take place.
Fortunately for South
Australia the Japanese never got this far, and an “extreme emergency causing
notice” never had to be served.
Kapunda has long held the title “Australia’s
Most Haunted Town” and gained national notoriety after the release of the documentary “Kapunda: Most Haunted Town in the Western
World” in 2001. 
