Lost Hotels: Black Horse Hotel, Leigh Street, Adelaide.
1926: Leigh Street, Adelaide. SLSA [B 3424]
The Black Horse Hotel was located on Leigh Street, about halfway between Hindley and Currie Streets. The hotel opened in 1841 as the Foresters Inn and was renamed the Black Horse Inn two years later. It was built by Mr Whyles in 1841, who came to South Australia via Tasmania.[1] During the 1870s, the hotel was known as a place for musicians and actors to congregate.[2]
In 1897, The Black Horse Inn was at the centre
of a smallpox scare in Adelaide. An outbreak of smallpox among passengers
onboard the ship Ninevah led to a call for those passengers to
report to doctors. Some of the passengers had transferred to another ship
heading to Western Australia, and two passengers were missing, Fleming and
McPherson. A search in Adelaide was called. The two men were later captured in
Port Adelaide by Detective Segerlind when he noticed them walking by the police
station.
The two men had purchased tickets to
travel to Western Australia on the Buninyong, using the aliases William
Haig and Robert Thompson. Upon their arrest, it was found they had stayed in
the Black Horse Inn, which led to staff and patrons being assessed for
smallpox. Meanwhile, the two culprits were shipped off to the Torrens Island Quarantine
Station for observation.[3]
In
November 1898, George Sutherland was brought before the courts accused of
stealing jewellery to the value of 30 pounds from Jane Bristow at the Black
Horse Hotel.[4]
Sutherland, who also went by the alias H. Williams was well known to Adelaide
police for stealing watches. He was brought before the courts in October 1899,
and found guilty, receiving six years imprisonment with hard labour at Yatala
Gaol.[5]
Jane Bristow was the licensee of the
hotel at the time of the theft. She had left her bedroom door unlocked, which
was not her usual routine, and noticed her belongings missing later that day.
Sutherland was arrested in Sydney and sent back to Adelaide for trial. He
admitted to stealing the items and selling them in Melbourne.[6]
It was alleged in 1905 that a fisherman named
J. Nelson was accosted at the Inn. Nelson had worked on one of Daw’s fishing
cutters and had travelled to Adelaide from Port Adelaide to sell some fish. He
received his payment and was readying to leave for Port Adelaide when two men
approached him outside the Black Horse Inn asking for a match. Nelson lit their
cigarette, and the men invited him inside for a drink, which he refused. The
two men hustled Nelson into the bar and ordered three drinks. One of the men
then put Nelson in a headlock while the other rifled through his pockets,
stealing a cheque for £9 10s, a £5 note, five
sovereigns and some loose silver. The men then ran off into Leigh Street,
leaving Nelson in the hotel.[7]
The hotel proprietor, Mr M. Whelan wrote to the Advertiser to dispute the Nelson story. Whelan claimed the story was untrue and may have a damaging effect on the reputation of his establishment. He wrote,
On Friday afternoon in answering the bell from
a parlor, which is situated a long distance from the bar—there being a long
dining-room intervening—this parlor is entered from a side door off the
right-of-way on the northern end of the hotel. I supplied one round
of drinks, and no more, to four men (all of whom were perfect strangers to me),
and in about five minutes afterwards the man, who I presume is Nelson, came
into the bar and said he was robbed by those men in his company.
He was somewhat excited and wanted' to
know who the men were. I told him they were strangers to me, as was also
himself, and advised him to interview the police. This is all I know of the
case, and I consider I am entitled to an apology from your informant.
It is not a nice thing to have it said that a
man was robbed in a public bar; it would give the public an impression that the
Landlord was a consenting party. I may also state that I heard no noise
whatever in the parlor, it being such a distance from the bar.
M. WHELAN,
Black Horse Hotel,
Leigh-street, Adelaide.[8]
When Whelan was the publican at the Black
Horse Inn, the property was owned by the Anglican Church, whose head office was
directly across the road.[9]
In 1906, Newton, McLaren Ltd. purchased the property. They traded under the
name J.A. Newton and Co. In 1921, J.A.
Newton made the first radio receiver for commercial sale in South Australia.[10] In 1907 the old hotel was demolished to make
way for a new warehouse.[11]
By the 1930s, the property was occupied by the
S.A. Paper Bag Company.[12]
Today, the building is known as Aston House, located at 15 Light Street. It
contains a variety of shop fronts. The building was significantly renovated by
the Ginos Group in 2010 to provide ground-floor retail space and two levels of
office accommodation.[13]
Researched
and written by Allen Tiller © 2025
Visit
the State Library of South Australia to
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[1] 'Correspondence.', The
Advertiser, (4 April 1907), p. 6.
[2] 'Bits for Boniface.', Quiz,
(18 January 1907), p. 8.
[3] 'Two Men Quarantined At Torrens
Island.', Evening Journal, (11 February 1897), p. 3.
[4] 'An Adelaide Robbery.', The
Advertiser, (15 July 1899), p. 8.
[5] 'The Criminal Sittings.', The
Express and Telegraph, (11 October 1899), p. 3.
[6] 'Police Court-Adelaide.', Chronicle,
(12 August 1899), p. 15.
[7] ‘Garrotted
in a Hotel.’ The North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times’, (10
August 1905), p. 3.
[8] 'To The Editor.', The
Narracoorte Herald, (15 August 1905), p. 2.
[9] 'Our Notebook.', The
Journal, (27 May 1916), p. 12.
[10] 'Passing By', News,
(29 March 1951), p. 12.
[11] 'Topical Trifles.', Gadfly,
(15 May 1907), p. 6.
[12] 'Death of Mr Robert
Gillies', Border Chronicle, (30 June 1939), p. 3.
[13] ’15 Leigh Street.’, Ginos Group,
(2025), https://ginosgroup.com.au/properties/leigh-street/.
