The story
History
19th century
There had been earlier attempts at setting up mechanics' institutes in the colony, but they struggled to find buildings which could hold their library collections and provide spaces for lectures and entertainments. In 1856, the colonial government promised support for all institutes, in the form of provision the first government-funded purpose-built cultural institution building. The South Australian Institute, incorporating a public library and a museum, was established in 1861 in the rented premises of the Library and Mechanics' Institute in King William Street while awaiting construction of the Institute building on the corner of North Terrace and Kintore Avenue.
In June 1856 the South Australian Legislative Council passed Act No. 16 of 1855–6, the South Australian Institute Act (An Act to establish and incorporate an Institution to be called the South Australian Institute), which incorporated the South Australian Institute under the control of a Board of Governors, to whose ownership all materials belonging to the old Library and Mechanics' Institute was immediately transferred. The Act provided for a library and a museum as part of the new organisation.
Frederick George Waterhouse offered his services as curator of the South Australian Institute Museum in June 1859 in an honorary capacity. When the Institute building was completed, the Board appointed him as the first curator, a position he held until his retirement in February 1882. He was succeeded by Wilhelm Haacke, who in January 1883 recommended the South Australian Institute Museum be renamed the South Australian Museum (which did not happen then), and the position of Curator be changed to Director. Haacke was appointed the first Director, but only held the position until he resigned in October 1884 after a series of disputes with the Museum's management
20th century
The Museum Act (1939) gave the South Australian Museum autonomy from the Art Gallery and Library, and the South Australian Institute Museum was officially renamed the South Australian Museum. This legislation was superseded by the South Australian Museum Act (1976). At some point between 1996 and 2002, the Museum became part of Arts SA.
In 1997, championed by state Arts Minister Diana Laidlaw, the SA Museum was funded to develop its ground floor Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery.
21st century
The following decade, Mike Rann, Premier and Arts Minister from 2002 to 2011, funded the redevelopment of the Pacific Cultures Gallery and the development of the South Australian Biodiversity Gallery.
In October 2005, a piece of public art incorporating water, 14 Pieces, situated on the forecourt of the museum, was officially unveiled by the Premier. Created by artists Angela and Hossein Valamanesh and commissioned by the City of Adelaide, it replaced the Lavington Bonython fountain that had occupied the site from 1965. Its form is based on the vertebrae of an extinct marine reptile, the ichthyosaur.
Aboriginal culture and family history
The Humanities collection includes "the largest and most comprehensive collection of Australian Aboriginal cultural material in the world". housing about 30,000 objects. This collection, along with several others in the museum, is being digitised, with many images and a great deal of data about each item available for online browsing.
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In 2016, a private benefactor, Margaret Davy AM, provided funding for a new position for an Indigenous curator for five years, which she requested be named in honour of her late husband, William Geary. This position was known as The William and Margaret Geary Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Material Culture, with the first appointee being Glenn Iseger-Pilkington, a Wadjarri, Nhanda, and Nyoongar man from Western Australia with a background in art curating. This was the first time in the history of the museum that a lead curatorial role had been designated for an Indigenous person.
The museum holds the biggest collection of carvings by Arrernte artist and anthropological interpreter Erlikilyika, also known as Jim Kite, who lived at the tiny and remote European settlement at Charlotte Waters telegraph station. It also holds a bound sketchbook of 24 pencil drawings of native trees, created during the Spencer and Gillen expedition and bought by Herbert Basedow before being acquired by the Museum, as well as photographs of "Jimmy Kite" and other related materials.
In 1988, Doreen Kartinyeri started the museum's family history unit, which is as of 2026 run solely by genealogist Ali Abdullah-Highfold, a Kaurna, Ngarrindjeri, Narungga, Kokatha, and Wirangu man, who started working at the museum in around 1998. Family trees have been created using detailed records, photos, and archives dating back to colonisation, including the work of anthropologist Norman Tindale, who recorded much detail about the languages, culture, and physical characteristics of the Aboriginal people he visited. Several hundred people visit the museum each year hoping to trace their family history, creating a very large workload for one person, and Abdullah-Highfold is planning to get the records digitised in a way that the community can access records online.
2013–2014: Traversing Antarctica: the Australian Experience
Rare artefacts and displays highlighting the scientific, historical, and cultural legacy of Australia's interactions with Antarctica (December 2013 – March 2014).
2015: Shimmer
A collaborative exhibition with between JamFactory, the South Australian Museum and Tarnanthi, a national event held annually by the Art Gallery of South Australia to showcase Indigenous Australian art and culture (October–November 2015).
2017–2018: Ngurra: Home in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands
Ngurra is a word with complex connotations, meaning home, country, camp, birthplace and belonging. Showed the creativity and ingenuity of the Ngaanyatjarra people of Western Australia in all aspects of their life and art (October 2017 – January 2018). Curated by Glenn Iseger-Pilkington.
2019: Yurtu Ardla
Yurtu Ardla means wood in the Nukunu and Adnyamathanha languages. The exhibition, curated by Jared Thomas, is a continuation of the Ku Arts workshop series in 2015, which consisted of carving camps by Nukunu (of the Southern Flinders Ranges) and Adnyamathanha (of the Northern Flinders and Gammon Ranges) and which revitalised the Nukunu carving practices. Before this exhibition, there were fewer than 20 known Nukunu objects held by the Museum, mostly made by Nukunu man Paddy Thompson and acquired by anthropologist Norman Tindale in the 1920s. The specially commissioned piti (coolamon), thiparra (shields), wadna (boomerangs), yakadi (walking sticks) and wirri (clubs) have added to the historic items to illustrate the continuation of the tradition. Roy Coulthard is a third-generation carver in his family, who visits schools to share his knowledge. With this exhibition, SAM is adopting the practice of naming artists and identifying works for their individual artistry rather than their ethnic identity (March–June 2019).
2025: Treasures of the Viking Age: The Galloway Hoard
Treasures of the Viking Age: The Galloway Hoard is an extensive collection of objects from the Galloway Hoard, comprising rare and unique Viking Age that had been buried around AD 900 in southwest Scotland and only discovered in 2014. In its first showing outside the UK, the exhibition is mounted at the SAM from 8 February to 27 July 2025.
Historical
Edgar Ravenswood Waite, zoologist, ichthyologist, herpetologist, and ornithologist, Director of the SA Museum 1914–1928
Amandus Heinrich Christian Zietz, zoologist, assistant director of the SA Museum 1900–1910
Sir Douglas Mawson, Antarctic explorer, geologist and academic, Honorary Curator of Minerals at SA Museum 1907–1958, and chair of the Museum Board of Governors 1951–1958
New Aboriginal cultural centre
As of 2019 the South Australian government was committed to splitting the museum, retaining a natural history museum on its existing site and creating a new gallery for Aboriginal art and culture on the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital, now known as Lot Fourteen. In early 2019 a consultation process was begun, involving the state government, the Museum, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the State Library, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, and South Australia's Aboriginal communities, in particular the Kaurna.
An update on the Lot Fourteen gallery was announced by Premier Steven Marshall in February 2020, with a scheduled completion date of 2023. However, the plans have been revisited since the change of state government in 2023, and a decision on the Tarrkarri Aboriginal centre was postponed until 2024, as the state government under Peter Malinauskas searches for philanthropic funding. After an initial cost estimate of $200m, a government-appointed panel led by Ken Wyatt and including Bob Carr and Australian Reserve Bank board member Carolyn Hewson, recommended in April 2023 that between $400 million to $600 million should be spent on the project in order to make Tarrkarri an internationally significant centre.
From Wikipedia’s article on South Australian Museum, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3