Page index (clickable) ▼ Lists of Adelaide pubs ▼ Number of Adelaide pubs ▼ Plans of Adelaide (showing pubs) ▼ Smith's survey, 1880 ▼ Fire Underwriters' Plans Useful/recommended links • Beer Adelaide • Glorious South Australia [Facebook] • Time Gents [Adelaide] • • • Useful State Library links • Adelaide City Acres Guide • Mapping sources for South Australia Guide • Almanacs and directories Guide • Departed spirits: lost pubs of Adelaide • Having a quiet one • • • Useful Adelaide City Council links • City of Adelaide Archives: Historic city hotel records [guide] • City of Adelaide Archives: Assessment Books, 1847-1998 • Adelaide Heritage Surveys • Experience Adelaide: Lost pubs of Adelaide • Experience Adelaide: Old Pubs of North Adelaide • • • Misc links • [ACC], Pubs in the City of Adelaide and Other Interesting City of Adelaide Pubs booklets produced by the ACC, May 2012 • McDougall & Vines (Sumerling,P & McDougall,K)The City of Adelaide: a thematic history, August 2006, pp.31-34 • • • In the interest of comprehensiveness, I should mention Patricia Sumerling's Hotels of Adelaide: an illustrated history (Wakefield Press, 2025) but not sure that I'd recommend it to serious pub 'historians'.

East Rundle Street, northern side in 1936 from Baring's Progressive Adelaide..., 1936 Tavistock Hotel on the left, Exeter Hotel on the right; click to enlarge Resources for the history of Adelaide pubs - DRAFT For review and comments only [On-line] Lists of Adelaide pubs, 1837- Ben Lawrence's list of Adelaide pubs on his "Beer Adelaide" site is, I believe, the most comprehensive, accurate and generally useful index of Adelaide pubs licensed from 1837 until the 2020s; note that the pubs in North Adelaide are included in the list of metropolitan hotels but are easily identified (sort the list by 'city'). Also very useful, Reg Butler's "Early South Australian Hotels and Publicans" lists Adelaide pubs by street and by publicans; as advised on the site, Reg's list is incomplete and occasionally inaccurate. 'Bob' Hoad's Hotels and Publicans of South Australia, 1986 and 1992, is the most frequently cited and remains the almost-but-not-definitive 'off'-line/printed list of South Australian pubs and their licensees; his list of pubs in (South) Adelaide and North Adelaide are attached for your reference. It is recommended that you use Hoad with caution and check against Lawrence's and/or Butler's lists or, of course, the archival sources. Selected archival and other 'official' lists (all South Australian pubs) The definitive ie official lists of 'historical' pubs in South Australia are held by State Records; currently no pub-related records are available on-line, however the staff at RecordsSA are very helpful; the catalogue can be searched here. For the earlier publican's licences or equivalent, the definitive list is the Register of publican's and other licenses, 1837-1873, administed by the Colonial Treasury Office: State Records, GRG45/17/00000/1; a guide is here. A facsimile of the [Register of] Licences granted from May 1837 to December 1839 is here [apologies for the poor quality]. Also useful, in about 1875 the then Public Records Office compiled an "Index to hotels, 1839-1875": State Records, GRG56/68/00028/1. Licensees for all South Australian pubs were listed, generally each quarter, in the South Australian Government Gazette [SAGG] which can be browsed here or searched here (check the SAGG database and set relevant search query). The SAGG includes "certificates" or temporary licenses that could be granted between regular, usually quarterly meetings of the Licensing Bench or equivalent. Note that generally (1) licenses were granted not to pubs but only to a 'real' person (later also a company) who had an agreement with the owner or leasee to manage a specific public house and who was responsible for compliance with licensing and related laws; (2) Licensing Benches or equivalents might grant a license but the licence did not become legally effective until the applicant had paid the relevant fee; and (3) licensing agencies could award a temporary license - a 'certificate' - between formal quarterly meetings, for example to provide continuity of the license if the publican died or defaulted on rent or proved to be of bad character or became insolvent... Back to the top Number of 'pubs' in Adelaide, 1837- The number of licensed presmises in Adelaide (North and South), 1837-2023 (columns; MoE ∓2) and the estimated population per 'pub', 1837-c1901 (line) [Click to enlarge/download; data on the number of pubs from Beer Adelaide website] [More to come] Back to the top Plans of Adelaide A collection of plans of Adelaide showing hotels, c.1842 - c.1990. Note that the plans and locations of pubs are occasionally accurate nor and some pubs might be omitted. The images are relatively high resolutions; the files can be large and take time to download. Unless noted otherwise, these plans are copyright-free and can be freely copied and published. George Strickland Kingston's "map of Adelaide", c.1842 [SLSA C1165; click to enlarge/download; approx 5MB] Penman & Galbraith's "Plan of the City of Adelaide", 1851 [pubs named] [SLSA C229; click to enlarge/download; approx 36MB] Penman & Galbraith's "Plan of the City of Adelaide", 1856-1859[?] A monotone printed edition of the previous map; pubs shown not named [SLSA C260; click to enlarge/download; approx 13MB] Penman & Galbraith's "Plan of the City of Adelaide", c.1860[?] Another monotone printed edition of the previous map; pubs shown not named [Source tba; click to enlarge/download; approx 105MB] Delisser's "Map of Adelaide", 1861 [pubs named] [SLSA C183; click to enlarge/download; approx 47MB] Frearson's Pocket Plan of the City of Adelaide, c1870" [pubs shown] [State Library of Queensland; click to enlarge/download; approx 83MB] The earliest and least cluttered version of Frearson's plans of Adelaide Colyer's [Plan of the] City of Adelaide, 1899 [pubs named] [SLSA C1032; click to enlarge/download; approx 296MB] Robert Frearson's Plan of the city of Adelaide c.1910 [pubs shown; updated] [SLSA C296; click to enlarge/download; approx 4MB] Robert Frearson's Plan of the city of Adelaide [c1910?], 1924-25 [monotone; pubs shown] [SLSA C1031; click to enlarge/download; approx 14MB] Probably a fold-out plan of Adelaide from Frearson's Guide Plans" Adelaide and Suburbs..., 1924-25, p.1 W H & R J Edmunds' [Plan of] Adelaide. 1936 [pubs named] [SLSA C228; click to enlarge/download; approx 14MB] South Australian Brewing Company Ltd, South Adelaide land usage map showing principally hotels..., 1967 [SLSA BRG398/26/2; click to enlarge/download; approx 214MB] Anon "Old City Hotels", c1980[?] [newspaper clipping; plan of South Adelaide, naming pubs] [Private collection; click to enlarge/download; approx 4MB Beer Adelaide's interactive maps of South Adelaide (left) and of North Adelaide (right), c2020 [Click to go to maps] Back to the top Smith's survey 1880 "The Smith Survey was a detailed trigonometrical survey of the city carried out by the city engineer Charles Smith during 1878 to 1880. The Survey was done in preparation for the installation of a general system of deep drainage. It comprises 126 large format maps each of 10-acre blocks, which show the precise location and layout of every building that existed in the City at that time." [City of Adelaide Archives]. The associated Field Books are the surveyors' preliminary drawings and include dimensions of buildings and main construction materials, distances and bearings etc as well as,generally, the names of the pubs. Smith survey links: Smith survey index sheet The key plan below can be a a more convenient alternative to using the index. Smith survey maps, North Adelaide and Smith survey maps, South Adelaide Smith survey Field Books, see here Key plan for Smith's survey of the City of Adelaide, 1880-1881 Individual sheets are also here [SLSA here; click to enlarge/download] Smith's survey, [composite] Book Plan of South Adelaide, 1880-1881 [pubs named] [SLSA here; click to enlarge/download] Back to the top J R Ferguson's Plans of Adelaide, c.1912 "surveyed and drawn for the Fire Underwriters' Association of South Australia...a set [21] of fire insurance maps surveyed and drawn 1911-1914...showing land use including building usage, some street numbers and business names" including hotels. View at the State Library website or here. G Garrett's Plans of Adelaide..., c.1924 similar set [3] of fire insurance maps can be viewed here. Back to the top Posted March 2026 Original content © Craig Hill 2026