Adelaide Milling Company Mills
In 1840, William Light, Surveyor-General to the Colony of South Australia, announced that over of land had been sold at the Adelaide Village (later renamed to City) and the new Colony had a population of about 300. “The Adelaide Village was surveyed in 1841, laid out as a square grid of nine-chain (91 m) blocks, and marked out into allotments of several sizes. The principal streets were named King William Street, Queen Street, North Terrace and West Terrace. A few streets were named after early settlers, e.g. Pirie, Angas, Hindmarsh, Light, Torrens, Haigh, Broughton and Bowden.
The Adelaide Milling Company was originally established in 1853 as the Adelaide Roller Flour Mill. It was the first flour mill in South Australia. The mill was originally located on the banks of the Torrens River, near the presentday Adelaide Festival Centre. It was replaced by a more modern mill in 1856. The company was formed by George Fife Angas, with an original capital of £30,000. The company also owned a fleet of ships.
In 1858 it was renamed the Adelaide Milling Company and moved to a property known as “Thebarton” in Hackney Road, North Adelaide. The Adelaide Milling Company (AMC), was formed in the early 1860s by the merger of four milling companies, with the first flour mill at Port Adelaide established in 1839. AMC was the largest milling company in the State and by the turn of the century had a virtual monopoly on flour milling in South Australia. The changing face of the flour mills of South Australia can be seen from the years 1850 to 1945. The earliest mills were all water-powered, as then were the mills operating in the early 1860s, many of which were located along the Port River and its tributaries. The ever-increasing demand for flour in an expanding colony soon saw the water-driven mills replaced by steam-driven mills, first those
Adelaide Milling Company (AMC) Mills are a series of grain mills in South Australia. They were established in 1853 as a flour milling operation and ultimately became one of the nation’s biggest food manufacturers.
Mills can be found all over the state of South Australia. In fact, if you drive from Adelaide in the north to Whyalla in the south, you’ll pass by over a dozen mills, most of them over 100 years old. Some of the earliest mills were erected about 1839 at both Gawler and Gawler South. In South Australia the great majority of mills are windmills, but there are watermills at Yankalilla on the Fleurieu Peninsula, at Millicent on the south coast, and at Port Adelaide (the only survivor of a once sizable fleet of 4 watermills along the River Torrens). There are also steam-powered flour mills at Kapunda, Port Adelaide, Port Wakefield and Victor.
The Adelaide Milling Company has been in operation since 1849. The mills were used in the production of wheat, barley, oats and maize. It was sold to the South Australian government in 1971 and then to Adelaide Capital Corporation in 1975. The mill was the first in Australia to produce flour by roller process in 1872. The company was also the first in South Australia to produce wholemeal bread.
My first visit was Sunday afternoon, when I really wasn’t expecting to be able to take a tour, but I was able to go for a walkabout anyway. Here are some photos. After the Adelaide Milling Company (ADM) Mill at Port Adelaide closed in 1988, the old mill was demolished and the site was used as the construction base for the new Adelaide Casino. In 2013, the Adelaide Casino was demolished, and the site is now being developed as the Riverbank Precinct, which will include commercial and residential development, a hotel and a Riverbank Village. The Adelaide Milling Company (ADM) was incorporated in 1880 and started off with a flour mill at Port Adelaide. The company later became a large milling and agricultural company, and by the end of World War.