September 10, 1875 was a gala day for Mount Barker.  The occasion was the opening of the Mount Barker Institute, which had been completed after more than twenty years of effort and aspiration.  The Courier reported that “The edifice now that it is completed is an ornament to the town, and in its appointments is admirably arranged, and will supply a want which has been greatly felt in such a progressive township as Mount Barker.”

You would not know it, even standing on the footpath directly outside the building, but the Institute is still there, now rendered invisible by a cluster of shopfronts and by the indifference of successive bureaucrats to the historical legacy of the town.  Today the Institute is called the “Town Hall,” but most residents of Mount Barker would be unaware of its existence under either name.

“Institutes” were very important in nineteenth-century South Australia.  They originally imitated a British tradition of Mechanics’ Institutes, which were designed to provide working-class young men with opportunities for personal and moral education.  As clergyman Robert Flockhart explained at a meeting of the Mount Barker Mechanics’ Institute in 1851, the object of the Society was to benefit the young men of the district by affording them “an unobjectionable mode of recreation and improvement, in the shape of weekly meetings, at which to discuss various subjects of a scientific and other useful character, carefully excluding all religious topics or party politics, as well as matters of an immoral tendency.”

Dropping the class-based reference to “mechanics,” the role of the South Australian Institute quickly evolved to address the problems that people faced in the context of widely dispersed towns with little social infrastructure.  In particular, people lacked access to information, education, and places to meet and exchange ideas. Institutes helped to fill these gaps by providing books, up-to-date newspapers, and venues for meetings and lectures.  They also provided homes for literature, debating and mutual improvement societies.  Institutes functioned in this way even before they had permanent buildings of their own, and in Mount Barker the Institute met at Low’s Inn, Victor Dumas’s Schoolhouse and Thomas Good’s grain store before funding could be secured for the Gawler Street building.  The early activities of Institutes were principally or exclusively addressed to men, although the press often implied that women too would benefit if men could be made less barbarous.

Recognising the community benefits of the Institute movement, in 1856 the South Australian government passed legislation to support local Institutes by affiliating them with a central office, its own relatively palatial South Australian Institute, which still forms part of the State Library complex on North Terrace.  Affiliates were minimally required to have subscription-based libraries and reading rooms, as well as local Committees to manage their affairs.  By 1900 most of the 200 or so Institutes in the South Australia had buildings of their own.

The South Australian government contributed £800 towards the cost of the Mount Barker building, adding to £700 raised by public subscription.  Popular businessman and philanthropist John Dunn had initiated the fund-raising effort with a donation of £100.  On the day of the gala opening, Dunn was escorted by a parade, led by a brass band, from his home at “The Laurels” to Gawler Street where he ceremonially unlocked the Institute’s door.

As Mount Barker grew, the Institute Library required more space.  In 1928 a library extension was added to the left-hand side of the building as viewed from the street, as can still be seen today.  It must have seemed like a good idea at the time to extend the façade in the same high Victorian Italianate style as the original, but the addition detracts from the architectural form and balance of the first building.  The extension initially housed 7,000 books, with capacity for 13,000 more.

Institutes inevitably changed their function as social conditions changed.  The isolation that had made them central to local life was relieved by the development of modern transport and communications.  In the 1960s the State Government began phasing out Institute libraries in favour of free public libraries, and in 1987 Government funding for Institute libraries ceased altogether. Nevertheless, country Institutes long remained an important part of town life as venues for community activities. Mount Barker was typical in using its Institute for dances, balls, movies, lectures, concerts, community and political meetings, flower shows, vaudeville and gymnastics.  It was even occasionally used as a roller skating rink, rather to the Committee’s disapproval.

Many Institutes, while repurposed, remain amongst the finest and most cherished buildings in their towns and in suburbs.  Unfortunately this is not in the case in Mount Barker, although a clue to the elegance of the original design can be seen in the façade of the upper storey, which can be glimpsed from over the road.

The first photo below shows the Mount Barker Institute upon its completion in 1875. The second photo shows an arts and crafts display in the Institute, date unknown. (Click on photos to enlarge.)