1836 to 1971 .
Walking through the Adelaide Hills, the large number of olive trees soon becomes apparent. The olive is not an indigenous plant of Australia, and so these trees would have established themselves from seeds from olives planted at an earlier time.
Records vary as to the exact date of the first plantings of olives, and therefore the foundation of the South Australian Olive Oil Industry. There appear to be two possibilities, either planted by John Bailey, the resident Colonial Botanist and tenant of the Old Botanic Gardens in 1839 (1) , or by his successor, George Stevenson.
It is known that Stevenson brought some from Europe when he migrated to South Australia in 1836. (2) Some olives had been brought out on the Buffalo, and despite mismanagement and neglect a few had survived and were developing into fine trees.(3) ("A slip brought out by Mr. George Stevenson in the Buffalo seven years ago has born fruit. The tree is an exceedingly handsome one and measures nine feet in height, and seven in diameter". (4) ) Having arrived three years before Bailey, he had planted trees before taking up tenancy of the Botanic Gardens.
Before Bailey vacated the Botanic Gardens in 1842, he evidently took the olives with him, setting up in Hackney Road what was then known as Bailey's Garden,(5) later to become the Hackney Nursery. (6)The manager of the South Australian Company. Mr. William Giles, in 1844 received 51 olive plants from Marseilles, France, they being of 5 different varieties. He planted them and employed George Francis (who was subsequently to become the first director of the gardens) to express the oil for the London Exhibition of 1851. The oil received an "honourable mention" for colour, clarity and flavour.(7)
There is a map dated June 1852, drawn in a notebook, which shows that Sir Samuel Davenport had olives on his property, growing along the edges of the lots. (8) He acquired more olives when, some years before his death in 1864, John Bailey pulled up some of the olives he had planted, and on hearing this, Davenport bought them for half a crown and sent a bullock wagon to get them. (9) From these trees, a thriving business grew, his diary stating that he made some olive oil in March 1864. (10)
Further early plantings of olives were made around 1864 - 65 by William Boothby, around the Adelaide Gaol and Captain Simpson in Glen Osmond. Boothby expressed oil from the Gaol crop in 1870, and bought Captain Simpson's crop in 1871. (11) ("the olive is now ascertained to bear fruit plentifully in these Colonies at the age of six or seven years." ) (12) In 1873, the Stonyfell Olive Company, with probably the largest olive groves in the Southern Hemisphere, was formed. (13)
It is from these beginnings that a thriving industry grew, and yet one that was to almost completely disappear just over one century later.
REFERENCES
1 Best, Barbara J. George William Francis, first Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens page 32
2 Best, Barbara J. George William Francis, first Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens page 32
3 Perkins, A. J. Agriculture in S. A., 1836 - 46 page 43
4 Adelaide Observer, 19/8/1843, page 5.
5 Best, Barbara J. George William Francis, first Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, page 32
6 Best, Barbara J. George William Francis, first Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens page 29
7 Maiden, J. H. The Olive and Olive Oil, page 1
8 Simpson, E. R. Beaumont House: The Land and its People, page 83
9 Cleland, J. B. (1949) The Village Of Beaumont, page 32
10 Cleland, J. B. (1949) The Village Of Beaumont, page 32
11 Best, Barbara J. George William Francis, first Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens , page 32
12 Adelaide Observer, 19/8/1843, page 5.
13 Burr, M. Australian Olives page 129
Note on G. W. Francis: More information on his directorship supplied by a descendant. (Pers. Comm.)