Ruins of original Port Misery docks
Port Adelaide was founded on January 6, 1837, when the first Harbourmaster, Captain Thomas Lipson RN, took up residence with his family on the edge of Port Creek.
The new port, known as the Port Creek Settlement, was used for shipping later that month and passengers began disembarking the next. It was little higher than the surrounding tidal flats and it could be rowed around at high tide. Larger ships had to land at Holdfast Bay until the port was charted.
The port lacked fresh water and was plagued by mosquitoes; a long way from Adelaide, it had few amenities and risked inundation at high tide.
By 1840 it was known in news reports as Port Misery, a name given it by author T. Horton James; “This is Port Adelaide! Port Misery would be a better name; for nothing in any other part of the world can surpass it in every thing that is wretched and inconvenient.”
There many today who say that of much of St Vincent Street, but don’t despair — help is on the way.
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