The District Council of Wilmington was a local government area in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, centred on the town of Wilmington from 1888 to 1980.

History

The council was gazetted on 5 January 1888 under the provisions of the ''

District Councils Act 1887 The District Councils Act 1887 was an act of the Parliament of South Australia. It received assent on 9 December 1887, and its provisions came into effect when proclaimed by Governor William C. F. Robinson on 5 January 1888. The legislation intro ...

'', and initially consisted of the cadastral Hundreds of Coonatto, Gregory, Pinda, Willochra and Willowie, and part of the Hundred of Woolundunga. It was divided into five wards (Coonatto, Pinda, Willowie, Wilmington and Willochra) on 5 June 1888, each represented by two councillors. In 1890, it lost the Hundred of Willowie and part of the Hundred of Gregory to the

District Council of Port Germein The District Council of Port Germein was a local government area in South Australia, centred on the town of Port Germein. It was gazetted on 5 January 1888 under the provisions of the ''District Councils Act 1887'' and encompassed the hundreds of ...

. It was renamed the District Council of Hammond on 25 May 1893. It lost a large portion of the Hundred of Willochra to the

District Council of Kanyaka The District Council of Kanyaka was a local government area in South Australia that existed from 1888 to 1969. History The council was established on 5 January 1888 under the provisions of the ''District Councils Act 1887''. On creation, the co ...

in the 1890s, and gained the

Hundred of Moockra 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

from Kanyaka in 1894. It was a farming and grazing district badly hit by both the depression of the 1890s and the Great Depression in the 1930s, and it was said in 1923 that the Hammond council district had "not progressed to any great extent" "owing to the long dry spells common to districts in the far north". In 1923, the Hammond council had an area of 214,400 acres. It had an estimated population of 732 in 1921, with 250 ratepayers, living in 156 dwellings, with the capital value of ratable property being £145,840. The council underwent major boundary changes on 16 February 1933 as a result of local government amalgamations at that time: it resumed its former name of Wilmington and incorporated most of the abolished District Council of Woolundunga, and regained the 1890 section of the Hundred of Gregory from the

. Council roadworks were still being done manually or with horse-drawn vehicles into the 1940s. It amalgamated with the District Council of Port Germein to form the

District Council of Mount Remarkable The Mount Remarkable District Council is a local government area located between the top of the Spencer Gulf and the base of the Southern Flinders Ranges in South Australia. The district encompasses a wide variety of towns, including coastal p ...

on 1 July 1980, following boundary changes which had seen Redcliff (now in Miranda) and

Stirling North Stirling North is a town located east of Port Augusta in the Australian state of South Australia. The now abandoned Marree railway line forms the official border line separating the two towns. Primarily, Stirling North is a satellite town to Po ...

, formerly in Wilmington, annexed to the City of Port Augusta.

Chairmen

* Edward Twopeny – chairman for fifteen years * Gustav Herman Voigt (1936–1941) * Samuel James Bartlett (1941–1944) * Gotthilf Reinhold (Reinie) Schiller (1945–1950) * Francis Thomas Miller (1950–1951) * Cecil Abbott Battersby (1951–1955) * Leonard Gordon Pascoe (1955–1967) * Graham John Herde (1967–1969) * James Ignatius Connell (1969–1970) * Lawrence Ralph Noll (1970–1978) * Thomas Joseph Case (1978–1980)

References

{{Former local government areas in South Australia Wilmington