District Council of Laura

The District Council of Laura was a local government area in South Australia. It was created on 1 May 1932 with the amalgamation of the Corporate Town of Laura and the District Council of Booyoolie.[1] It reunited the whole cadastral Hundred of Booyoolie within the same district council, as had previously been the case when the Booyoolie council was first proclaimed in 1876.[2][1] The Laura merger had occurred after a much broader 1931 merger proposal, which would have seen the Corporate Town of Laura, District Council of Gladstone, Corporate Town of Gladstone and District Council of Caltowie merge into a drastically enlarged District Council of Booyoolie, was abandoned after meeting strong opposition from both the Laura and Gladstone communities.[3]

The council chambers were initially located in the Laura Town Hall, which had formerly been the Laura Institute.[3] It was divided into six wards, each electing one councillor: East Laura, North Laura and West Laura Wards in Laura itself, and South (later Pine Creek), Stone Hut and Whyte Cliff Wards in the rural areas.[4][3] The council area had a total population of 1,062 persons in 1936.[2] The earlier town hall was replaced by a new Civic Centre in 1968. Amongst the council's later projects was a 1980s-era collaboration with the South Australian Housing Trust to build a number of pensioner cottages in the town.[3] The council ceased to exist on 1 May 1988 when it merged with the District Council of Georgetown and the District Council of Gladstone to form the short-lived District Council of Rocky River.[5]

Chairmen

[edit]
  • John Leo Kennedy (1932) [6]
  • John Holbeach Acott (1922-1933) [6]
  • George Edwin Cleggett (1933-1936) [6]
  • John Leo Kennedy (1936-1939) [6]
  • George William Smith (1939-1943) [6]
  • Victor Walter Blesing (1944-1948) [6]
  • Charles Amey (1948-1953) [6]
  • Louis Ernest Karger (1953-1954) [6]
  • Charles Amey (1954-1956) [6]
  • Charles Leonard Smith (1956-1957) [6]
  • William Mark Coe Weston (1957-1960) [6]
  • Norman Theodore Pech (1960-1966) [6]
  • George William Paxton Smith (1966-1967) [6]
  • Brian Robert Middlemiss (1967-1973) [6]
  • Vernon William Charles Taylor (1973-1977) [6]
  • Max Erwin Zanker (1977-1982) [6]
  • Peter Edwin Hill (1982-1983) [6]
  • Allan Glen Woolford (1983-?) [6]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Marsden, Susan (2012). "A History of South Australian Councils to 1936" (PDF). Local Government Association of South Australia. p. 41. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
  2. ^ a b Hosking, P. (1936). The Official civic record of South Australia : centenary year, 1936. Adelaide: Universal Publicity Company. p. 644.
  3. ^ a b c d "Laura". Northern Areas Council. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  4. ^ "District Council Elections". Laura Standard and Crystal Brook Courier. Vol. XLI, no. 2170. South Australia. 17 June 1932. p. 3. Retrieved 9 April 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ^ "Thursday, 27 August, 1987" (PDF). The Government Gazette of South Australia. Government of South Australia. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Matthews, Penny (1986), South Australia, the civic record, 1836-1986, Wakefield Press, ISBN 978-0-949268-82-2

33°11′S 138°18′E / 33.183°S 138.300°E / -33.183; 138.300

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