File:Meadows Anglican Church 1869 South Australia in the Adelaide Hills. (7771405382).jpg

St Georges Anglican Church in Meadows opened in 1869. Note the steep roof. On one corner thay planned a church tower but it was never built.

Meadows and Sir Douglas Mawson. The aboriginal name for this area is “Battunga” meaning place of large trees. Perhaps the fine look of the country influenced Charles Flaxman, the agent and secretary of George Fife Angas, to take out the Meadows Special Survey in 1839 for himself. Flaxman had 4,000 acres to sell off and the government had other surveyed land in the area to sell. Farmers took up their 80 acre blocks in the early 1840s. A rudimentary town began to emerge with the opening of a post office in 1850 and a local school called Kondoparinga in 1854 when local farmer William Hall took advantage of this and subdivided his land around 1859 to create the township of Meadows. One of the main streets was called Flaxman Street. A store opened by 1856, the Meadows Hotel was first licensed in 1856 and in 1856 a Wesleyan Methodist Church and cemetery was proposed for a site on a hill overlooking the town. The church was open soon after but has long been demolished because the Methodists built a new church in the town centre in 1877. The school was renamed as the Meadows School in 1864. Eventually a state school as built in a new position in 1910. Kondoparinga Council was formed in the early years. The first specific Council Chambers for Kondoparinga were opened in 1893. A new “modern” façade was added to the Council Chambers in 1914 and it was opened by Mr Brookman. The Chambers were again altered in 1935 when the Kondoparinga Council amalgamated with the Clarendon-Kangarilla Council to form the District Council of Meadows.

From its earliest days Meadows was known for timber and saw milling as the district abounded in giant river red gums. The earliest store keeper, Mr Burley opened a flour mill to process local wheat cross around 1870. He was also the first big wheat grower in the district by having 43 acres under cultivated of wheat by 1844. (He also had 4 acres of barley, 1 acre of oats, 1 acre of potatoes and 1 acre of peas.) The flour mill only lasted a few years and in 1877 the three storey brick mill was converted to a steam saw mill by the new owner Frederick Vickery. The mill is now demolished. But saw milling continued in Meadows until recent times. In 1899 the SA government started the Kuitpo forest just outside of Meadows experimenting the Australian hardwoods. In 1918 this forest was put under the control of the University of Adelaide as they started offering a degree in forestry. A few years later in 1921 Sir Douglas Mawson, former lecturer in Geology became the professor of Geology after his Antarctic explorations. (He had returned to England during World War One to undertake war work.) It was also at this time (1920/21) that Mawson established SA Hardwoods Pty Ltd his own company to process hardwoods. The company operated until the mid 1950s a couple of years before Mawson died. Mawson was one of the 6 directors. Their main saw mill was at Myponga where they employed 23 workers in the 1940s and where one of Mawson’s daughters lived on a few thousand acres of hardwood forest. By the 1940s the Company had mills at Stepney, Wirrabara, Glencoe in the South East and Coralinga at Lenswood. But Mawson also had his beloved weekender farm near Meadows which he called Harewood. The property was almost 500 hectares (1,200 acres) and located directly opposite the entrance to the Kuitpo hardwoods forest. Mawson also had a saw mill for SA Hardwoods on his property. In the 1930s Kuitpo forest moved into softwoods, mainly Pinus radiata and at this time SA Hardwoods diversified into softwoods too, despite their name. The main street of Meadows is now Mawson Street partly to commemorate his links with the district, his Antarctic explorations, his conservation work and his environmental concerns. Mawson always considered Harewood to be his city escape.

Kuitpo Forest took on other roles in the 1920s and 1930s. Firstly during the 1920s summer camps were set up for city boys from Adelaide High School to learn about the bush and rural life. Then in 1931 it was proposed as a suitable camp place for prisoners. A public meeting in Meadows objected to the proposal but the government persisted and Kyeema Prison Farm was established in the forest near Prospect Hill in 1932. Also in 1930 Reverend Samuel Forsyth of the Central Methodist Mission planned a colony for unemployed men whilst they were still trying to find employment. He enlisted support from the government and all the churches and raised £5,000 to start the project. The government granted 460 acres for the project for a term of 10 years. The aim was to make the colony self supporting from its dairying, timber milling etc. By 1939 the colony was farming over 1,000 acres. Fund raisers were held regularly and the famous Kuitpo Cookbook was printed to raise funds also. The colony operated for many years even beyond World War Two. By 1947 over 4,000 men had been helped by the Kuitpo Colony. Kuitpo eventually became a rehabilitation centre for alcoholics and courts sentenced men to terms at Kuitpo Colony instead of bonds or prison. Samuel Forsyth died in 1960.