History
Kent Town was named for Benjamin Archer Kent (1808 – 25 November 1864), a medical practitioner of Walsall, Staffordshire, who emigrated to South Australia aboard Warrior, arriving in April 1840 with his wife Marjory Redman Kent, née Bonnar, and two children, Benjamin Andrew Kent, and Graham Eliza Kent, who in 1848 married Frederick Charles Bayer (died 15 August 1867).[3] Hydraulic engineer C. A. Bayer[4] and architect E. H. Bayer[5] were sons. Another son, Tom, was a kangaroo hunter, who went to live at the township of Yalata (now Fowlers Bay) on the west coast, and created a cluster of cottages named "Kent Town", which no longer exist.[6]
Kent established a flour mill and farm which failed financially and he was obliged to return to his profession to support his family. He sold his property at a handsome profit, repaid all his creditors and returned to England.[7]
He was the attendant physician when Edwin Thomas Smith was born in 1830. Smith later built his Kent Town Brewery on the site of the doctor's cottage.[7]
The Wesley Uniting Church was founded as the Jubilee Wesleyan Methodist church in 1864 by George P. Harris, John Colton, F. H. Faulding, and others. It has had a significant place in the life of South Australians for over 150 years.[8]
Kent Town was the location of two successive sites of the Kent Town Brewery, the second of which in 1888 became the malthouse for SA Brewing, now redeveloped into apartments.[citation needed]
In the latter half of the 19th century, a tram network serviced Kent Town, with one branch running eastwards to Kensington Gardens. They transitioned from horse-drawn trams around 1909, and were all removed in the 1950s.[9]
Dr Kent's Paddock
There is a large section of land known as "Dr Kent's Paddock", much of which is now part of Prince Alfred College grounds.[10] The social housing known as "Dr Kent's Paddock Housing Complex", facing 3-57 Capper Street and 28-48 Rundle Street[11] and comprising 114 homes,[10] was designed by Newell Platten, Chief Architect at the SA Housing Trust,[12] and built by the Housing Trust in two stages, the first in 1978–9 and the second in 1981. The medium-density complex includes a warehouse conversion[11] of a former John Martin's warehouse built in 1912.[10]
According to a report by the SA Heritage Council released in 2022, the complex "is widely acknowledged as one of the best medium-density, cluster-housing urban infill developments built in South Australia during the late twentieth century". It is still owned by the state government housing authority, now renamed Housing SA.[11] The Australian Institute of Architects regards it as a good model of social housing, "designed with consideration of community, environmental performance, privacy and access to landscaped space". In early November 2023, after receiving 38 written submissions during the consultation period, the Heritage Council provisionally listed Dr Kent's Paddock Housing Complex in the South Australian Heritage Register under the Heritage Places Act 1993.[12] The listing was confirmed on 19 November, after environment minister Susan Close backed the submission. The gardens include an old pepper tree.[10]
Other heritage listings
As of November 2023[update], there are 20 state and local heritage-listed places in the Kent Town portion of Rundle Street.[10]
