The Adelaide meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends ("

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...

") is situated on Pennington Terrace,

North Adelaide, South Australia North Adelaide is a predominantly residential precinct (Australia), precinct and suburb of the City of Adelaide in South Australia, situated north of the River Torrens and within the Adelaide Park Lands. History Surveyor-General William Ligh ...

, literally in the shadow of St Peter's Cathedral, on its west side. It is substantially made of timber, the only such church building in the City. Besides Sunday meetings, weddings and the like, it has also hosted secular meetings, particularly for peace, education, temperance and other social causes. It also served briefly for Adelaide's Presbyterian congregation prior to construction of the Church of Scotland building on

Grenfell Street Grenfell Street () is a major street in the north-east quarter of the Adelaide city centre, South Australia. The street runs west-east from King William Street to East Terrace. On the other side of King William Street, it continues as Currie S ...

, also for the North Adelaide congregation of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

. The land on which it stands was donated to the Society of Friends by church member J. Barton Hack. He also had the contract for construction of the

prefabricated building A prefabricated building, informally a prefab, is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building. Hist ...

, supplied by Henry Manning of London, around 1840.Below the Pulpit - The Friends
''South Australian Register'' 7 September 1903 p.5 accessed 21 August 2011
A nice, colourful article (The rectory of Trinity Church, Adelaide was also a " Manning's portable cottage".) Despite a prohibition on churchyard burials in the City of Adelaide, there were around seventeen graves in its tiny yard, including that of J. B. Hack's child. and a son and first wife of Joseph Barritt. From 1858 no further burials took place there, as a separate area had been reserved for Quakers at the

West Terrace Cemetery The West Terrace Cemetery is South Australia's oldest cemetery, first appearing on Colonel William Light's 1837 plan of Adelaide. The site is located in Park 23 of the Adelaide Park Lands just south-west of the Adelaide city centre, between ...

.Society of Friends
''The Mail (Adelaide)'' 28 July 1928 p.11 accessed 6 September 2011
A potted history of South Australian Quakers, including details on outpost at Mount Barker The meeting house significantly predates St. Peter's Cathedral, the land for which was purchased in 1862 and the foundation stone laid in 1869. A condition of the land sale was provision of a

right of way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

to the meeting house. On 28 May 1981, the building was listed on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. ...

References

Further reading