Lonsdale is an

industrial suburb An industrial suburb is a community, near a large city, with an industrial economy. These communities may be established as tax havens or as places where zoning promotes industry, or they may be industrial towns that become suburbs by urban spr ...

south of

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, 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 o ...

, within the

City of Onkaparinga The City of Onkaparinga () is a local government area (LGA) located on the southern fringe of Adelaide, South Australia. It is named after the Onkaparinga River, whose name comes from ''Ngangkiparinga'', a Kaurna word meaning women's river. It ...

. Lonsdale was farmed from shortly after European settlement until the 1950s, when the

South Australian Housing Trust The South Australian Housing Trust (SAHT) is an independent statutory authority originally established by the Government of South Australia responsible for providing low-cost rental housing to working people and their families, as a means of s ...

acquired much of the land for industrial use.

Mobil Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999. ...

Port Stanvac Refinery Port Stanvac Refinery was an oil refinery in the Australian state of South Australia located in Lonsdale, a southern suburb of Adelaide. Its construction was announced in 1958 and began refining crude oil in 1963. It had a capacity of 3.3 ...

and

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automotiv ...

's engine foundry were followed by many other manufacturing and service industries. Subsequent suburban development of surrounding areas has driven demand for a wide range of service-oriented businesses in the area. Port Stanvac Refinery and the

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

(formerly Chrysler) engine plant closed in 2004, with both sites remaining unused as of 2007. The South Australian Government announced plans to build a seawater

desalination plant Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in soil desalination, which is an issue for agriculture. Saltw ...

at the site in 2007, to provide fresh water for Adelaide. The

Adelaide Desalination Plant The Adelaide Desalination plant (ADP), formerly known as the Port Stanvac Desalination Plant, is a sea water reverse osmosis desalination plant located in Lonsdale, South Australia which has the capacity to provide the city of Adelaide with up t ...

opened in 2013.

Transport

Lonsdale is served by

Lonsdale railway station Lonsdale railway station is located on the Seaford line. Situated in the southern Adelaide suburb of Lonsdale, it is 26.7 kilometres from Adelaide station. History Lonsdale station opened in 1976 as a part of the extension of the line from ...

. Lonsdale has

SouthLink SouthLink is an Australian bus service operator in Adelaide. It operates services as part of the Adelaide Metro network under contract to the Government of South Australia. It is a subsidiary of Keolis Downer. History In April 2000, SouthLink ...

's largest southern bus depot.

History

Lonsdale was settled in the early 1840s in the movement of colonists into the

Morphett Vale Morphett Vale is a southern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia in the City of Onkaparinga. It is the largest suburb in the state, with a population of more than 23,000 and an area of 12.76 km2, followed by Paralowie with nearly 10,000 few ...

Region. One of its settlers had come from the English town of

Kirkby Lonsdale Kirkby Lonsdale () is a town and civil parish in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England, on the River Lune. Historically in Westmorland, it lies south-east of Kendal on the A65. The parish recorded a population of 1,771 in the 2001 ...

. A local farmer gave the name Lonsdale to his property and in time this name was given to a local rail siding and eventually the suburb. Farming continued in the area until the 1970s. The housing trust had purchased a large amount of land in the vicinity and portions of this were set aside for industrial use, with large firms like Chrysler and Sola Optical as well as the Port Stanvac Oil refinery moving in. Farming in the area had become unprofitable by the 1980s.

References

External links

Map
Suburbs of Adelaide {{adelaide-geo-stub

Transport

History

See also

References

External links