COMMERCIAL HOTEL
| The Commercial Inn was built in 1839 by James Masters as a large single-storey hotel typical of Adelaide’s early pubs. At the time, it was one of the city’s busiest watering holes. Masters retained ownership but leased the hotel to various publicans over the years, before becoming a successful pastoralist and laying out the town of Saddleworth. The Commercial was easy to spot, with its distinctive red-and-white verandah out front. Surviving photographs show a rare glimpse of what early Adelaide hotels looked like. In 1848, the hotel ran into trouble when publican James Curnow was taken to court for repeatedly allowing the hotel lamp to go out. Under licensing laws, hotelkeepers were required to keep a light burning above their front door from dusk until dawn; a rule enforced until the late 1800s, when street lighting improved. Failure to comply could bring heavy fines or even the loss of a license. The Commercial also played host to distinguished visitors, including Lord Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne Cecil, who later became Prime Minister of England, during the early 1850s. By the 1880s the old building was in disrepair, and the hotel closed in 1884. The site was later used by Brighton Cement, before the Brookman Buildings were erected there in 1897. That grand Victorian office block was itself demolished in the 1970s to make way for the Grenfell Centre.  c1863 State Library [B 2850] |
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| COMMERCIAL INN | 1839 | 1871 |
| COMMERCIAL HOTEL | 1871 | 1886 |
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c1864
State Library [B 1265]
Commercial Hotel building used as a Lime Depot in 1896
State Library [PRG 631/2/438]
Hotel Site in 2025
| Publican Name | Start Date | Finish Date | Hotel |
| James MASTERS | 1839 | 1840 | Commercial Inn |
| Henry R POUNSETT | 1840 | 1841 | Commercial Inn |
| Peter BURKE | 1841 | 1842 | Commercial Inn |
| James MASTERS | 1842 | 1845 | Commercial Inn |
| James CURNOW | 1845 | 1849 | Commercial Inn |
| James CLARK | 1849 | 1852 | Commercial Inn |
| Alexander GREIG | 1852 | 1854 | Commercial Inn |
| Joseph DOWNING | 1854 | 1859 | Commercial Inn |
| William James BAILEY | 1859 | 1860 | Commercial Inn |
| James CURNOW | 1860 | 1868 | Commercial Inn |
| Alfred Russell PRESTON | 1868 | 1868 | Commercial Inn |
| Thomas O’LEARY | 1869 | 1872 | Commercial Hotel |
| John BURGESS | 1872 | 1872 | Commercial Hotel |
| James Robert BREBNER | 1872 | 1875 | Commercial Hotel |
| Thomas Arthur STEWART | 1875 | 1878 | Commercial Hotel |
| Susannah COOKE | 1878 | 1879 | Commercial Hotel |
| Edward DAVIES | 1879 | 1880 | Commercial Hotel |
| Clara LINDRUM | 1880 | 1880 | Commercial Hotel |
| James ALLEN | 1880 | 1883 | Commercial Hotel |
| Henry John BOORD | 1883 | 1884 | Commercial Hotel |
| William Joseph CUMMINS | 1884 | 1884 | Commercial Hotel |