East Adelaide Hotel, Roberts Street, 1942

State Library Catalogue Reference: B 10927

This photograph is of the former East Adelaide Hotel. The hotel operated from 1868 to 1921. The building has been demolished.

'OCCULT POWERS IN LICENSING CASES
A NEW SHACKLETON ACHIEVES FAME
Some merriment was occasioned in the Police Court yesterday morning when Mr. T. E. Bright, S.M., heard the case in which Margaret Prior, licensee of the East Adelaide Hotel, pleaded guilty to a charge of having allowed men unlawfully on her licensed premises. Mr. F. G. Hicks, who prosecuted, said that on the night of February 2, at 11.30 o'clock, the police had reason to suspect that men were on the premises. A policeman saw over the back gate that five men were in the place, and they gave chase. A thorough search was made, and in one of the rooms Constable Williams saw a rope handle to a cupboard being gradually drawn inside by-some unseen force. No doubt had the constable been a follower of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Sir Oliver Lodge, he would have concluded that occult powers were at work. Being a policeman, however and possessing common sense, he believed that there was a human force inside the cupboard. The constable allowed the cupboard to remain unexplored for five minutes or so, and then opened the door. Two men were packed in it like sardines in a tin. It recalled the case of a few months ago, when a man had been hidden by a licensee in an ice chest, and was nearly frozen to death. He understood that the man was now known round the hotels as "Shackleton." The defendant was fined £5, with I5/ costs and one guinea counsel fee.
Another charge, against the defendant was withdrawn.'
Daily Herald, Tuesday 19 February 1918, p3

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