File:Keswick Military Barracks c1912(GN02238).jpg

GN02220 to 2238 (Box 2 Row 14 indexed as 'Keswick Military Barracks and Hospital') show the construction and completion of buildings at Keswick Barracks, at the city end of Anzac Highway (previously Bay Road) in 1912-13. The image shows construction of the headquarters block. Military arrangements underwent a major transformation in post Federation Australia, with the creation of a single national army under the Commonwealth and the introduction in 1910 of compulsory military service. South Australia was designated the Fourth Military District (4MD). The barracks on North Terrace being completely inadequate, a new General Headquarters and barracks were needed. After some delays in finding a suitable site acceptable to the SA government (the vendor) and the Commonwealth (the purchser), a large site at the city end of Bay Road (now Anzac Highway) was selected. Construction began in 1912 and was completed in late 1913. Further buildings, many of them temporary, were added during the 1914-18 war. When wounded soldiers began returning home in significant numbers in 1915, the barracks were converted into a military hospital (No 7 Australian General Hospital) and other structures were added including an operating theatre, isolation block, nursing quarters, and an artificial limb factory. The hospital was renamed Keswick Repatriation Hospital.

The first buildings were the imposing General Headquarters, two barracks buildings with separate kitchen, gymnasium, quartermaster's store, two large stables, a wheeler's shop, barn, shoeing shed and stables for sick horses. (See Peter Donovan, 'Keswick Barracks', www.sahistorians.org.au/bmdoc/keswick.)