Glenelg is a beach-side suburb of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Located on the shore of Holdfast Bay in Gulf St Vincent, it has become a tourist destination due to its beach and many attractions, home to several hotels and dozens of restaurants. Established in 1836, it is the oldest European settlement on mainland South Australia. It was named after Lord Glenelg, a member of British Cabinet and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Through Lord Glenelg the name derives from Glenelg, Highland, Scotland. History Prior to the 1836 British colonisation of South Australia, Glenelg and the rest of the Adelaide Plains was home to the Kaurna group of Aboriginal Australians. They knew the area as "Pattawilya" and the local river as "Pattawilyangga", now named the Patawalonga River. Evidence has shown that at least two smallpox epidemics had killed the majority of the Kaurna population prior to 1836. The disease appeared to have come down the Murray River from New South Wales. Prior to European settlement there were huge oyster reefs of Australian flat oysters (Ostrea angasi, also known as the Southern mud oyster) off Glenelg. Oysters were of huge importance as a food source for Indigenous Australians at many locations around Australia, but the extensive reefs were decimated after colonisation; it is estimated that in South Australia alone, at least of coastal reefs were destroyed by the 21st century. Oyster fishing was practised by the early settlers, and much of the damage was caused by using dredging to collect the oysters, which led to the reefs being damaged. Settlement The first British settlers set sail for South Australia in 1836. Several locations for the settlement were considered, including Kangaroo Island, Port Lincoln and Encounter Bay. The Adelaide plains were chosen by Colonel William Light, and Governor John Hindmarsh proclaimed the province of South Australia at the site of The Old Gum Tree in Glenelg North on 28 December 1836. The first post office in Glenelg opened on 5 December 1849; the first postmaster was John McDonald of the St Leonard's Inn. A telegraph office was opened in September 1859 and the two offices amalgamated in 1868. The present post office building on Moseley Square was built in 1912. The sale of the surveyed lots that constitute the Town of Glenelg was remarkable: the right to purchase, at £1 per "town acre", was allocated by means of