15 June, 1922
More than 100,000 people (one fifth of the state’s population) reportedly lined the streets of Adelaide to honour Sir Ross Smith’s funeral cortege on 15 June 1922.
The cortege of more than 100 vehicles, headed by a guard of airmen with the casket borne on an aeroplane trailer, was watched from planes flying overhead and crowds more than a dozen deep lining the streets all the way from St Peter’s Cathedral in North Adelaide to North Road Cemetery.
Lieutenant Jim Bennett was buried in St Kilda cemetery four days later, after a lying-in-state at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House in Melbourne. The people of Victoria built an obelisk in his honour on the St Kilda Esplanade, where it was unveiled on 26 April 1927.
Sir Ross Smith’s funeral procession. [SLSA PRG 280/1/36/344]
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