Stepney is a small triangular near-city suburb of Adelaide within the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters. Stepney contains a mix of retail, manufacturing, professional services and distribution outlets within a cosmopolitan population strongly influenced by post World War II immigration.

For much of its history Stepney has been largely working class with a preponderance of small houses and units on small blocks of land. However, Stepney is now the home of much light industry. Streets such as Nelson Street have lost their residents whilst other streets have seen the number of residents diminish as houses have been sold to accommodate a wide range of enterprises.

Stepney was named after an inner-city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets by George Muller (its founder) who hailed from there and in 1850 created the 'Village of Stepney' out of section 259, Hundred of Adelaide.[1] George built the Maid and Magpie hotel.[2]

Whilst Adelaide was to be a city of fine buildings and a refined populace, set free from the constraints of convict influence, George Muller’s Stepney was to bear a strong resemblance to its less refined namesake, replete with slums,[3] near the City of London. The early settlement of German settlers in Stepney was, however, somewhat unusual. Though not as well known as the Prussians who settled Klemzig, Hahndorf or Tanunda, they were there in sufficient numbers to develop schools for their children. [4] Notable members of this community were Hans Heysen and Carl Laubman of Laubman and Pank. During 2008 the last three cottages in Nelson Street, described as "built by Haken Linde, a successful member of the German community," were marked for demolition by the Norwood Payneham St Peters council.[5] Significant calls were made for the cottages to be preserved and the cottages were retained.

...
Wikipedia