The Adelaide Times was established by outspoken newspaper man James Allen on his return from England in 1848, in partnership with John Brown and William Barlow Gilbert. The newspaper was modelled, in appearance at least, on the London Times, with an almost identical masthead. The Times was one of the few Adelaide newspapers which survived the effects of the 1850s gold rush. In fact Allen took advantage of the rush by sending his son to Mount Alexander to establish a local office for the Times at the diggings. (8 May 1852, p. 3)  Allen also printed detailed reports from the diggings for readers at home in South Australia. James Allen had trained as a Baptist minister, but worked as a reporter for the London Morning Post where he was associated with writers including Charles Dickens. He first came to South Australia in 1839 and was editor of the Southern Australian for a period, then owned the South Australian Register from 1842 to 1845. He established a number of mostly short-lived, newspapers and journals, including Adelaide's first literary journal, the South Australian Magazine, and one of the earliest illustrated journals, the Monthly Almanac and Illustrated Commentator. Allen returned to England in 1845 where he travelled giving lectures about South Australia, but was back in Adelaide in 1848 when he established the Times.

The newspaper was weekly at first, then issued twice a week, and from March 1850 - along with its rival, the Register - the Times pioneered daily publication. During the 1852 goldrush it was forced to return to weekly publication. From January 1853 an expanded Saturday edition of the Times was published for country readers under the title South Australian weekly dispatch. Julian Tenison-Woods, geologist and supporter of Mary MacKillop, was employed as sub-editor of the newspaper between 1855 and 1856, shortly before he began studying for the priesthood. In 1853 Allen sold the newspaper to an influential group consisting of Richard Hanson (Advocate General), Robert Torrens (Treasurer), George Stevenson (Coroner and former editor of the Register), John Brown (former Emigration Agent), and Edward Gwynne M.P. (South Australian Register, 17 November 1853, p. 3) Stevenson wrote some of the editorials in this period, until the newspaper was sold to W.B. Gilbert. In 1855 Gilbert went bankrupt, and the newspaper was re-purchased by James Allen. Politically, in attempting to keep advertisers happy, the newspaper was described by a later historian as, "an unpredictable waverer from abject support of the government to the wildest republicanism." (Paradise of Dissent, p. 395) However it was outspoken in support of the secret ballot and adult male suffrage. The Adelaide Times closed in May 1858 while Allen's insolvency was going through the courts, and more particularly because his printers refused to work until their arrears of wages were paid. (South Australian Advertiser, 31 July 1858, p. 3; 18 August 1858, p. 3; Adelaide Observer, 15 May 1858, p. 5)