Gowings menswear store was an retail institution in Sydney’s CBD for six score and then some years. This mid city store was the place you could find—in addition to its main line of affordable casual men’s clothing and apparel—among other things outdoor camping equipment, cricket kits, school uniforms and novelty items. Gowings also had a barber’s shop and you could hire a Year 12 formal suit or a wedding tux.
The Gowings story starts with John Ellis Symonds (JES) Gowings who emigrated to New South Wales from England in 1857. After retail experience in David Jones’ Sydney department store—where he worked his way up to head of mercery—JES’s first venture of his own was to open a drapery shop in 1863 in Crown Street, East Sydney. He then formed a partnership with his brother Preston, in 1868 the brothers opened a Mercery and Glove Depot at 318 George Street. JES managed the store in return for £200 per annum and 50% of the profits. The iconic Sydney retailer was up and running.
The business grew, in 1870 a new mercery warehouse was opened in Edinburgh House, 344 George Street, and 20 years later a second city store at 498 George Street. The brothers’ younger sibling Charles was hired as the Gowings store’s “dog walloper”, his job was chasing dogs away from the store as a preventive measure so they didn’t foul the pavement (Kingston).
Over time the Gowings retailer evolved from specialising in ladies’ gloves and silk umbrellas to menswear, turning itself into high-class gentlemen’s outfitters. JES’ customer-centric retail philosophy involved listening to the customers, treating them like they were friends and securing the best quality goods for them (Kingston). The 1890s and the approach of Federation prompted Gowings, anticipating the modern “Buy Australian” campaign, to push the Australian product. Restyling themselves as “Austral Clothiers, Mercer’s, Hatters”, Gowings Bros launched the slogan “Australian wool for Australian people”. For the country customers Gowings offered Australian manufactured commodities via its mail order service, eg, Marrickville Tweeds from John Vicars & Co, ‘bosker’ rugs made especially for Gowings (Kingston).
After JES’ death in 1908 control of Gowings passed to the John and Preston’s sons, with the firm’s tradition for quality goods continuing. The construction of a new flagship building in 1929 on the George Street site became a landmark for Sydney (at the time it was Sydney’s highest building and the first steel construction in the CBD)✦.
A testimony to Gowings’ fame is the cult phrase that it acquired (and cultivated by the retailer) during the 20th century …”Gone to Gowings” has passed into the Australian vernacular, meaning a failure of some kind or other, or possibly a state of inebriation or dementia (Tréguer). Macquarie Dictionary lists six definitions: 1. Deteriorating financially, 2. illness especially a hangover, 3. Failing dismally (a racehorse, a football team, etc), 4. having departed hastily or without a specific destination in mind, 5. drunk, 6. Insane, idiotic. Alternately it could mean down on your luck, lost at the races, etc. The other famous catchphrase that was posted on the flagship premises” facade was “Walk Thru, No one Asked to Buy”.
The Gowings family maintained a steady as it goes, minimise risk approach to the retail business for most of its history. Attempts to modernise it’s main store came later (installing air conditioning and music in lifts, the first retailer in Sydney to do so). Another innovation was its introduction of the “Gowings Own Brand” label of merchandise.
Gowings’ CBD stores (it added a second city store at Wynyard in 1996 – nicknamed the “Blokeatorium”) retained their popularity with the public, however a move to the suburbs (Oxford Street, Darlinghurst and Hornsby) proved less successful. In 2000 the Gowings family relinquished control of the retail business to an independent listed company G Retail and concentrated on the property development game.
Gowings ad, 1909
Gowings end-game
Under G Retail a new suburban outlet at Parramatta opened in 2002 proved a disaster, and when G Retail lost money three years in a row, the writing was on the board for the veteran retailer. More financial strife followed overreach (an aggressive expansion and building renovation program), G Retail was heavily in debt and headed for administration. In the early 2000s, Gowings, like most small retailers, struggled. A hike in the petrol price in Sydney in 2005 depressed consumer spending, exacerbating its problems (Evans; Perinotto). In recent years Gowings tried to innovate, going online, discounting, etc, but the decline was irreversible by then. Competition from the city’s retail giants was too great, Gowings simply couldn’t match the depth and breadth of range and quality that big merchants such as Target could offer (Lake)◈. The Oxford Street and Hornsby stores closed in 2005 and the following January the flagship George Street store closed its doors for good after 137 years of retailing. Later that year the Wynyard store completed the round of closures.
Compared to the larger, more dynamic players in the market, Gowings had the reputation of being a “blokey store”, leading some observers to pinpoint its ultimate demise in its retail conservatism, “stay(ing) locked in the fifties or sixties and limited (in its) geography” (Lake)
The post-Gowings space
Three months after its closure the Gowings landmark building at 452 George Street was snapped up by the Rydge family’s Amalgamated Holdings goliath for $68.6 million, consolidating its property holdings in this mid-town spot — Amalgamated Holdings had previously acquired the State Theatre building next door (49-51 Market St) as well as the nearby Mick Simmons building.
Footnote: in the late Nineties Gowings wholeheartedly embraced the ‘blokey’ image, its then MD and descendent of the founder proclaimed Gowings “the complete bloke’s outfitters”. Along with its usual clothing lines, it began pitching the “Bear Grylls” experience to men, selling goods for the great outdoor adventure (camping gear, hunting knives, zippo lighters) (Owens).Gowings bldg (2021)
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✦ designed by architect Crawford H Mackellar and incorporating a Palazzo style
◈ Retail expert Rob Lake attributes the fact that Gowings survived longer than many of the other ‘dinosaurs’ to its evolution into a sort of quaint relic which became its “point of difference” but one that didn’t boost it’s sales (Lake)
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Works and articles consulted:
Beverley Kingston, ‘Gowing, John Ellis Symonds (1835–1908)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gowing-john-ellis-symonds-12945/text23395, published first in hardcopy 2005, accessed online 26 April 2021.
‘”gone to Gowings”: meaning and origin of this Australian phrase’, (Pascal Tréguer), Word Histories, 2020, www.wordhistories.net
‘End of an era as Gowings finally gone’, Sydney Morning Herald, 28-Jan-2006, www.smh.com.au
‘Gowings makes it like a man’s, (Susan Owens), Australian Financial Review, 25-Sep-1999, www.afr.com
‘The sad demise of a quirky retail dinosaur’, (Rob Lake), Crikey, 08-Nov-2005, www.crikey.com.au
‘Gowings clearing out for good after 137 years’, (Michael Evans), Sydney Morning Herald, 17-Dec-2005, www.smh.com.au
‘Gowings building sold to neighbour for $69m’, (Tina Perinotto), Australian Financial Review, 28-Apr-2006, www.afr.com
Summer Hill, seven kilometres west of the Sydney CBD, is a small suburb with a village feel to it. Since the 1970s it has seen an increase in the concentration of medium density apartment blocks, though many Federation-era houses have been retained. One of the largest heritage properties, 46–56 Liverpool Road, a historic mansion converted into an exclusive estate, represents one of the suburb’s most interesting back stories.
In 2014 this former grand residence-cum-hospital underwent redevelopment as the Carleton Estate, the mansion, stables and grounds, were converted into 78 individual apartments located in four buildings. The gated estate offered residents a communal garden (and the option of garden plots to grow vegetables), billiards room, swimming pool, gymnasium and parklands.
What interests us though is the one hundred and thirty years preceding the creation of Carleton Estate. In 1879 Summer Hill got its own railway station on the main suburban line, prompting an influx of new residents to the suburb✱. One of these was Charles Carleton Skarratt, a prominent local hotelier (Royal Hotel, Sydney) with diverse business interests in transport, mining, insurance and a brewery. After the land here (part of the Underwood Estate) was subdivided, Skarratt amalgamated nine of the suburban lots and built the original mansion (1884) on this 12,000 sq m block on the corner of Liverpool and Gower Streets (RPA Heritage News , Vol III, Issue III (Oct 2012).
Prior to Skarratt acquiring the property it was part of the old Ashfield Racecourse, and going right back to origins this was part of Cadigal (Eora) land before 1788. The first white owner was ex-convict and jailor Henry Kable who was the recipient of early land grants (1794, 1804). Kable’s Farm was located on this property. Kable, like Skarratt, had diverse interests, merchant trading, other land holdings, a hotel, etc and was at one stage in partnership with James Underwood, an early owner of the Summer Hill estate.
CC Skarratt
After Skarratt’s death in 1900 ownership of the Victorian Italianate mansion and grounds passed from the family to leading Sydney surgeon Henry Hinder. Just after the Great War it was purchased by the Benevolent Society of NSW as the new site for its Renwick Hospital, to replace the old premises in Thomas Street, Ultimo. Officially opened in 1921 as a “lying-in hospital and a hospital for children whose parents could not afford to pay for their medical care” (‘Renwick Hospital for Infants, Summer Hill, 1921 – 1965’, https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/nsw). Patient care centred round the main building and an auxiliary building in nearby Grosvenor Crescent (“Queen’s College”). Two more treatment buildings were added to the complex in 1928 and 1930. By 1937, it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, the hospital at Summer Hill had treated as many as 20,000 children (‘New Block at Renwick Hospital for Children, SMH, 24-June-1937).
In 1964 the state government bought the hospital from the Benevolent Society…from 1965 it was renamed the Grosvenor Hospital. It had a dual function – as an in-patients facility for children, and as an out-patients facility which “provided for the diagnosis and assessment of mentally retarded persons of all ages” (‘Find and Connect’).
There were sweeping changes to the institutional approach to the mentally ill in NSW following the Richmond Report and subsequent Mental Health Act in 1983. The new emphasis was on downsizing to small community resident units. The Summer Hill hospital was streamlined with a progressive reduction over the following years in the number of patient admitted. Renamed the Grosvenor Centre in 1985, the facility’s stated mission was the treatment of children with a “developmental disability of mind” (www.records.nsw.gov.au).
The NSW government was committed to a policy of deinstitutionalisation by 2010 and the writing was on the board for the Grosvenor Centre. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s responsibility for the Centre was shuffled from one government department to another – Health to Community Services to Ageing, The coup de grâce came in 2009…disregarding appeals by parents of the Centre’s 20 remaining child residents for a “stay of execution“, the government transferred the residents to purpose-built houses and the institution was closed (‘Find and Connect’). The path was now clear for redevelopment of the post-hospital space and the eventual creation of a gated community in the Carleton Estate.
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✱ the three decades from 1880-1910 saw the Summer Hill populace take on more of an upper class character with a stream of professionals especially from the fields of banking and finance moving to the suburb (‘Summer Hill’, Wikipedia)
If you take a stroll down the 1.7km-long Sussex Street in Sydney’s CBD, distinct commercial patterns soon become evident. From it’s starting point around Barangaroo South, Sussex Street has more than its fair share of old heritage-listed pubs, parking stations, convenience shops and serviced apartments, along with the occasional more upmarket accommodation providers like the Hyatt Regency and Crowne Plaza.
Starting from the north end the first of the heritage-listed pubs we come to is the Sussex (20 Sussex Street). Built 1913-15, the hotel went through a variety of names, New Hunter River Hotel, Big House Hotel, Napoleon’s Hotel, Moreton’s Hotel, before settling on its present and self-explanatory moniker. The pub’s outdoor beer garden is probably its most appealing asset.
At 81 Sussex Street we find the small but compact Bristol Arms Hotel, a Federation Free Classical building which dates from ca.1898 (an earlier “Bristol Arms Tavern” was located at 69 Sussex St). At different times it went by the name Keyes Hotel and then later the Welcome Inn Hotel. During the 1970s the Bristol Arms was notoriously known as a roughhouse pub. Close to the Bristol Arms is another pub which predates BA’s vintage, the Slip Inn (No 111). Originally called the Royal George Hotel (built ca.1858), the pub’s main claim to fame is that it was the venue where Mary met Frederick, the prelude to the Danish royal family acquiring an Australian connexion.
The next heritage hotel in Sussex Street is the Dundee Arms (No 161, one down from the Corn Exchange – see below). The compact little Victorian Regency-style pub was built in 1860 at a time when Darling Harbour commerce was overwhelmingly industrial and maritime. The pub serviced the working class, locals and blue collar workers as well as sailors from the ships docked close by in the harbour (‘Dundee Arms Hotel’, Wikipedia). Thomas Ricketts was the best known of the early publicans (1870s-1880s). In modern times the Dundee Arms was incorporated into the Nikko Hotel and now operates as part of the Hyatt Regency Darling Harbour. The passageway on one side of the Dundee Arms has the name “Wharf Lane” imprinted into the ground, a further reminder of the street’s historic association with shipping. A block further south on the corner of Market Street is the Shelbourne Hotel (No 200). This pub with its once grand exterior now looking a bit tired was built in 1902. Architecturally, the building is “an elaborate example of commercial Federation architecture with elements of the ‘American Romanesque’ style popular in the 1890s” (Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority). For 25 years (1975-2000) the Shelbourne operated as a restaurant before reverting to its original, hotel purpose.
The Corn Exchange
A good number of the original Victorian warehouse buildings in Sussex Street survive, most notably the Corn Exchange (Nos 173-185), whose location afforded it easy access to the wharves of Darling Harbour. Designed by George McRae and built in 1887 in the Queen Anne style, this building is presently occupied by an urban planning company☯.
As we approach the southern end of the street Sussex’s complexion changes. We see a few modern semi-high residential suite complexes with names like Millennial Towers and Maestri Towers. There’s a Anthroposophy Society/Rudolf Steiner bookshop which seems philosophically a bit out of place in a street with such constant material hustle and bustle. Another educational property in this block with an interesting past is the public school building (1874), 320 Sussex St. In 1945 the Sussex Street Public School was acquired by Sydney Technical College. 45 years later it was sold to the Sydney Bethel Union who ran it as a home for retired seafarers (initially known unfortunately as the “Mission for Seamen”) till it closed permanently in 2011 (Michael Wayne, ‘Sussex Street Public School/Flying Angel Seafarers Centre/For Sale – Sydney, NSW’, Past Lives of the Near Future, 2011).
Increasingly we come upon noodle houses, hot pot eateries, Chinese bars and pubs like Charlie Chan’s, Chinese jewellery stores and dual language parking signs, all unequivocal signs that we are entering the Chinatown/Haymarket precinct. Appropriately, considering the concentrated Chinese commercial presence in this end of the street, at the junction where Sussex Street terminates, stands the Bank of China Haymarket branch. But the southern portion of Sussex Street is also organised labour turf. 377 Sussex Street is the stronghold of political labour in NSW. Here you’ll find Trades Hall and the Labor Council NSW and the headquarters of the state Labor Party⚘. Just further along Sussex Street is the famous Star Hotel, traditional drinking hole, discussion ground for labour politics and home away from home for generations of trade unionists (now under Chinese ownership).
Footnote: Sussex Street derives its name from a member of Britain’s ruling House of Hanover rather than from any direct references to the southern English county. It is named after the reformist-minded youngest son of George III, Prince Augustus Frederick, the Duke of Sussex.
Fmr Bank of NSW branch, cnr King & Sussex Sts (in the Victorian era it was the King Street Post Office)
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☯ the preserved Corn Exchange building has fared better than the Hawker and Vance Produce Exchange (95-99 Sussex St) which retains only its original facade after a 1989 demolition
⚘ “Sussex Street” is a metonym for NSW Labor, used especially when referring to the dominant right wing party machine on that side of politics
Oatley is a prime piece of residential real estate in the southern suburbs of Sydney. The suburb faces on to the Georges River (Tucoerah River in the local indigenous language). Large leafy blocks of land and water views abound in this “north shore” status locality of the south. One of the star attractions in the western fringe of Oatley is the 45-hectare Oatley Park, a dense concentration of natural bushland with Edwardian era baths and sandstone ‘castle’ built during the Great Depression and now encircled by lofty smooth-barked Angophoras Costatas.
If you cross the railway line to the east side of Oatley you can see a tower dedication to the early Sydney settler the suburb is named after – James Oatley. Oatley was yet another transported felon made good in New South Wales’ formative years. The Oatley tower in the high street contains a clock face which alerts us to J Oatley Esq’s association with timepieces. Oatley from Staffordshire in the West Midlands got napped for stealing two featherbeds and linen to the value of £16, sentenced to death for his crime but transported instead to Australia in 1814. Oatley put his watch and clock making skills to good use, winning a conditional pardon and a Georges River land grant from Governor Macquarie in 1821. On his Georges River land—stretching from Gungal Bay in the west to Boundary and Hurstville Roads—where he established a farm on his property called “Needwood Forest” after the woodland in his native Warwickshire. Oatley’s Needwood Forest grant included the area of today’s eponymous suburb.
Appointed colonial clockmaker, Oatley plied his trade from a shop in George Street opposite the Sydney Town Hall, with a bit of a flair for constructing grandfather clocks. His best known work was the clock in the turret at the Hyde Park Prisoners’ Barracks built by fellow emancipist Francis Greenway (Oatley’s clock has featured on the Australian $10 note).
Oatley’s work also won favour with later governors who granted him 515 acres in the Hurstville area between 1831 and 1835. The clockmaker died on his residential property ‘Snugburough’ in 1839. The precise location of Snugburough in Sydney is not certain…some sources give it as Canterbury, others Beverley Hills or Pubchbowl. After Snugburough was sold by Oatley’s family, future owners had to accede to a curious condition of sale – they were required to retain Oatley’s sepulchre and his body on the property. Clockmaking stayed in the family after Oatley’s demise, his third son took over the George Street shop.
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Books and sites consulted:
Frances Pollon, The Book of Australian Suburbs (1988)
Brian and Barbara Kennedy, Sydney and Suburbs: A History and Description (1982)
Oatley, James (1770–1839)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/oatley-james-2514/text3399, published first in hardcopy 1967, accessed online 30 March 2021
The Gowings story starts with John Ellis Symonds (JES) Gowings who emigrated to New South Wales from England in 1857. After retail experience in David Jones’ Sydney department store—where he worked his way up to head of mercery—JES’s first venture of his own was to open a drapery shop in 1863 in Crown Street, East Sydney. He then formed a partnership with his brother Preston, in 1868 the brothers opened a Mercery and Glove Depot at 318 George Street. JES managed the store in return for £200 per annum and 50% of the profits. The iconic Sydney retailer was up and running.
The business grew, in 1870 a new mercery warehouse was opened in Edinburgh House, 344 George Street, and 20 years later a second city store at 498 George Street. The brothers’ younger sibling Charles was hired as the Gowings store’s “dog walloper”, his job was chasing dogs away from the store as a preventive measure so they didn’t foul the pavement (Kingston).
After JES’ death in 1908 control of Gowings passed to the John and Preston’s sons, with the firm’s tradition for quality goods continuing. The construction of a new flagship building in 1929 on the George Street site became a landmark for Sydney (at the time it was Sydney’s highest building and the first steel construction in the CBD)✦.
A testimony to Gowings’ fame is the cult phrase that it acquired (and cultivated by the retailer) during the 20th century …”Gone to Gowings” has passed into the Australian vernacular, meaning a failure of some kind or other, or possibly a state of inebriation or dementia (Tréguer). Macquarie Dictionary lists six definitions: 1. Deteriorating financially, 2. illness especially a hangover, 3. Failing dismally (a racehorse, a football team, etc), 4. having departed hastily or without a specific destination in mind, 5. drunk, 6. Insane, idiotic. Alternately it could mean down on your luck, lost at the races, etc. The other famous catchphrase that was posted on the flagship premises” facade was “Walk Thru, No one Asked to Buy”.
Gowings ad, 1909
The post-Gowings space
