Welcome, readers, to what I intend to become a regular series of potted Melbourne urban histories - heritage tales distilled at a somewhat greater length than social media will ever allow, and I do hope people enjoy the new format ...
I'm going to kick things off today with a heady mix of noxious substances, addictions and their consequences. It's the tale of a building which, unusually for most structures in such a young city as Melbourne, has lived three distinct and separate lives.
It's in many ways a case study in class divides, and its very much a tale of the changing nature and utilisation of the one-time industrial spaces at the fringes of Melbourne's CBD. Spaces which in my younger years were distinctly separate to the bustling business end of town, but which have now been mostly subsumed under the bustle.
It's in no small part a tobacco tale, but as any regular reader would expect, woven throughout is the subject of heritage protection - what we foolishly lose forever without it, and the absences we create when we're robbed of the opportunity to engage with the physical past in our modern lives.
It's about the people we leave in history's shadows. The places that we permanently void of significance and meaning. Our failure to protect what matters.
Because heritage is at its heart not really about buildings - it's about people and culture and placemaking, and its preservation is a patriotic duty. Moreso if, like myself, your chauvanistic nationality is "Melburnian".
So, settle in readers, pop on your comfiest slippers, and stuff yer pipes with an aromatic twist of finest Melbourne heritage blend ...
A'Beckett St 1890s - Tobacco Burned at Both Ends...
This fabulous structure we know today as "The Gill" apartments at the SE corner of A'Beckett and Wills Sts, Melbourne (just east of the William St intersection) was initially built in 1888-9 as a tobacco manufacturing factory for the firm Moss, White & Co. (as seen below) for an estimated £20,000 (one source suggests the figure was closer to £30,000, but this number possibly also includes machinery).
The buiding was constructed at six storeys (including basement) to an early design by influential, innovative and prolific Melbourne architect Nahum Barnet
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| The completed Moss, White & Co Factory, c.1889 Source: State Library of Victoria |
An earlier draft of this post had me waxing lyrical about the design being an archetypal example of Barnet's eager adoption of and advocacy for the American Romanaesque style then just coming into vogue in commercial construction in Melbourne - marking an important cultural shift away from imported derivative Victoriana to a more uniquely indigenous architectural form.
It's no accident that these shifts were taking place at the exact moment in history when Australians had just begun seriously contemplating the prospect of their imminent nationhood.
BUT ... and that's perhaps a bigger but than is warranted, but in the course of my research I was looking at the building's citation in Graeme Butler's 1984 CBD Conservation Study (which formed the basis of the first formal heritage overlays in the Melbourne Planning Scheme), and not for the first time in my life I have been schooled in my error by Mr Butler.
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| A'Beckett St frontage of "The Gill" Apartments c.2020 Source: City of Melbourne |
Let's face it, I am not actually an architectural historian. Suffice to say that none of the following really gainsays the essence of the above, but I think at this point it is better to hand the microphone over to Mr Butler (click here for link to original) to explain some of the subtleties;
Appearing remarkably like a Salvation Army designed building, this red brick and stucco factory has the tall arched fenestration associated with later Barnet designs and the main stream of warehouse designs, commencing with Royston House in 1898.
Rather than the Romanesque origin of this latter group, this building probably derives from the British Queen Anne interpretation of Italian Renaissance examples like S. Andrea at Mantua and S. Francesco Alla Vigna, Venice, which have tall arched fenestration usually below a parapet pediment and between giant orders. Absence of the foliated ornament to capitals and spandrels, and the oriel window bays, combined with the presence of the architrave, keystone and impost mouldings show the style difference from Barnet's later Romanesque revival designs.
Despite these subtleties of ornament, the tall arched form seems archetypical for revivalist factory designs, needing large window areas associated with undivided internal spaces. The American Sullivan led influence may have simply added an embellishment to the continuation of an appropriate eclectic form for the purpose which perhaps places the Moss - White factory at the vanguard of the form's use in Victoria.
The Barnet signature, shared with the nearby Spiers Crawford warehouse, is the long trailing consoles beneath the entrance pediment and its repetition in the joinery of the grand level windows.
Tobacco was evidently a nice gig for Barnet - he would design another four storey tobacco factory for WM Cameron Bros cigar makers on the west side of Swanston St, just north of A'Beckett Street's eastern extremity in 1901.
As the images below clearly indicate, that building's form owed no small debt to Barnet's earlier work for Moss, White & Co., albeit leaning more towards a more standard interpretation of the American Commercial Romanesque style.
That building was demolished for grade level carparking (seriously, Melbourne!🙄🤪🤬🤬) c.1970 - a few years before the introduction of the first heritage protections - and is today host to the RMIT Swanston Academic Building.
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| WM Cameron Bros cigar factory, 435-445 Swanston St, Melbourne, seen on its completion in 1901 Source: Melbourne University Archives |
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| British Australasian Tobacco Offices and Factory, Swanston St, Melbourne with 1901 Nahum Barnet building on left (Oxford Scholar Hotel far left) and BAT's newer 1925 extension on right (demolished c.2010 for RMIT) Source: State Library of Victoria |
The new building represented a significant expansion for Cameron Bros from their initial base around the corner in A'Beckett St, as seen below.
That building evidently became conjoined with Barnet's new Swanston Street structure upon the latter's completion, and suffered the same ridiculous fate of demolition for grade-level carparking which blighted both streetscapes for nearly 40 years prior to the new RMIT development.
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| Looking west along A'Beckett St, Melbourne from Swanston in 1966 with the original 1890s Cameron Bros factory/warehouse prominent. Although built slightly later than Moss, White & Co., the style is far more that of a more standard late Victorian warehouse. To the right of the building is the now-defunct Havelock Place, which was sold to RMIT in 2009. "Havelock" was one of Cameron Bros' best selling American tobacco brands. Source: State Library of Victoria |
The British Australasian Tobacco Company was formed in 1903 via a merger between WM Cameron Bros and the Dixson Tobacco Company, and the new firm adopted the Cameron property as its Melbourne headquarters.
1878 Label for Moss, White & Co's tobacco produce, featuring five of the firm's prize medals from various sources - including Victoria's Intercolonial Exhibition in 1866 and 1873.
"Caution: no cigars are genuine from our factory unless bearing this label intact"
Source: State Library of Victoria
Moss, White & Company
"Caution: no cigars are genuine from our factory unless bearing this label intact"
Source: State Library of Victoria
Returning again now to the other end of A'Beckett St, in 1889 the imposing six storey edifice of the Moss White factory, with its enormous 13 foot ceilings was amongst the tallest structures in its day outside of the Hoddle grid proper, and it would remain an imposing presence on the city skyline at the northwest end of town until the rest of the city began catching up in the 1990s - a solid hundred odd year reign.
Moss White & Co. was founded in 1863 by three English emigres - Messrs Moss, White and Cherry - the three of whom had been childhood friends in the 'mother country', where they had all been involved in the tobacco indutsry from an early age.
Initially the firm had started out exclusively making cigars, before moving in to tobacco production in 1877. By 1889, the firm was employing a range of tobacco leaves imported from Havanna, Manilla, Sumatra and Florida augmented by some local production (particularly in its budget "Gordon" brand) to make a variety of cigar, cake tobacco and snuff products.
A Waygood elevator was installed in the building, which was something of an innovation for its time - Waygood would open a factory in Melbourne in 1890 (at the time, the city was Australia's home of the commercial "skyscraper"), which was later bought out by Peter Johns (founder of Johns Hydraulic & General Engineering Co.) to become Johns & Waygood in 1892.
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| Looking east along A'Beckett St towards the Gill memorial Home, early 1980s Source: Graeme Butler |
Another unusual feature is the bell cote visible on the top of the building's Wills St frontage (top right in the image above), which may or may not have had a functional purpose (the building would have made an ideal fire lookout thereabouts, but I've not been able to unearth any evidence of it ever being used as such).
Two floors and a ground floor office were let to the American Tobacco Company of Victoria, who took the address 217 A'Beckett St, and Moss White occupied the rest of the building, taking the 219 address. A variety of state-of-the-art machinery was installed, along with a ten horse-power steam engine to power them.
Unfortunately no photographic eveidence has survived of the interior of the Moss, White & Co floors, but numerous images of the American Tobacco Company floors taken c.1900 are held by the State Library (see below).
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| The Cigar Making Room at the American Tobacco Company of Victoria c.1900 - note the redgum columns and beams (discussed in more detail below). The cute line of almost identical hats and jackets on the rear wall is also a nice detail. Source: State Library of Victoria |
A highly successful local enterprise, the Weekly Times relates that the company's ground floor showroom was "hung with a profusion of prize medals in gold, silver, and bronze, from Milan, Amsterdam, London, Dublin, and many other capitals, awarded to the firm, including one gigantic affair from Amsterdam about a foot in diameter."
The Toscin (a short-lived socialist newspaper, published from 1897 to 1906) was pleased to advise its readers in 1900 that "this firm works under Trade Union conditions. These goods are made under Trade Union labour, paid for at the Trade Union rates, and under the Eight Hours system."
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| Moss White & Co. Snuff Packaging, 1875. "None Genuine Unless with Band Round" After suffering two significant burglaries at their previous premesis, and with the culprits never caught, one gets the sense the firm was particularly sensitive to the threat of their product being illicitly hocked Source: State Library of Victoria |
The Fire of 1898
The building survived a massive fire in February 1898, which must have produced a delightfully intoxicating aroma across the western end of the city. The fire began on the sixth floor which was used as a maturing room, destroying that floor and the building's roof and severely damaging the fourth floor.
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| The Argus informs Melburnians of the fire, Wed 9 Feb, 1898 |
The fire was a perhaps counterintuitive vindication of the builders' choice to employ redgum columns and beams in the factory's construction in place of what would more usually in its day have been the use of iron (see earlier image).
Experts concluded that iron columns would have snapped in the heat and compromised the building's exterior, but the redgum - although severely charred by the event, essentially maintained the building's structural integrity.
Moss White had suffered serious financial loss through two major burglaries at their previous premesis at 63 Queen Street, so this building was designed to be largely burglar-proof at street level, a factor which severely hampered the local brigades in fighting the fire.
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| Moss, White & co. Factory at 63 Queen St (west side, with Collins St to R of image), seen 1880s. The Building was taken over by Guardian Fire and Life Insurance after the tobacconists decamped and was later demolished c.1900 for the second stage of AC Goode House. |
1910s-1928 - Various Uses
The William Booth Memorial Home Tragedies
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| The Lt Lonsdale St facade of the William Booth Memorial Home following the 1966 fire |
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| The 15 unclaimed coffins from the William Booth Memorial Home Fire, 1966 Source: Kim Raineby Snr via The Age |
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| Aerial View of the William Booth Memorial Home in 1938 Source: State Library of Victoria |
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| The Lt Lonsdale St site today - Google Street View |
Thankfully no such tragedies, by fire or by wrecking ball occurred at the A'Beckett St home.
The Salvation Army Gill Memorial Home for Men 1928-c.2000
The converted Moss White factory building housed over 300 men in four large dormitories of 69 beds each at the time of opening (plus a smaller one of 25 beds reserved largely for the very elderly) across its six floors, with prices similarly stratified. Prices at opening ranged from fouprence through to a shilling a night, depending on the location.
Beds on the most desirable first floor (it seems residents were debarred use of the elevator) went to the "toffs" who by 1948 were paying an exorbitant rate of up to 1/9 (one shilling and ninepence) per night, where the standard nightly rate had by then risen to 1 shilling.
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| The Gill Memorial Home, A'Beckett St frontage, early 1980s Source: Graeme Butler |
In the same year, a three course meal would set a man back a shilling, while two courses could be secured for merely ninepence.
As with the William Booth, the establishment was run as a not-for-profit venture, and the Salvation Army reported an operational loss of around 18 pounds ten shillings a week associated with the institution in 1932.
A sixth dormitory was reserved for the home's staff, who numbered 22 at the time of its opening.
The policy was always to refuse nobody shelter, provided there was room to supply it, and consideration was always given to men who could not pay, provided they had some prospect of doing so shortly.
Hopeful entrants would line up each night at a window in Wills Street "which resembles a theatre box office", and attendants were stationed by the dormitories on each floor of the building to collect tickets (described in one report as "lodging discs").
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| "Mulga" Bill, described by The Argus as "a well-known and kindly old client" queues at the ticket window of the Gill Memorial Home in 1948 Source: The Argus |
Many of the residents actually held regular employment, including large numbers at the nearby Victoria Market - whose proximity was a significant factor in the Army's choice of location for the venture. It was these regulars with some means of self-support who largely comprised the "toff" segment.
Tradesmen, laborers, wrestlers, boxers and even a singer were reportedly amongst the insitution's denizens in 1930, when beds could be secured on the less desirable levels of the building for a mere threepence.
The home had opened just in time for the Great Depression to hit, when demand for the organisation's services was routinely strained by people who had erstwhile been ordinary contributing members of society looking for either accomodation or an affordable feed.
By 1932, the home was reportedly serving over 5,000 meals per week "at prices ranging from one penny to sixpence". That's a figure in excess of 700 meals a day - a figure that would swamp most restauranteurs.
The Gill was thus arguably the most important culinary establishment in all of Melbourne as the city approached it's hundredth year of existence, although its menu awash with mince meat, stew, sausages, bread and cocoa would have done little to inspire most gastronomes.
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| Mealtime at The Gill Home, c.1967 Source: State Library of Victoria |
In the same year, the "user-pays" regime somewhat came apart as the State Government began paying the Army 5 shillings a week to house recipients of its "Susso" sustenance payment - welfare instituted in the Great Depression and reserved exclusively for the long term unemployed who had no assets of their own.
In 1932, fully 270 of the building's incumbents were reportedly on the Victorian government "susso" payment.
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| Queues forming at the Gill Home as recently as 1995 Photographer: Mathias Heng - Source: State Library of Victoria |
In 1930, the same paper reported that between 50 and 100 men were regularly being turned away from the home every night. In 1937 the home elected to make 50 beds a night completely free of charge in a bid to ease the city's homelessness crisis.
Winters were said to be the busiest times for demand, although major events such as the Melbourne Cup would also see an influx of visitors from country towns and interstate which would equally strain the facility.
The depression of course eventually subsided, but still The Argus reported in 1948 that the building was "always full", and the "house full" signage was routinely displayed by 11pm on most evenings, although 6pm was considered "peak hour" for most "bookings".
The links between homelessness and substance abuse are of course long established and inevitable. The head of the organisation, Brigadier Herbert Sheldrick, advised the paper that "drunks cannot be barred, because 90% of our clients arrive every night in some stage of inebriation".
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| The house rules at "The Gill" c.1967 Source: State Library of Victoria |
Alcohol itself was strictly prohibited on the premesis, although the tenants reputedly made every creative attempt imaginable to circumvent the regulation.
Behavioural issues were thus something of a given at the institution, and a record was kept in a big black book of resident misdemeanours, with many being permanently debarred from the place for their infractions. A police patrol payed a routine nightly visit to the home. The top floor of the building was reserved for "casuals and difficult customers".
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| Brigadier Herbert Sheldrick, a one-time butcher from country NSW, toils away in the kitchen of the Gill Memorial Home in 1948 Source: The Argus |
Every effort was made to include facilities for the edification of the residents. The ground floor of the newly refurbished building boasted a reading room, a washroom and a smoking room equipped with a fireplace. Voluntary "Divine Services" were held from 6pm on Tuedays and Sundays, accompanied by a good old Salvation Army brass band comprising members of the Home's staff.
Cleanliness was strongly emphasised as a virtue at the home, and the building was refitted with its own state-of-the-art laundry, daily churning out crisp white bed linen for its denizens, which was changed weekly. The dormitories were cleared of all occupants by 7.45 each morning, and a check of all bed linen for unwanted pests was made. The price of bringing such vagrants into the building was a mandatory bath and fumigation of all belongings.
Those who arrived in a less than desirable state of sanitation were issued with a "blue ticket", which meant they needed to pass through a special showering facility and, as their clothing required fumigation, they were then sent off to bed completely unrobed to sleep "raw". The practice of issuing such men with nightgowns had to be discontinued owing to a tendency for the gowns to disappear, concealed beneath the men's clothing the following day.
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| Queues form of homeless men for the Gill Memorial home outside the former 1884 telephone exhchange (Melbourne's first) on the opposite (west) side of Wills St c.1966 Source: State Library of Victoria |
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| The same location today - a sterling example of how NOT to do facade retention, and further evidence that the planners at City of Melbourne have well and truly drunk the developers' Kool Aid (Google Street View) |
We are indebted to photographer Mathias Heng who has provided history with probably the last lot of documentary evedence of the Gill Home, through a set of photographs taken in 1995 - just a few years before its eventual closure.
Time and property prices eventually mitigated against the accomodation model employed at the Gill Home. The practice of housing large numbers of vulnerable people - many with long term mental health issues in large dormitory style accomodation fell out of favour in the welfare sector.
The Gill was closed in the late 1990s in favour of newer accomodation forms that housed people in single bed rooms, although that model of course required a much larger floorspace to accomodate the same number of people.
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| Dormitory at the Gill Home with dutiful penitent, seen in 1995 Photographer: Mathias Heng - Source: State Library of Victoria |
The Age in 2002 quoted The Salvation Army's then general manager of adult services, Jane Barnes as stating "disgusting and archaic night shelters are a thing of the past". But highlighting the difficulty in replacing the scale of accomodation they could supply, continues;
"The old Gill Memorial Home for Men ... which housed 200 people a night in dormitories containing 50 beds, has been replaced with the Flagstaff, which comprises 64 beds in separate rooms, and the Open Door in North Melbourne, with 44 separate rooms."
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| Some of the fabulous hair sported by residents at the Gill Home, seen in 1995 Photographer: Mathias Heng - Source: State Library of Victoria |
"The Gill" Apartments
In another dramatic change of purpose for this highly storied building (storeys of stories, no less), the former Moss, White & co factory was subdivided and converted to 20 luxury apartments by architects Nation Fender Katsalidis in 2000. The redevelopment added a communal gym, spa and heated pool to the complex.
The benefits of residential densification to central Melbourne are of course real, but they are perhaps not universal - when you consider an institution once capable of catering nightly to over 300 of society's most needy (200 by some estimates at the time of its closure) is now home to no more than three dozen of the almost definitionally wealthiest.
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| A'Beckett St frontage of "The Gill" Apartments c.2020 Source: City of Melbourne |
As conversions go, it must be said that the developers have been faithful to the building exterior, excepting that the distinctive white paint applied to the stoccoed areas seems historically inaccurate. 1980s photos indicate the scheme was more of a cream-yellow hue by that time, but the building would certainly have been repainted over the course of 100 years, and it's impossible to know how the 1880s scheme would originally have appeared purely from black and white photos.
The retention of the original six storey building plan behind the retained facade is a welcome degree of compliance with sound heritage practice - and a practice that all too regularly goes unenforced on other sites (hello, Emporium).
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| The "sleek interior" of apartment 302 at "The Gill" Apartments in 2017 Source: Melcom Real Estate |
The sales spiel for apartment 302 waxed ebullient in 2017;
"Originally built in 1888 by Nahum Barnet as a tabacco (sic) factory ... the sleek interiors feature a spacious lounge and dining, boasting ceiling heights up to 13 feet and large original timber windows (EDITOR'S NOTE: The windows are NOT original to the factory) with a sophisticated kitchen appointed with stone benches, glass splashbacks and European stainless steel appliances, master bedroom with walk in robe and ensuite, second bedroom BIRs and sparkling central bathroom.
The three bedroom apartment 501 at "The Gill" sold in 2015 for $1.52m, which is a lot of shillings per night, even if you live to be the next Methusalah.
But at least the building is still there, facade wholly intact and without a giant new tower sticking out of the top of it, and barring no further intervention by flames nor similar acts of "God", should still be there as a prominent remnant of the city's 19th into 20th century working class and industrial heritage in another 140 odd years.
Thanks for staying with me this far, readers.
If you're into this sort of content, we'll be ramping up this blog in a big way in 2023.
Make sure you don't miss out on future posts from the Wombat - stay in touch on social media via one of the million or so links in the sidebars ...
REFERENCES
'Central Activities District Conservation Study' - Graeme Butler, 1984
'Messrs Moss White & Co's New Premesis', The Age, 26 October 1889
'The A'Beckett Street Fire', The Argus, 9 February, 1898
'Messrs Moss White & Co.", The Weekly Times, 14 December, 1889
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