Miss Moss's shop and residence, later Salvation Army Tea Depot (Hamodava Tea), 37 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Butler, Graeme1985
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Title:
Miss Moss's shop and residence, later Salvation Army Tea Depot (Hamodava Tea), 37 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
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Date of work:
1985
Reference number:
BIF-CITY 105911
Level of description:
Item from Collection: Heritage Collection (HC)
Type of materials:
Graphic materialsTextual material
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Series: Central City (BIF-CITY)
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UnrestrictedOpen access.
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UnrestrictedPlease contact City of Melbourne Libraries about obtaining permission to reproduce images.
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RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER 2022:__________________________________________________DATE: 1906;ASSOCIATIONS: Moss, Miss; Salvation ArmyDESIGNERS: Tompkins, H W & F B;BUILDER: Cooper, W A - 64 Auburn Gve Auburn.CONTEXT (WITH GJM HERITAGE) 2020, HODDLE GRID HERITAGE REVIEW__________________________________________________Statement of SignificanceWhat is significant?37 Little Collins Street, built c1906, and designed by architects H W & F B Tompkins.Elements that contribute to the significance of the place include (but are not limited to):· The building’s original external form, materials and detailing;· The building’s high level of integrity to its original design (upper façade);· Loadbearing face brickwork;· Engaged brick piers with stone base and moulded cornices;· Parapet and rendered cornices; and· Eight-paned timber framed arch-headed window, concrete spandrel and rounded rendered cornice.Later alterations to the street level façade are not significant..How it is significant?37 Little Collins Street is of local historic, representative and aesthetic significance to the City of Melbourne..Why it is significant?The building at 37 Little Collins Street is historically significant for its association with retailing, warehousing and manufacturing in the City of Melbourne in the early twentieth century. It is significant for its association with tea importation, firstly by the Salvation Army from 1908-1920 as the Hamodava tea depot, and later by a succession of tea merchants until 1933. (Criterion A)37 Little Collins Street is a fine and representative example of a commercial building type from the early twentieth century period. The buildings are reasonably intact, with detailing still evident to the upper façade. It is also significant as a fine example of the works of architect brothers, H W and F B Tompkins, who established their architecture practice in Melbourne in 1898 and became a leading architectural firm. (Criterion D)The building at 37 Little Collins Street is significant for its aesthetic qualities. Its Federation-style red brick façade is aesthetically distinguished and comprises features such as a wide semi-circular window opening, bordered with several courses of end bond brick work and a rounded rendered cornice; a marble spandrel; engaged brick piers running up each edge of the building and intersecting with a brick parapet featuring rendered cornices that contribute to its picturesque composition. (Criterion E)Primary sourceHoddle Grid Heritage Review (Context & GJM Heritage, 2020).GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM cites CITY OF MELBOURNE BUILDING PERMIT APPLICATIONS 19;__________________________________________________VICTORIAN HERITAGE INVENTORY H7822-1773Fifth land sale 1839, Allotment 5. Lanes and subdivisions developed by 1839. 1850 and 1866 - building. 1888 - two one-storey buildings, Wo Lee, Chinese Laundry. 1905 - vacant, used as laneway/access.__________________________________________________LEWIS, M- AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE INDEX:Record 76919 Tompkins, -Moss, Miss Melbourne VIC Shops Cooper, W A - 64 Auburn Gve Auburn 1906 05 19 19-MCC registration no 19 [Burchett Index]. Fee 2.2.0 brick shop__________________________________________________City of Melbourne online maps 2016Two storey former brick factory built around 1910. Converted into a shop and upper floor office in 1977. Refurbished and converted to a restaurant in 1995.__________________________________________________CONTEXT (WITH GJM HERITAGE) 2020, HODDLE GRID HERITAGE REVIEWSummary· Historically significant for its association with retailing, warehousing, manufacturing, and tea importation, firstly by the Salvation Army as the Hamodava tea depot.· Significant as representative of an early twentieth century commercial building, and of the works of architects H W and F BTompkins.· Aesthetically significant for its Federation-style red brick façade with features such as a wide semi-circular window..SITE HISTORY37 Little Collins Street was part of the fifth Crown land sale in Melbourne in 1839. Lane and subdivisions were developed the same year. By 1850 the land housed a building and by 1888 the site comprised two single-storey buildings, one of them Wo Lee’s Chinese Laundry. In 1905, the site was vacant and used as an access laneway (Fels, Lavelle & Mider 1993).The two-storey brick building at 37 Little Collins Street was designed by architects H W and F B Tompkins and constructed by builder W A Cooper. The construction date is estimated to be 1906, with the 'notices of intent to build' lodged in May of that year. The first owner between 1906 and 1910 appears as a ‘Miss Moss’ (MCC registration no 19, as cited in AAI, record no 76919; Mahlstedt 1910), but it is not known how long she retained the property.The Edwardian shop first appeared as ‘vacant’ in the Sands and McDougall Street Directory published in 1907, and in the following year, it became occupied by the Salvation Army for use as its tea depot for the brand ‘Hamodava’, established by Salvationist Herbert Henry Booth in 1897 (S&Mc). Hamodava Tea Company imported teas, coffee and cocoa to fund the Salvation Army’s work in Australia and New Zealand.The tea, coffee and cocoa was sold to retailers from the Salvation Army Headquarters, or the Melbourne Citadel, at 69-71 Bourke Street (Table Talk 11 April 1901:20). The earlier Hamodava warehouses were situated firstly at 12-14 Westwood Place (internally connected to 69-71 Bourke Street), then at 11 Westwood Place until c.1906 (S&Mc 1898-1906). The location of 37 Little Collins Street was convenient, being only metres away from Westwood Place (Figure 1).Figure 1. An aerial from 1950 showing 37 Little Collins Street (in red circle) in relation to the Salvation Army Headquarters (in yellow circle) (Source: Pratt 1950).The Salvation Army warehouse remained at 37 Little Collins until 1920 (S&Mc 1907-1921). Until the early 1930s, the building was continuously leased to tea merchants including Maypole Tea Company in 1922-26 (S&Mc 1922-1926), William Mullin in 1927-31 (S&Mc 1927-1931), and McGuinness and Co Pty Ltd from 1933 (S&Mc 1933). These later tea merchants only stayed for short periods of time, probably due to the depression of the international tea market in the late 1920s and 1930s (Economic History Association).More recent occupiers of the building included E V Jones, printer, and R E Wilkinson, metal spinner (S&Mc 1935, 1938 & 1942). The building at 37 Little Collins Street was converted into a shop and upper floor office in 1977, and was refurbished as a restaurant in 1995 (CoMMaps).H W and F B Tompkins, architectsThe Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture contains the following entry for architects H W and F B Tompkins:H W & F B TOMPKINS, architects were established in 1898 when the brothers won a design competition for the Commercial Travellers Association CTA Clubhouse, 190Flinders Street, Melbourne. Henry Harry William (1865-1959) and Frank Beauchamp Tompkins (c1867-1952) were born in England and educated in South Africa. They migrated to Australia with their parents in 1886. Harry became an assistant architect to Richard Speight Jnr and Frank worked with several architects including Evander McIver and Nahum Barnet. By the mid-1890s Harry had entered a partnership, forming Speight & Tompkins of 493 Collins Street, Melbourne. He left the partnership in 1896 to take up a position in the Western Australia Public Works Department, but was retrenched in 1898 and returned to Melbourne and formed the partnership of H W & F B Tompkins.The competition win established the firm and by the early 20th century, H W & F B Tompkins was a leading commercial firm. Their commercial work up to WWII reflects the three influences popular at the time: the Romanesque style popularised by such architects as H.H. Richardson in the United States during the late 19th century; the Baroque Revival of the early 20th century, popular in Chicago and San Francisco after 1908; and the Moderne or interwar functionalist style of the 1930s. Both Harry and Frank travelled to the United States and Europe, studying the latest trends in design and construction technology. They were the first architects in Melbourne to implement modern methods of steel frame construction and reinforced concrete in the Centre Way, Collins Street 1911 and the new Commercial Travellers' Association Clubhouse and Commerce House, 318-324 Flinders Street (1912). In 1913, the firm's association with Sidney Myer began with a warehouse building in Bourke Street, the first of many Myer commissions.Harry Tompkins and Sidney Myer travelled in the United States visiting department stores, including the Emporium in San Francisco, which is reputedly the influence for the Myer Emporium in Bourke Street, Melbourne.Harry Tompkins, the public face of the firm, was a prominent member of the RVIA; he was a council member (1905-), vice-president (1913) and president (1914-16). Harry was also president of the Federal Council of the AlA (1918-19) and mayor of Kew, the suburb in which he lived, for the same period.The firm is one of the longest surviving in Victoria. In the 1950s it became Tompkins & Shaw when P.M. Shaw entered the partnership and then Tompkins, Shaw & Evans when Stan Evans joined. In 2003 it was acquired by Michael Davies Associates, forming a new firm, Tompkins MDA Group (Beeston 2012:707-708).REFERENCESAustralian Architectural Index (AAI), as cited. Copyright Miles Lewis.Context Pty Ltd 2012, Thematic History: A History of the City of Melbourne’s Urban Environment, prepared for the City of Melbourne.City of Melbourne Maps (CoMMaps), 37 Little Collins Street, http://maps.melbourne.vic.gov.au/, accessed 25 May 2017.Economic History Association, The History of the International Tea Market, 1850-1945, https://eh.net/encyclopedia/thehistoryoftheinternationalteamarket18501945/, accessed 25 May 2017.Fels, M, Lavelle S, and Mider, D 1993, ‘Archaeological Management Plan’, prepared for the City of Melbourne.Sands and McDougall, Melbourne and Suburban Directories (S&Mc), as cited.Pratt, Charles Daniel 1950, ‘Aerial view of Melbourne looking south east, Victoria’, State Library of Victoria (SLV) John Etkins collection, accessed 22 June 2017.Table Talk, as cited.Young, John and Spearritt, Peter 2008, ‘Retailing’ in eMelbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01241b.htm, accessed 13 June 2017.__________________________________________________Australian food timeline web sitehttps://australianfoodtimeline.com.au/hamodava-first-fair-trade-tea/The Hamodava Tea Company was created by the Australian branch of the Salvation Army in 1897. It was the idea of Commandant Herbert Henry Howard Booth, the son of the Salvation Army’s founder, William Booth. Profits were used in the Army’s missionary work, including helping south Asian tea workers to purchase their own land. It thus became the first fair trade tea.….By 1899, the company was selling 3500 lbs (nearly 1590 kg) of tea each week. It continued to trade successfully until 1929 when the Great Depression caused prices to collapse and the company was wound up. The name persisted at the Hamodava cafe in Melbourne, providing free breakfasts to the city’s homeless people. The word was said to mean “Salvation” in the Sinhalese language, but modern sources now give the translation as “army”...__________________________________________________NEWSPAPERS (TROVE)1907MACHINISTS.— Improvers and Apprentices; good wages. Hill & Co., 37 Little Collins-st., near Spring-st.TAILORESSES.— Vacancy for a Coat Hand, also Improver, good opportunity. 37 Little Collins-st.
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| Type | Reference No. | Extent | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 105911 | 1 JPEG : 444 KB ; A4 | Single Item (May not be issued, may not be reproduced) |