55-57 Gawler St, Barker’s Drapery Peter Shearer)
Mount Barker Springs farmer Thomas Hamlyn (1801-1883) purchased this site for £30 in 1853, amongst other local property invesments. It was not in the family for long, because in 1854 he sold it to Thomas Good, (1822-1889).
Good had emigrated in 1849 aboard the John Mitchell with his friend Charles Henry Goode (1827-1892), who later became an eminent businessman. They started a drapery business together in North Adelaide (also marrying each other’s sisters), but Good was working independently in Rundle Street when gold fever hit in 1852, and he joined the general exodus of young South Australian men to the Victorian diggings. He seems to have done more trading than digging while away, enabling him to set up a substantial drapery shop at this location on his return.
While in Mount Barker Thomas Good also built Good’s Grain Store, a warehouse in Hutchinson Street near the present site of the Aldi car park. The building was of generous proportions, built with stone and brick with a slate roof and a cellar. It proved a boon to the people of Mount Barker because in the off-season Good made it available for bazaars, fêtes, fund-raisers, teas and other events, mostly in aid of the Presbyterian Church.
Thomas Good ran his drapery until 1865, when he sold up and left Mount Barker to reside in North Adelaide. Good’s Grain Store was also sold, and later became the Temperance Hall. Good went on to late-career success as the co-founder of a prominent drapery wholesaler, but the Gawler Street shop he founded was destined to remain a local drapery for the next hundred years.
The most long-term occupants of the site were the Barker family, headed by William (1816-1890) and Sophia (née Whitbread, 1823-1909). When William and Sophia emigrated from England in the mid-1850s they already had a plan: they brought with them “a considerable stock of drapery,” which they used as the basis of a business that they set up in Gawler. They moved to Mount Barker in 1865 “in view of the delightful climate,” and took over Thomas Good’s business and adjoining residence. Until David Bell & Co. opened their upmarket store further up Gawler Street in 1911, Barker’s Drapery Store was the last word in household and luxury goods in Mount Barker. A typical advertisement in 1882 promised:
NEW GOODS! New Goods! In addition to his usual large stock of PLAIN AND FANCY DRAPERY, WILLIAM BARKER has just received, direct from London, Six Cases of Fancy Goods, including ALBUMS (Musical & Illuminated), PICTURES, JEWELRY, JEWEL CASES, CRUETS, JAPAN TRAYS, PERFUMERY, and other Articles too numerous to mention. (Prices low. 5 per Cent. discount for Cash.)
After William’s death in 1890 Sophia carried on the business under her own name for another twenty years. Unusually, in her will she left the shop to her single daughter, Florence Julia Barker (1860-1951), who managed the shop under the name F. J. Barker. Florence was an enthusiastic Baptist and had spent fifteen months visiting missions in India. During the four years in which she managed Barker’s Drapery the shop took on a somewhat exotic flavour, featuring a selection of items imported from Calcutta.
After F.J.’s tenure the drapery stayed in the family, being managed by her nephew, Bruce Barker (1879-1947) until his death. By this time the drapery had been continuously in Barker hands for eighty years. It was then acquired by Kenneth David Bell (1947-1967), grandson of drapery entrepreneur David Bell. Ken, who lived locally, agreed to allow the drapery to continue trading under the Barker name (see 35 Gawler St).
By the 1960s draperies were becoming a thing of the past, and since then a variety of different businesses have passed through the shop. It was extensively remodelled in the late 1990s, and is barely recognizable in the pictures below. The first photo was taken while William Barker was running the business c. 1865. The shop and the residence are under the one roof, with the residence having a separate entrance on the right. The second picture was taken when Sophia was in charge, featuring her own initial, in 1894. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
