Tinsmiths were amongst the first businesses to set up in Gawler Street, and this site was continuously occupied by tinsmiths for more than fifty years.  In the mid-nineteenth century most of the goods that were consumed in Mount Barker were produced on-site by foundries, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, tailors, carpenters, coach-makers and associated trades.  Tinsmiths made pots, billies, watering-cans, troughs, bathtubs, guttering and tanks, and if they did not have the item that the customer wanted they would make it to order.  They also often acted as the town’s plumbers. There was no separate “light industry” precinct; instead, craftsmen worked, and often lived, in the main street.

Swedish tinsmith Hakan Linde (1820-1907) was the first to set up business here, buying the vacant allotment from an Adelaide-based speculator for £108 in 1854. Fellow tinsmith William Fuller partnered with him in 1857, purchasing a half-share of the property. In 1867 the pair on-sold to Caleb Potter (1813-1885), who operated the tinsmith business while living at the site with his family. When he died in 1885 his youngest son Arthur (1854-1898) took over, followed by his eldest son William (1840-1899).  (See also: https://mtbarkernationaltrust.org.au/history-post/caleb-potter/.)

In 1906 Albert Turner (1884-1934), who had been employed as a workman by the Potters for some years, took over management of the shop, advertising his services as “Tinsmith, Tankmaker, and General Ironworker.” George Vernon Wedd (1890-1955) was the last tinsmith to occupy the site.  By the time he acquired the business in 1919 the nature of commodity supply and consumption had changed, and fewer things were being made by hand on site.  He closed down in 1928.

The property was acquired by Kate Ireleen Mary Thomson (1897-1954), who did not occupy it herself but rented it out.  Kate was the daughter of Mount Barker builder Richard William Thomson (1854-1931) and his wife Margaret (née Thomas, 1859-1940). Unlike her two sisters she did not marry, but worked diligently for local causes, such as the Methodist kindergarten.  Kate was of the generation that was profoundly affected by World War I; her beloved older brother Jack had been killed at the Somme in 1917.  When Kate died in 1954, she left the extraordinary sum of £10,000 to Legacy, for the support of the wives and families of servicemen.

In 1929 Norman Frean (1893-1977) started up a bicycle and motor repair business in the old tinsmith’s shop.  This was followed by a similar business run by Horace Squire Friend (“Horrie”) Mumford (1905-1839) of Nairne. Horrie lived at the site with his father, John Mumford (1875-1947) in the lodgings previously occupied by the tinsmiths and their families.

The heyday of cycling was in the 1890s, but in Australia it had a resurgence in the late 1920s and 1930s, due almost entirely to the dashing exploits of Australian cyclist Hubert Opperman (1904-1996).  Opperman won the Australian national road race title four times between 1924 and 1929.  He entered the Tour de France in 1928 and 1931, and although he did not win he became a celebrity in France.  While in Paris in 1928 he beat the world 1,000 km velodrome cycling record.  In 1931 he won the Paris-Brest-Paris race, at that time the longest road race in the world, riding in wind and driving rain.  Opperman owned a share in Malvern Star bicycles, and Mumford’s advertisement in The Courier in 1937 read “Oppy, riding Malvern Star, smashed Perth-Sydney Record – Get your Malvern Star cycle from H.S.F. Mumford.”

Mumford organised cycling races and novelty competitions to promote his store, and business was good.  Unfortunately, Horrie himself was in poor health.  He had suffered a head injury in a motorcycle accident in his early twenties, and despite surgery he was unable to find a remedy for his chronic headaches.  He was much lamented when he died by suicide in his lodgings at the rear of the shop.  The business was taken up by professional road cyclist Cyril Short, but by this time negotiations were already underway to sell the shop and attached cottages to the Savings Bank of South Australia, which had been operating out of H.B. Chapman’s shop at 53 Gawler St and was looking for a site on which to build.

The new bank was typical of those that sprang up in in affluent towns in the 1930s and 1940s.  Constructed in 1940 with an upstairs manager’s residence, it has elements of the art deco design that was then fashionable, especially in the building’s rounded corners and curved detailing. These features were combined with a more imposing classicism, giving the bank an aura of solidity and dependability.  An historical survey carried out in 2004 called attention to the building’s “original masonry walls and detailing including projecting stone plinth, classical parapet and cornice, pilaster and coffer detailing to windows, and original roof windows and doors.”

In 1984 The Savings Bank of South Australia merged with the former State Bank of South Australia (established 1896) to form the new State Government-owned State Bank. In 1991 the State Bank collapsed, precipitating one of the biggest economic disasters in the state’s history.  The remnants were subsequently acquired by Advance Bank, which itself was bought by St. George in 1997.  By this stage, the State Bank had been reinvented and was trading as BankSA.  Following Westpac’s merger with St. George in 2008, BankSA became a division of Westpac Banking Corporation.

The property was sold to private owners in 1990, but BankSA continue as lessees.

The photo on the left below shows Mumford’s Cycle Store in 1936, in what used to be the tinsmiths’ shop. The photo on the right shows Gawler Street in the 1948, with the bank building an imposing presence in the centre of the streetscape (click to enlarge).