‘One of the sights of the colony’: Australia’s nineteenth-century arcades

ABSTRACT

The arcade is a nineteenth-century architectural and social form long associated with industrial modernity and consumer culture. Better known in the British and European urban landscape, they were also significant in the Australian colonial context from 1853 onwards, in numbers rivalling those in the so-called ‘metropole’. Australian entrepreneurs, architects and shop owners utilized what was seen as a very European form to represent the progress and civilization of the Australian colonies and their urban spaces, both in capital cities and smaller regional centres. The arcades, including their presence in the landscape, their architecture, and the commodities and leisure activities found within, were regularly invoked by boosters in order to demonstrate the sophistication of these colonial urban spaces. This article briefly discusses the history of the nineteenth-century Australian arcades, the boosterish discourse that promoted them, and how their representation was a way to express the place of the Australian colonies within a transnational milieu.

KEYWORDS:

• Shopping arcades
• nineteenth century
• colonial Australia
• leisure
• shopping
• consumption
• retail

Acknowledgements

This article was derived from a chapter of my doctoral thesis, Nicole Davis, ‘Australia’s Nineteenth-Century Arcades: History, Heritage and Representation’, University of Melbourne, 2022. Thanks to my supervisors, Professor Andrew J May and Professor David Goodman, Matthew Bailey, and the anonymous reviewers for feedback on the drafts of the chapter and this article. A version of this was also presented as part of the European Association for Urban History Online Symposium, Exchanges: European Cities and the Wider Urban World, 6 September 2023, where questions from the audience assisted in thinking through some of these ideas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Australian Town and Country Journal, April 9, 1881, 27.

2 Large department stores in Australia, on the scale of those in London, Europe and America, were less common in Australia until the last fifteen years of nineteenth century, although Hordern’s Palace Emporium opened in 1879: MHNSW, ‘Anthony Hordern & Sons”.

3 On town halls, libraries, museums, and other edifices as a symbol of civic, national, and imperial pride, and the subject of boosterism: Groten, ‘Glasgow’s New Town Hall”; Beaven, Visions of Empire, 12–13, 20–30. On commercial production and buildings, including arcades, as linked with boosterism and place promotion: Stobart, “Identity, Competition and Place Promotion in the Five Towns”; Stobart, “Building an Urban Identity”; Dobraszczyk, Iron, Ornament and Architecture in Victorian Britain, esp. 183–184, 195; Howard and Stobart, “Arcades, Shopping Centres and Shopping Malls”; Mitchell, “Retail Markets in Northern and Midland England, 1870–1914”; Arnout, Streets of Splendor, 192.

4 Arnout, Streets of Splendor, 51, 65, applies this dichotomy to Galeries St Hubert in Brussels; Schrader, 2016, 29, and Edmonds, Urbanizing Frontiers, 113, also draw these contrasts for settler-colonial cities.

5 Lemoine, Les Passages Couverts en France.

6 Geist, Arcades, has a detailed catalogue of examples globally.

7 On the interrelationship between the press and the city: Wolff & Fox, “Pictures from the Magazine”.

8 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 31, quoting The Illustrated Guide to Paris, 1852; Dobraszyk, Iron, Ornament and Architecture in Victorian Britain, 185–186 on Benjamin.

9 Dobraszyk, Iron, Ornament and Architecture in Victorian Britain, especially Chapter Four on arcades and market halls.

10 Davis, “Arcadia in Australia”.

11 Lesh and Davis, “Lost [in] Arcadia”.

12 Ibid. See also, for example, “Melbourne Lanes and Arcades Tour”; “Strand Arcade”; Adelaide Arcade; “Royal Arcade”; Image of Bendigo Arcade, “Lost Bendigo & District” page, Facebook.

13 In 2021, 50 per cent interest in the Strand and the QVB (together with the modern Galeries Victoria) sold for $538.2 million; in 2020 they had a $613 million turnover, with the Strand the most profitable, the QVB second: Simmons, “QVB, The Strand Arcade and The Galeries Change Hands in $538m Transaction”. Block Arcade, last sold in 2014, fetched over $100 million; foot traffic was over 3.5 million in 2013: Lenaghan, “Melbourne’s Iconic Block Arcade Sold”.

14 Geist, Arcades; Lemoine, Les Passages Couverts en France; Mackeith, Shopping Arcades; Mackeith, The History and Conservation of Shopping Arcades; Özkan, “Transformation of the Arcades in Beyoğlu”.

15 E.g. Plevoets and van Cleempoel, “Assessing Authenticity of Nineteenth-century Shopping Passages”; Schofield, “The Cleveland Arcade”.

16 E.g. “Assessment Report for Heritage Victoria: Former Eastern Arcade; “FMR Eastern ‘Arcade, 131–135 Bourke Street, Melbourne”; RBA Architects + Conservation Consultants, Proposed Conservation Works Prahran Arcade (VHR – H1960) 282–284 Chapel Street, Prahran; Bryant et al. Conservation Management Plan, Queen Victoria Building: 455 George Street, Sydney.

17 E.g. Salisbury, The Strand Arcade; Adelaide Arcade, Adelaide Arcade; Ipoh Garden, The Queen Victoria Building; Shaw, The Queen Victoria Building.

18 E.g. Pollon, Shopkeepers and Shoppers; Kingston, Basket, Bag and Trolley; Henderson-Smith, “From Booth to Shop to Shopping Mall”; Lancaster, The Department Store, Chapter One; Bailey, Managing the Marketplace, 6–8.

19 E.g. McWilliam, Fancy Repositories; Arnout, Streets of Splendor, Chapter Two; McCann, “Melbourne’s Royal Arcade and the Empty Time of Fashion”.

20 Davis, “Nineteenth-century Arcades in Australia”; Lesh and Davis, “Lost [in] Arcadia”.

21 Sydney Morning Herald, October 4, 1853, 2.

22 Argus, September 27, 1853, 7.

23 Adelaide Times, October 3, 1853, 2.

24 Empire, October 25, 1853, 6.

25 Banner, September 27, 1853, 7.

26 Ibid.

27 Sydney Morning Herald, October 4, 1853, 2.

28 Empire, October 25, 1853, 6.

29 James Lesh discusses similar ideas with reference to the 1853 pleasure gardens at Cremorne, a version derived from the London gardens of the same name: “Cremorne Gardens”, 238.

30 Sala, “The Land of the Golden Fleece: VIII – Arcadia in Australia”, Argus, August 22, 1885, 5.

31 Chandler, “‘Marvellous Melbourne’”; Davison, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne.

32 E.g. Hamer, New Towns in the New World; Schrader, The Big Smoke.

33 Hamer, New Towns in the New World, 85–87; Schrader, The Big Smoke, 115; Fisher, Boosting Brisbane, on the contribution of line-drawing and printers to the marketing of Brisbane in the 1860s.

34 At the time of the Queen's Arcade’s construction, it was a dramatic contrast to many other urban edifices. Melbourne’s population was exploding due to the large numbers heading to the gold diggings and the city was a building site, with too few houses to accommodate its swelling numbers.

35 Ford Cozens, “‘With a Pretty Little Garden at the Back’”; Seed, Ceremonies of Possession; Hamer, New Towns in the New World.

36 Schrader, The Big Smoke, 53.

37 Donohue, “Sydney and Principal Towns”, 265.

38 Marin La Meslée, L’Australie Nouvelle, 10.

39 Donohue, “Sydney and Principal Towns”, 263–264.

40 Adams, Australian Essays, 2.

41 Ibid, 262.

42 Schrader, The Big Smoke, emphasizes the iterative nature of building as a capitalist stratagem.

43 Hamer, New Towns in the New World, 174-175; ibid., 67.

44 Marin La Meslée, 75.

45 Chandler, “‘Marvellous Melbourne’”, 92.

46 Schrader, The Big Smoke, xxiv.

47 Illustrated Australian News for Home Readers, December 27, 1869, 4.

48 Argus, June 7, 1869, 4.

49 Australian Town & Country Journal, April 9, 1881, 27.

50 Brisbane Courier, July 31, 1877, 2.

51 Brisbane Courier, March 31, 1884, 8

52 Davis, “Transnationalism, the Urban & Migration in the Victorian Era”, 173–178.

53 Brisbane Courier, May 31, 1879, 1.

54 Stobart, “Identity, Competition and Place Promotion in the Five Towns”; Steel, “Re-routing Empire?" Schrader, The Big Smoke, 115.

55 Daily Commercial News & Shipping List, October 7, 1892, 2.

56 Evening News, December 21, 1881, 3.

57 Hutchinson “Introduction”, vii.

58 Australasian Builders & Contractors News, January 4, 1890, 1.

59 Hogben, Nationalism in Australian Architectural History, 1890–1920. Arnout, Streets of Splendor, 51–57 on Galeries St-Hubert as symbolic of the Belgian nation, its progress and modernity.

60 Sydney Morning Herald, April 2, 1892, 5.

61 Manning also oversaw other urban improvements, that contributed towards Sydney’s claims to progress and pre-eminence, including the construction of the Queen Victoria Markets Building (QVB) and the 1891 Royal Commission into Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality: McCormack, “Manning, William Patrick”,

62 Sydney Morning Herald, April 2, 1892, 5.

63 Boosters are often thought of as those in power, but letters and diaries of everyday people also reflect pride in development and progress in their towns and cities.

64 Whitehead, “Sunday, June 19th, 1898, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia”.

65 Quoted in Geeves, “A Building Named for a Queen”. See also: Shaw, The Queen Victoria Building, 14.

66 Groten, “Glasgow’s New Town Hall”.

67 Fitzroy City Press, January 31, 1896, 3.

68 On suburban development during the land boom in Melbourne: Davison, Making Marvellous Melbourne, 14-15, 184-188; Yule, The Buxtons, Chapters Two to Four, 17–52. Sydney: Ashton, Suburban Sydney; Brisbane: Laverty, The Making of a Metropolis; Lawson, Brisbane in the 1890s, Chapter Four.

69 Balmain Observer and Western Suburbs Advertiser, April 24, 1886, 2; July 17, 1886, 2.

70 Balmain Observer and Western Suburbs Advertiser, July 17, 1886, 2.

71 Sydney Morning Herald, August 19, 1889, 5.

72 Prahran Telegraph, August 2, 1890, 3. It is unclear whether the Metropolis referred to was London or the CBD of Melbourne but is likely the former.

73 Ballarat Star: July 20, 1869, 2; October 25, 1875, 2.

74 Argus, May 23, 1872, 2.

75 Ibid.

76 Recently renovated and known as the Bendigo Mining Exchange. The owner’s Facebook page tracked its renovation: “Bendigo Mining Exchange”.

77 The Tasmanian, February 5, 1887.

78 “Charters Towers – ‘The World’”.

79 National Trust of Queensland, Charters Towers and its Arcade; National Trust of Queensland Citation: The Stock Exchange Arcade. Charters Towers Stock Exchange File, National Trust of Queensland, NTQ CHT 1/1; Stedman, “Mark Cooper Day, Architect”.

80 Weekly, September 11, 1896, 24.

81 Morning Post, June 25, 1901, 4.

82 Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, September 17, 1901, 2. Kennedy, Giffney, and Vaughan, “‘Once a Jolly Flagman’”.

83 North Queensland Herald, September 21, 1901, quoted in Kennedy, Giffney, and Vaughan, 200–201.

84 Ibid.

85 Davis, “Arcadia in Australia”.

86 Evening News, 21 December 1881, 3.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for some research on Sophia and Henry Morwitch, as well as the arcades of Charters Towers and Townsville, came from a Norman Macgeorge Travel Scholarship, Graduate Research in Arts Travel Scheme (GRATS), and Faculty of Arts Research and Graduate Studies Scheme (RAGS), University of Melbourne.

Notes on contributors

Nicole J. Davis

Nicole J. Davis is an academic and professional historian, with a particular focus on urban history, heritage and placemaking, and transnational connections in the modern and ancient worlds. She submitted her doctoral thesis to the University of Melbourne in 2022, with the degree awarded in 2023. Her thesis focused on the social, economic, and architectural history of Australia’s nineteenth-century arcades, through a transnational lens. She has a passion for engaging the broader community with history, curating exhibitions, giving talks, and being involved in other public engagement forums.