Foy and Gibson Factory, Collingwood
The Foy and Gibson company was a pioneer in the history of retailing in Melbourne. Its department store chain, Melbourne's earliest, was modelled on the trading principles of the "Bon Marche" of Paris and other European and American stores. The Foy and Gibson factories and warehouses, which were responsible for the production and delivery of goods to the department stores, were remarkable for the range of goods that they produced, including soft furnishings, manchester goods, clothing, hats, hardware, leather goods, furniture and a range of foods - all in-house. Such production, wholesaling and retailing arrangements, which were an indication of the largely local focus of producer, supplier and retailer networks, are rare in contemporary retail establishments which source their products from all over the world.
As early as 1906 the former Foy and Gibson complex was described at the time as "undoubtedly the largest factory in the Southern hemisphere". The complex employed 2000 people and was considered technologically advanced, employing steam and electric power from an early date. Today, however, the equipment and shafting have been removed and the boiler house stacks form the only extant evidence of Foy and Gibson's technological achievements. The four storey section of the factory, at 79-93 Oxford Street, was possibly built prior to 1887, thought to be the earliest building still extant in the Foy and Gibson complex. The two level buildings on either side of it were added in 1900 (to the south) and 1908 (to the north). These buildings have elaborate timber roof trusses with turned struts incorporating long rectangular roof lanterns. The remnants of the laneway divisions between the original buildings are also of interest as interpreted from the brick piers at ground level, and the light wells on the upper level.
The Part of the Foy and Gibson complex at 95-101 Oxford Street, Collingwood, consists of a powerhouse, motor garage and associated workshops and was constructed in 1908. These particular buildings were substantially intact, both externally and internally, until damaged by fire on Wednesday, 16th October, 1991. The power house that is part of thiese buildings is one of the few remaning relics of early industrial infrastructure in Melbourne. The need for an on-site power house reflects the size of the Foy and Gibson complex, and reveals the expensiveness and limited nature of Melbourne s early electricity supply. The power house was one of Melbourne's first power generation houses. The motor garages that are part of the buildings were used for home delivery vehicles before the widespread use of automobiles by the general public.
The building was the ork of William Pitt (1855-1918), an eminent Melbourne architect, with a great talent for distinctive industrial buildings. As well as the vast Collingwood factory complex, Pitt was responsible for the retail store design for the 1911 Smith Street Diamond Cut Lingerie building in Fitzroy. The factory complex can be compared with Pitt's early sections of the Victoria Brewery complex, the facade of which formed the prototype for many later additions, and with his Bryant and May complex in Church Street, Richmond.
The first store was established as a drapery in Smith Street, Collingwood, by Mark Foy. In 1955 The Fox and Gibson was bought out by Cox Brothers. The retail empire was progressively dismantled, the ten WA stores being sold to David Jones in 1964; the Melbourne store to Woolworths 1967; the Adelaide store to Harris Scarfe.
Location: 68-158, 158-172 and 103-115 Oxford Street, Collingwood; 107-131 Cambridge Street, Collingwood; 7 Stanley Street, Collingwood
Development of the Collingwood Slope began in 1839 when S A Donaldson acquired the major portion of the area, consisting of lot 52 and part lots 53 and 68, and George Otter acquired the northern portion, consisting of part of lot 73. The pattern of streets, determined by the government's pre-auction survey, yielded large allotments in a gridiron pattern ideal for speculation and intense subdivision.
Subdivision of these allotments commenced in 1848 (lot 73) and 1849 (lots 52 and 53), and by 1853 the whole of the area, bounded by Smith, Johnson and Wellington Streets and Victoria Parade, was built upon. The area was originally known as East Collingwood. It fell outside of the Melbourne Building Act 1849 and was rapidly developed in a relatively unplanned manner by speculators, as a place of small shops and cottages, many of timber.
By the early 1860s, Wellington Street rivalled Smith Street as a commercial precinct and many of the boot and brewing premises established on the Collingwood Slope had spread to the Flat and beyond. While the area contained predominately working class housing and manufactories of varying types, the southern area near Victoria Parade included some grander houses including Portia and Floraston, as well as a number of churches, schools and Dr Singleton's Dispensary in Wellington Street.
In 1883, Foy and Gibson established what was to become a retail and manufacturing empire in the area, when they opened a shop in Smith Street. From then until the 1920s, the entire block bounded by Smith, Wellington, Peel and Stanley Streets (originally occupied by houses, small factories and hotels) underwent a transformation into an industrial landscape which remains externally substantially intact. This major expansionary phase brought woollen mills, clothing manufacture, hosiery, bedding, metal goods and cabinet manufacture to the Heritage Overlay Area at a scale unprecedented in Melbourne at the time; this is reflected in the substantial warehouses which remain today. The Foy and Gibson complex is on the Victorian Heritage Register and hence is not in the Heritage Overlay Area but forms a major part of the history and context of the Heritage Overlay Area.
