Ball & Welch

Ball & Welch Pty Ltd. was a prominent department store in Melbourne, Australia from the 19th century through to the 1970s.

This drapery business was founded by Charles Ball (born Frome, Somerset, England) and his nephew, W.H. Welch in the early 1850s. The company's first stores opened on The Goldfields at Forest Creek, at Vaughan Springs in 1861, then in 1882 at nearby Castlemaine. In 1874 a branch was established in Melbourne in the suburb of Carlton. The large three-storied premises had frontages to Faraday, Drummond and University streets.

Eventually an emporium at 180 Flinders Street was designed by architects Reed Smart & Tappin and was completed in 1899 in an American Romanesque style. It was extended in 1911 with the purchase of the adjoining Commercial Travellers' Club. The store occupied around one third of the total block and stretched between Flinders Street and Flinders Lane. The Carlton premises were subsequently used as a warehouse, the original building there partly was destroyed by fire in 1928.

The Flinders Street store was one of the first in Melbourne to erect neon outdoor advertising, reportedly visible from the Dandenong Ranges. A Sydney branch operated between 1913 and 1924, and the Castlemaine store was finally closed in 1941. With suburban retail expansion in the 1960s, branches were opened in Frankston, Camberwell, and at Eastland and Southland shopping centres. It also operated a 'Ball & Welch gift store' at the then Melbourne International airport landside terminal in Essendon. In its heyday, the Ball & Welch department store was Melbourne's leading family draper, its A to Z departments including gloves, umbrellas and handkerchiefs, mantles, furniture, mercery, millinery, furs and corsets. At one time 26 assistants were devoted to the sale of lace alone.

The upscale department store company Georges Australia Ltd bought Ball & Welch in 1970, closing the stores in 1976 because of declining profits. The Flinders Street store was renovated as Flinders Fair shopping centre in the late 1970s, its façade (including the Commercial Travellers' Club frontage) were eventually incorporated into the Flindersgate carpark.

References

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