4 — THE WINTER ISSUE
LITTLE NATIONAL POST
THE STORY OF THE STORE
RECORDS SHOW CONCERTED development at the site likely began in the mid to late 1800s, including a business known as ‘Edward’s Horse Bazaar’, a barrel-making cooperage servicing a nearby brewery, cottages, wells and a coach factory, all of which lined both Hunter Street and a network of adjoining laneways. A property advertisement in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate on 11 July 1891, seemingly placed by the owner of the horse bazaar, described it as: “A very good business position near the busiest part of Hunter Street west being opposite the brewery and adjoining Mr T. Proctor’s coach factory, saleyards and bazaar, and the intersection of the Maitland Road and Hamilton, and thoroughfare into Wickham.” Then, at around the turn of the century, a group of enterprising souls intent on improving the lot of the working class in Newcastle set their sights on the land. The Newcastle and District Co-Op Society, which would go on to become the Newcastle and Suburban Co-Op Society, purchased a small weatherboard shop front at the site, after establishing themselves some years before at a shop further along the road. The co-op took its lead from cooperative movement principles established more than a century prior in Scotland, by the ‘Rocheford Pioneers’. Its core function was to improve the living standards of its members, who bought shares in the cooperative, and in return were able to buy and sell goods at an affordable price. “It costs only 2s 6d (2 shillings and 6 pence) to join the Society, and subscribers are then entitled to share in the membership benefits, which include dividends,” an article in the Newcastle Sun explained, on 10 October 1935. And, as the promise of employment in the industrial sector brought working class families to the city in droves, the cooperative’s membership grew. From a two-storey brick building with an ornate parapet and a wide footpath awning, designed for the cooperative in 1905 by local architect Ernest George Yeomans, The Store’s premises and membership grew over the decades. Renovations and new wings were added at various points, including an Art Deco addition in 1936. There were bakeries and barber shops, credit unions, clothing and carpet stores. The Store supplied the community of Newcastle with just about everything imaginable and a home-delivery service ferried groceries into the suburbs by horse and cart. In the second half of the 20th Century, even electronic goods like television sets travelled by this method. Its Christmas window displays were legendary, attracting crowds of evening onlookers every year. It was even possible to buy health insurance through The Store at one time. For those who weren’t born while it was operating, or aren’t old enough to remember—in its heyday, The Store’s pulling-power in Newcastle was immense. There was a time in Newcastle where just about everybody had a membership, and it was arguably a forerunner to the loyalty card systems popular with many retail chains today. Other cooperatives even popped up in other parts of the Hunter region, modelled on its success. The Store reached peak membership in the 1970s, at 95,000 members—but the advent of the suburban shopping mall and a shift in consumer attitudes contributed to its decline, and finally, to its closure in 1981. It was a surprisingly swift end to an enduring history. Many re-imaginings of the site occurred in the years that followed—some would remember the Pink Elephant Markets—but none could stack up to the legend of The Store. It lives on in the minds of many Novocastrians, who remember fondly the important role it played in the community for much of the 20th Century.
“It really is a place that—as a TRAVELLER, RESIDENT, OR WORKER—will get you the benefit of a WELLCONSIDERED and HIGHLY DETAILED, HIGH-QUALITY public domain.”
SIMON SWANEY
BATES SMART Managing Director