Bowman Buildings and arcade wiped, with a colourful retail history, in 1972 from Adelaide's King William Street
Bowmans Buildings and arcade in South Australia's 100th year as a colony, 1936, (left and top right) as part of a streetscape with the Bank of Australasia and Bank of South Australia (later Edmund Wright House). Bottom right: Bowman's Buildings in their final days, with a new building at the left and the saved Edmund Wright House under wraps at right.
Images by Richard Barratt and Frank Hall
Bowman Buildings and its arcade in King William Street, Adelaide city, were demolished in 1972, adding to the wipeout of an elegant streetscape of buildings along the western side of the street.
The Bank of Australasia (later Australia and New Zealand Bank) building from the 1880s, next door on the Currie Street corner, had been razed in 1968. The Bank of South Australia building from 1878, on the other side, was saved from the same fate in 1971 when South Australian premier Don Dunstan intervened as it the building – renamed Edmund Wright House, after one of its architects – became a symbol for a heritage pushback.
Bowman Buildings was a five-storey early 20th Century project from 1908, adding to a previous building with arcade on the site, backed by Keith Bowman, a third-generation member of the Bowman pastoralists family. It was “an early example of reinforced concrete in multi-storey architecture”., with the two buildings connected by the glass-covered arcade that ran through to Gilbert Place.
The arcade built on its history of character-laden shops. Among them was Miss Gertie Campbell’s music store, selling gramophones, records and instruments. A pianist, Campbell was the first Adelaide female band leader to apply the name “jazz” to her group in 1919. Campbell also composed songs and piano music and published the works of other South Australians. As a pianist, she embellished popular sheet music pieces as she demonstrated them to customers at her Bowman’s Arcade shop. Kym Bonython, another important Adelaide music figure, especially in jazz, opened his first record store, the Music Box, in Bowman's Arcade in 1954.
The Ellis Arcadia Caf, owned by the Ellis family and running from as early as 1911, was among the many tenants including Malboro Aviaries, for all bird and fish needs; Corset House, experts in fitting correct support for women; and S. D. Kerr Umbrella Dealers. Bowman’s Arcade was a long-time home to John Mack’s camera shop.
During World War I, the League of Loyal Women ran the Trench Comforts Shop in Bowman’s Arcade to raise money for the troops. It was reborn in 1920 as the Women’s Work Depot and, in 1922 became a cooperative sharing the profits among workers. It rented a shop in Gawler Place and sold smocked baby’s clothes, embroidered underwear and trousseaus to order. Home-made cakes, jams and biscuits stocked its shelves.
In 1923.the Women's Work Depot began offering a darning service for silk stockings after the governor’s wife and her maid gave lessons to the workers. After sme discussion about who could supply the shop – should they only be women who needed the money? – it was decided to stock the best, whoever made it. The shop moved to North Adelaide in 1960 and finally closed in 1986.
