Charles Goode builds big Adelaide business from drapery in 1849; parallel to his strong philanthropic work
The ornate Goode, Durrant & Co. building Grenfell Street, near the corner of Gawler Place, Adelaide city, in 1920. The company was another phase of the business first started by Charles Henry Goode (inset) after arriving in South Australia in 1849.
Main image by Francis Gabriel, courtesy State Library of South Australia
Charles Henry Goode was another merchant, politician and philanthropist in 19th Century South Australia starting in drapery.
In 1882, he founded Goode, Durrant and Company, alongside rival Adelaide companies G. & R. Wills and D. & W. Murray, also arising from drapery. Born in 1827 at Hinton, near Peterchurch, Herefordshire, England, Goodes was apprenticed at 12 to a Hereford drapery shop and, in London from 1845, worked for Goode, Gainsborough and Co. With Robert Tartlton (also later in Adelaide), Goode was a first member of the Young Men’s Christian Association and closely identified with its founder George Williams.
In 1848, Goode left England for South Australia aboard the John Mitchell with Thomas Good from Birmingham (each later married a sister of the other). Together they travelled South Australia by horse and cart hawking softgoods and started a small softgoods business in Kermode Street, North Adelaide. (Thomas Good opened his own drapery store in Adelaide city, before other businesses and eventually founding the wholesale firm Good, Toms & Co. in 1872.)
In 1850, Thomas Goode’s parents and brothers Samuel and Matthew arrived in Adelaide and joined the Goode Brothers business for 30 years. Warehouses were opened in Rundle Street, Stephens Place and Grenfell Street, Adelaide city, and business spread throughout South Australia, Western Australia, and Broken Hill.
A London buying department was opened in 1859 and Charles Goode returned to England for four years. Back in Adelaide in 1863, Goodes was elected two years later to the East Torrens seat in the South Australian House of Assembly but resigned in 1866 because of cotton shortages from the American civil war.
To save the business, Goode ran it in England for 12 years. While there, he was active in religious and philanthropic work, helping at Field Lane Ragged Schools (associated with Charles Dickens) and helping Regent's Park College and Dr. William Landells' Baptist church at Regent’s Park, where he led young men's Bible class, with pupils including Jacob Gould Schurman, later president of Cornell College.
When Goode returned to Adelaide, the partnership with his brothers dissolved in 1882. Goode took W. H. Durrant, his London manager, and W. H. Tite, an Adelaide business associate for 20 years, as partners. Durrant had links with Goode and George Wills, of Adelaide’s G.&R. Wills, back to days as employees of Goode, Gainsborough in London. Goode, Durrant, Tite & Co. Ltd used much the new YMCA building and, in 1905, its own building in Grenfell Street, Adelaide city. In the 1930s, Goode, Durrant and Co, and its competitor D. & W. Murray, both running at a loss, merged.
Charles Goode, a founder, with J.H, Barrow, of The Advertiser newspaper in 1858, had other business interests as director of a bank, insurance society and several manufacturing firms.
But Goode was best known for his philanthropy. He was a great supporter of the Industrial School for the Blind, Adelaide YMCA, James Brown Memorial Trust (managing Kalyra Home for Consumptives and Estcourt House, with its Goode Wing named after him), and the children’s hospital. Goode served under Samuel Way on the 1883-85 parliamentary commission into the Destitute Persons Act that set up the State Children’s Council, with Goode as a founding member.
Goode contributed to the District Trained Nursing Society, the convalescent home, the benevolent and strangers' friend society, president of the Home for Weak Minded Children, chairman of the Adult Deaf and Dumb Mission, president of the Royal Institution for the Blind. For many years, he ran the Flinders Street Baptist young men's Bible class.
