Foy & Gibson starts in Adelaide in 1907 with warehouse store; takes over Grand Central hotel building in 1920s
Foy & Gibson warehouse store (top right) opened on Rundle Street east in 1907 next to the York Hotel (also pictured) on the Pulteney Street corner. William Gibson of Foy & Gibson demolished the York Hotel in 1910 and replaced it with the Grand Central hotel (at left) that wasn't a success and became a Foy and Gibson store in the 1920s. Bottom right: The Foy & Gibson store decorated for the 1936 centenary of South Australian European settlement.
Adelaide city’s Foy & Gibson warehouse store opened on Rundle Street east, on September 9, 1907, as a branch of the Melbourne department store that had grown from a drapery in Smith Street, Collingwood, in 1875.
Foy & Gibson, also known aa Foy’s (later Cox-Foys) became one of Australia’s largest and earliest department store chains. It had branches in Perth (1895) and Brisbane (1903) before the opening of the Adelaide warehouse store in Rundle Street east, next to the York Hotel on the corner with Pulteney Street.
The Register newspaper commented: “The immense structure for Messrs. Foy & Gibson, in Rundle street east, which is not yet completed, stands as the tallest building (except towers, spires, and chimneys) in South Australia ... Upon a deep basement the building has been raised five stories. Each of the six floors has an area of 18,600 ft.” The large volume of soil soil removed for the deep basement went to creating a mound at the south end of Adelaide Oval and also levelling the grounds of Prince Alfred College in inner-city Kent Town.
Foy and Gibson advertised for “Machinists Wanted for Whitework and Shirts, Blouses and Skirts, Costumes and Coats. Also, Girls used to Buttonhole, Spokestitch, and other Fancy Machines”. The store advertised its opening as having “Everything for Personal Wear and Household Use. The Biggest, Brightest, Best, and Most Up-to-Date Business Building in Adelaide, and one of the Sights of the City.”
The Advertiser warned that the “palatial dimensions of the premises would bewilder the casual customer had the various floors not been divided into 21 departments, which embrace everything in the market required for personal wear and for use in the household. The store carries a universal provider's outfit – clothes, groceries, hardware, fancy goods, furniture, and glassware – and is replete with conveniences, tea and refreshment rooms. ... Everything that is dainty and becoming in ladies' garments and linen is displayed in the latest fashions and colors.. The products of Australia, Europe, and America fill the grocery shelves, and confectionery is in infinite variety. The stock is inexhaustible.”
William Gibson of Foy & Gibson already had greater ambitions for Adelaide by buying the York Hotel and adjoining sites. The York Hotel was reputed as Adelaide’s finest but Gibson had it demolished in 1910 to make way for the Grand Central hotel to be what newspapers described at its opening in 1911 as “Adelaide’s own Dorchester” and “looking back to high Victorian style”. The hotel had 150 rooms plus lounges, two saloons, a billiard room, and writing and smoking rooms. The dining room held 600 people. Other features included an “immense” central light court, electric lifts and artificial heating.
Despite its grandeur and famous guests, the hotel wasn’t a financial success and closed, without ceremony, in 1924. With only the upstairs bar retained, the Grand Central was converted to a Foy & Gibson department store. Its grand presence on the corner of Rundle and Pulteney street led to the saying: “More front than Foy and Gibson’s”.
Foy and Gibson was moved west along Rundle Street, in the new Cox Foys store building, after it was bought in 1955 by the Cox Brothers retail group The vacant former hotel on the Pulteney-Rundle corner was taken over by the South Australian government and used for departments including children’s welfare and public relief, highways, woods & forests, hospitals, the nurses registration board and the Electricity Trust of South Australia. This led to detrimental internal alterations with poor lighting and airconditioning.
With major restoration needed by the mid 1970s, the former Grand Central Hotel was demolished to make way for an Adelaide city council multi-storey carpark.
