Hard-working draper James Marshall builds major store in Rundle Street, Adelaide, taken over by Myer in 1928

The James Marshall store building at left, dominant in Rundle Street, Adelaide, in 1922.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

James Marshall, steeped in the drapery trade in Dundee and London, even before he arrived in Adelaide in 1867, bought the drapery and furnishing business of John Hodgkiss & Co. in Rundle Street in 1881. By 1889, J. Marshall & Co. was the largest business of its kind in South Australia, with a workforce of 800.

Marshall, born in 1845 at Falkirk, Stirling, Scotland, had to go to work at age 12 after his father died and the family estate was lost in legal costs. At 14, he was apprenticed into drapery, ending with James Spence & Co., retail drapers in St Paul’s Churchyard, London, where he worked 75 hours a week.

Through the London agency of Adelaide draper David Murray, Marshall was offered a job with J.A. Northmore, an Adelaide draper. He arrived at Port Adelaide in 1867 on the Saint Vincent. 

With fellow assistant William Taylor, Marshall began saving and in 1874 set up a store in Hindley Street, Adelaide. When John Hodgkiss retired in 1881, they bought his warehouse in Rundle Street and set up as James Marshall & Co., drapers and importers, with a furniture warehouse in Stephens Place, Adelaide. When they were burnt out, insurance covered the stock and they rebuilt. They bought adjoining premises and the business grew to 800 employees.

Marshall followed a policy of vigorous advertising and strongly influenced Adelaide business.

After Marshall died in 1925, his store was taken over three years later by Melbourne's Myer Emporium which demolished the existing 1880s and 1922 buildings in the late 1980s to rebuild the large REMM shopping complex that included many other shops apart from Myers. The Myer redevelopment also included the used four major multi-storey buildings on North Terrace.