James Marshall & Co. was a department store in Adelaide, South Australia, which was taken over by Myer in 1928.
History
The firm has its origin in a partnership between James Marshall (1845–1925 — see biography below), a Scots-born draper, and William Taylor (died 1913), accountant, who worked in different branches of the drapery business belonging to J. A. "Johnny" Northmore (died 1891). As Marshall & Taylor they opened a drapery business in December 1872 at 12 Hindley Street, a few doors from Beach's restaurant. In June 1875 they opened a second establishment, at 87 Rundle Street.
In 1879, the extensive business of John Hodgkiss & Co. came on the market. Both G. & R. Wills & Co. and D. & W. Murray were interested in the company's wholesale business, and agreed that whichever was successful, Marshall should take over the retail side. Accordingly, Marshall and Taylor, in company with Henry Thomas Fry and J. W. Porter, who were then warehousemen with G. & R. Wills, took over the extensive Hodgkiss premises at 26–28 Rundle Street and a warehouse around the corner on Stephens place, which became Marshall's furniture store and showrooms. They sold the old business at 12 Hindley and 87 Rundle streets to Hall & McLean. In 1881 they took over William Parkin's drapery store at 30 Rundle Street, which he had engaged his nephew J. W. Parkin to manage, but found the arrangement unsatisfactory. In March 1882 much of their stock was destroyed by fire which started in No. 26 but the buildings were repaired, and insurance covered Marshall's losses. The other premises seriously affected were those of Donaldson, Andrews, & Sharland at 18–24 Rundle Street. In 1883 or 1884 Fry left the partnership to concentrate on evangelical work, and in 1885 Frederick Allen Lakeman was persuaded to leave G. &. R. Wills as his replacement. Fry returned around 1888 and was re-admitted to the partnership; he lost his life in a horse carriage accident ten years later. In 1885 they leased the shop at 24 Rundle Street from Donaldson, Andrews, & Sharland, and in 1889 purchased it from R. C. Andrews, of that company.
In 1890 they had separate departments in each of four contiguous addresses: 24, 26, 28, and 30 Rundle Street, and a furniture warehouse on Stephens Place. They also had warehouses at 17 Fore Street and 20 Jewin Crescent, London, UK. The company also had properties on the east side of Stephens place and other large, quite separate, land holdings on North Terrace: one opposite the Adelaide Hospital, purchased from George Waterhouse, which was used as a bulk store and stables, and another opposite the Jubilee Exhibition Building, purchased from W. A. Horn, which they set up as a modern furniture and cabinet-making factory. Their next acquisition was the two-storey building erected for the watchmaker and jeweller John Davis at No. 32. The upper floor had been successively used as a Masonic Hall, billiard room for the adjacent Globe Hotel, and finally Woodman's music and pianoforte salerooms, before becoming Marshall's millinery department, with china, earthenware and ironware on the ground floor. By 1900 the firm had seven partners: James Marshall, William Taylor, James Windmill Porter, Frederick Allen Lakeman, James Carlyle Marshall, Frederick Windmill Porter, and Arthur Roy Taylor, the last three being sons of the principals.
Next they purchased the Globe Hotel on the Stephens Place corner, and an adjacent section which they had been leasing from the South Australian Company, so they had the whole western side of Stephens Place from Rundle Street to Verco Buildings. A condition of the sale stipulated that no move should be made on the building until the old licence ran out, on Christmas Day, 1907. In the meantime plans were drawn up for the future department store, and renovations were made to those buildings that would survive, to marry them into the future design, notably large matching plate-glass windows. The hotel and other buildings slated for destruction, notably the historic jeweller's building, were razed in the space of a few days.
In 1908 excavations begun for a new three storey department store designed by architects Williams & Good on the corner site, and builders Trudgen Brothers with provision for another level. At the ground level plate-glass display windows stretched along Rundle street and down Stephens place for a total of . The building's internal space was around one acre for each of four floors, and the idea of separate shops under one roof had been almost entirely left in the past, in favor of large uninterrupted expanses for best illumination and ventilation, connected by one large central staircase.