Soon after arriving in Melbourne in 1857 Thomas Pearce set up a timber yard and factory in Fitzroy with his cousin, John Stone. Eventually he established a business on the corner of Victoria Street and Church Street Abbotsford, which was to remain in the family until 1957 and continue to use the name Pearce until late in the twentieth century.

Born on the island of Portland in Dorset, England, Pearce worked as a carpenter and joiner in London before returning to Portland to marry Elizabeth Spencer. Before long they immigrated to Melbourne. Their second child was born on the Hornet during the voyage. Thomas was listed on the ship’s register as came of own accord, occupation carpenter, intended destination Collingwood.

The cousins were in the right trade, because the massive population increase brought about by the gold rush created an urgent need for housing. Pearce and Stone operated their timber yard and Door and Window Sash Factory on the corner of Napier and Condell Streets, Fitzroy, but the partnership was dissolved by 1860 when Thomas established his own Door Frame and Window Sash Factory. Although in Richmond, it was in Church Street just a stone’s throw from Victoria Street, and Thomas found it convenient to rent land for timber storage near the northwest corner of Simpson’s Road (Victoria Street) and Church Street, on the Collingwood side. After a few years, the business moved to this site. Thomas and Elizabeth lived with their family in a house at 1 Church Street, just behind the right-of-way at the back of the woodyard, and Thomas later added a hardware shop on the corner.

A photograph in the Museum Victoria collection shows us T W Pearce’s Window Frame Sash and Door Factory, with a man who we can assume is Thomas Pearce standing outside with a group of young workers. The photo is not well-documented, but the evidence of the photographer’s name and address suggest it would have been taken between 1876 and 1882. The location is therefore probably Victoria Street, where Thomas was renting two wooden shops, and could include at least some of the Pearce sons.

Pearce finally bought the corner block from the Cummings family in 1890 at the peak of the market, just before the financial crash in 1891. However, the business survived through the highs of the boom period and the lows following the crash and was able to support his and his son’s families.

The younger children Robert, William and Benjamin Pearce attended the Lithgow Street Primary School which opened in 1877. All Pearce’s sons worked in the family business and lived near the hardware shop and timber yard after they married. Edward and Robert were carpenters, William was probably also a carpenter but called himself a saw miller, and Benjamin became a plumber. In 1897 William married Julia Falvey, who after the death of her parents had taken charge of the East Collingwood Hotel nearby in Victoria Street. Was this William’s ‘local’? Or did Miss Falvey engage the Pearces to do some repairs on the hotel? The Falveys were Irish Catholics and the pair married at St Joseph’s in Otter Street. Robert married Eliza Scott at St Matthias’ Anglican Church (in Richmond at that time), lived at 7 Church Street, and then 5 Bond Street. Susannah and her husband lived in Victoria Street, then Park Street. Edward lived in Fairchild Street.

Most of the timber used at the time was imported from the United States. After the train line was extended to Lilydale in 1882, Healesville in 1889 and another side line to Warburton in 1901, Pearce and his son William became entrepreneurs sourcing timber for their Abbotsford timber yard from the Yarra Valley. William established two sawmills, one on the Dalry Road and the other on Mount Toolebewong in the Shire of Gracedale.

William Pearce gradually started to take over the management of the family business as his father withdrew from an active working life. Thomas moved to 22 Duke Street, Abbotsford, and this was where he died in 1907 aged 78. He was buried in the Boroondara Cemetery, Kew with his eldest daughter Margaret, who had died of tuberculosis when still a teenager, and with one of his grandsons, Thomas, who died at birth. His wife Elizabeth joined them in 1911.

The Pearce shop and timber yard stayed in the family for three generations. The business was finally sold in 1957. The Pearces were an example of a real old-style Collingwood family, who would have been known to everybody in the local community. It is fitting therefore that the new owners retained the name for their hardware and timberyard business, and the painted sign William Pearce and Sons Est. 1857 on the west wall was still visible from Victoria Street up until about 2005.

Window Frame Sash and Door Factory

Pearce, Thomas White Pearce and Elizabeth Spencer: from Easton and Southwell, Portland, England to East Collingwood, Victoria, Australia, draft August 2016. (Unpublished manuscript); The Age; The Argus; Jewish Herald.

CHS: East Collingwood Hotel

Museum Victoria: window factory

SLV: Hardware store c. 1950