Carlington George Edmund Marston came from Dublin. He started business as a chemist in 1858 or 1860, renting a shop in Smith Street somewhere between Otter and Stanley streets (numbered 192 at the time). Marston married in 1860 and promptly started a family. Around 1862 he moved to what was then numbered 152 Smith Street (south of Stanley Street). A photograph from this era shows a fine pair of brick two-storeyed shops with residences above, contrasting with what were then the more typical single storey timber shops of Smith Street in its early years. 

Marston was also renting this property but business must have been doing well because in January 1867 the architect Richard Lambeth called for tenders for erection of two shops and dwellings in Smith Street for Marston. A few doors to the south of his rented shop, and built in a very similar style to the earlier building, the pair is still extant at 196 and 198 Smith Street.

All Marston’s children were born in Collingwood and lived above the shop, but around 1876 he bought the mansion in Cotham Road Kew known as Wimba (still standing but in reduced grounds). Henry Tolhurst, the Collingwood council surveyor who continued his private architectural business on the side, was engaged to design alterations. Marston conducted his business until the early 1890s when his assistant John Stirling Black took over.  Marston retained ownership of the shops. 

Marston's second shop in 1862

The Argus
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SLV shop photo
196-198 Smith St