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| LAUNCESTON CITY BAND ROOMS |
The first reference I can find to this building, which is not on the heritage register, is in newspaper advertisements from 1911, seeking workers for Boatwright's Clothing and Shirt Factory. Despite a 44 hour week, there was the attractive prospect of “No work on Saturdays”. Machinists were offered a wage between 25 and 30 shillings a week.
In 1915, over 50 people were employed at the factory, however its viability was threatened by the defence department which had requisitioned the output of the Waverley Woollen Mills and insisted that it be sent to Melbourne to be made up. The consequence as the owner JW Boatwright put it, would be that about half the the staff would 'be thrown into idleness.”
Unfortunately I don't know how things turned out for the shirt factory, but in 1928 the Launceston City Band purchased the building, which remains as its headquarters today. In the 1930s “old time and modern dances” were held on a weekly basis.
I'd love to be able to add in more information about when the building was constructed, whether or not it had a previous use, what happened to the shirt factory and more details of the buildings usage in the years after the thirties. If I waited until I knew everything I wanted to know about a particular building, though, I'd never actually get anything up on the blog so I'll update as I go!
In the meantime there is a lot of interesting history of the Launceston City Band on their website –
www.lcb.org.au.
I well remember many things about this building, back from before its time as "the egg board" premises, where eggs were examined and packed.
ReplyDeleteBy "examined" I mean that each egg was examined for bloodspots, etc., by viewing through the shell by way of a backlight.
Boxing matches were also held there, with some "stellar" performances.
I recollect seeing one such event, where one of the combatants broke a leg during the earlier part of the fight, but continued fighting by hooking his damaged leg over one of the ropes to remain upright. He won the bout. If my memory is correct his name was Paddy Powell and he lived corner of Cumberland and Frankland streets.
The referee was Darcy (?sic) Coombes, from Cleveland street.
On "the card" that day, there was also a match scheduled between a good mainland boxer, (I can't remember his name), and an also unremembered by me challenger.
But the challenger failed to appear, the crowd was annoyed, so Darcy stripped and took his place, in order to fulfil the advertised main event.
Darcy won.
He was a good man, always smiling. I think his son, or sons, later played Aussie rules football with the City Club.
One son was Craig, who I remember for seeing his name scratched on a school desk-top in a classroom at the Technical college building in Paterson street.
The inscription was, "Craig Coombes bit his bum".
How could I not remember this?