40 Commercial Road, Footscray
In the 1850s, when John Kitchen set up his makeshift candle and soap factory in the sun-soaked confines of his South Melbourne backyard, he couldn’t have foreseen that the names of his concoctions would continue to grace buildings on the bustling streets of Melbourne through to the sleepy corners of Mildura, a century down the twisted timeline.
This weathered sign, flaking away but still clinging to existence, has witnessed over a hundred years of history, having been slapped onto these bricks at the dawn of the roaring ‘20s.
This humble establishment once belonged to one William Alexander Starritt, a man who possessed a keen knack for raking in the dough through both lawful and shadowy avenues. In 1928, a mere decade after the nefarious ‘Six O’clock Swill’ laws began wreaking havoc on the livers of the population, a squad of hard-nosed licensing police decided to prowl the dimly lit streets of Footscray. What did they stumble upon? None other than ‘ol Willy himself, caught red-handed in the act with a stash of 17 bottles of illicit beer concealed within the seemingly upright walls of his supposedly legitimate grocery store. Branded a ‘sly grog seller,’ he was fined a cool £50 and his ill-gotten libations were promptly confiscated by the authorities, who— let’s be real— probably enjoyed the bootlegged brew themselves.
As fate would have it, William’s life would take a rather abrupt turn a year later when, at the age of 50, he shuffled off this mortal coil. The business, however, soldiered on for the next four decades as a more reputable grocer’s shop, with no clandestine shenanigans tainting its shelves. At the turn of the ‘70s, it transformed into a milk bar.
Today, it’s a fading spectre of its former glory, a sombre husk from days when ‘VELVET SOAP’ – and is that an ‘ETA PEANUT BUTTER’ ad I spy? – and ‘CASH GROCER’ adorned its frontage, with names like ‘E. W. PATTERSON’ dancing in and out of its patina, a nod to one of its former proprietors. A ghost resigned to its fate, it withers quietly as the sands of time continue their relentless descent.
