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Red Cross Centre

Location

56 Gray Street HAMILTON, SOUTHERN GRAMPIANS SHIRE

File Number

HAMDS048

Level

Stage 2 study complete

[1/1]
26544 Red Cross Centre

Statement of Significance

SIGNIFICANCE: This building is of interest for its rare cantilevered balcony and the contribution that it makes to the streetscape. It was also the office of the architect, Frank hammond, one of Hamilton's most important citizens.

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

Shops
54 Gray Street

This shop has local significance for its architectural interest which lies in its late Victorian Classical style and its rare surviving overhanging balcony. It also has historical associations with a number of well known Hamilton townsmen, including solicitors, a local architect and auctioneer. In the 1890s the buildings were associated with Louis Horwitz (1858-1919), who. after a brilliant beginning as Hamilton's youngest Mayor (at age 24), in the 1890s became the centre of a local financial scandal. ([i]) A wine shop on the site was owned at first by Horwitz and at the turn of the century by Myer Silberberg of Melbourne. ([ii]) By about 1907 the property was owned by another wealthy Hamilton solicitor, John B Westacott (1868-1944), who also became Mayor of Hamilton. ([iii]) Westacott extended the buildings c1908, letting offices to George Holgate (auctioneer), Horace Destree (accountant), and Frank Hammond (architect), who designed many of Hamilton's most prestigious buildings about the turn of the century. ([iv])

The ground floor shop window and door have been altered unsympathetically but otherwise the building survives well and is in good condition. It makes an inmortant contribution to the streetscape.

[i] Garden, Don, Hamilton, pp 122, 173, and 185.

[ii] Hamilton Rate Book 1894, No. 249 (Thomas Tucker, owner/occupier); 1900, No. 248 (Horwitz owner, wine shop, NAV 45 pounds); 1905, No. 275 (M Silberberg, owner, wine shop, NAV 56 pounds).

[iii] Ibid., 1907, No. 284 (J B Westacott, owner, shop and dwelling, NAV 55 pounds); Garden, Don, Hamilton, p 173.

[iv] Hamilton Rate Book 1908, No. 292-295 (J B Westacott, offices, NAV 75 pounds).

Group