Site’s long history in Geelong

THE Bright and Hitchcock names are synonymous with retail trading in Geelong, with the department store dating back to the 1850s after three Hitchcock brothers arrived from London with a cargo of merchandise.

Established as a drapery and general merchants business, a University of Melbourne article stated it stocked a broad range of imported goods including men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and accessories, as well as dress fabrics, blankets, carpets and household linen.

The Bright and Hitchcock name was adopted in 1861, though William Bright retired in 1865 and the son of one of the founding Hitchcock brothers, Howard Hitchcock, retired in 1927.

Bright and Hitchcocks became a public company in 1950 with almost 600 shareholders before it was purchased in 1959 by Foy and Gibsons Ltd, who then merged with Cox Brothers.

Cox Brothers ran into financial problems in 1966, and in 1968 the store sold to new owners, who changed the name to Brights.

It was sold again in 1969 to Sydney-based Burns Philp and Co, which renamed the store Mates.

The final sale was in 1976 when Chas Moore changed the name again to Moores.

Moores closed in 1979 and the building was divided up into a number of smaller stores at street level.

The upper floors were vacant since 1982, while Spotlight occupied the basement from 1980 until 2005, before Arthur Daley’s Clearance House operated there from 2007 to 2012.

The state of the Bright and Hitchcock building raised the ire of a series of Geelong mayors from Stetch Kontelj to Peter McMullin before the owners and council agreed on an exterior restoration in 2006, while last Geelong mayor Darryn Lyons used the building as an example to call on landlords to renovate, rent or sell up in 2015.