From grandeur to rubble
BACK in September 1976, the Geelong Historical Society, through its quarterly magazine Investigator, was bemoaning the loss of many historical buildings around Geelong in the name of progress.
The historical society warned that the Davidson Building, in Yarra St opposite what was the Corio Hotel, might be the next to go.
The Investigator said it seemed that the State Government’s legislation to preserve old buildings of historic interest did not go far enough.
Sure enough, in November of that same year the imposing three-storey Davidson Building was condemned to the wrecker’s hammer, eventually becoming two single storey shopfronts.
At the time the Geelong branch of the National Trust said it had appealed to the Historic Buildings Preservation Council without success. The building’s owners had said it was structurally unsound, but the trust’s own engineering experts had disagreed.
The Davidson Building had been built in 1854 for nearby timber yard owner Edward Davidson. It was constructed using bluestone with a freestone facade. An auction notice in the
Geelong Advertiser in April 1856 had described the building as the “most substantial, stately and handsome premises in Geelong, and not even surpassed in Victoria’.’
It is not clear whether it sold, but the premises were again advertised for sale in November that year, with a subsequent sale to prominent Geelong merchant JF Strachan.
Strachan, a wool broker, was among the biggest of wool exporters from Geelong in 1849 in the days when the larger vessels were loaded at a jetty at Point Henry because of the sand bank across the mouth of Corio Bay.
Strachan retained the premises until his death in 1875. During that time, and since, the Davidson Building was used for shops, offices, school classes and as a meeting place. From 1908 until the 1940s it was used by the trade unions, while it was also used by the Geelong Volunteer Rifle Corps and the Geelong Association of Music and Art (GAMA).