Butcher’s and baker’s shops were generally located along the suburb’s main arteries. In 1901 each of the 16 Glebe butchers serviced an average of 1200 residents (in contrast to the lone butcher now at Glebe Point and Glenmore Meats in Wentworth Park Road); and the 7 bakers served about 2750 people each.
Many were family businesses operating in Glebe for decades — bakers John Heil, William Hammett, Berthold Stehr, Thomas Martin, John Purves, Martin Wengert, August Heinrich, Charles Vass, Joseph Wrobel and Christian Raith were local identities. They worked an 80-hour week but, with increasing mechanisation, Purves Bakery, established in 1871 at 93 St.John’s Road (now producing muffins etc.at the rear of those premises on the corner of Purves and Reuss Streets) and Raith’s Bishopthorpe Bakery at 62 Glebe Road emerged as the suburb’s largest.
Forest Lodge people bought their meat from William Alleyn (176 St. Johns Road) and William Tumeth (271 Bridge Rd). Other well-known Glebe butchers were:
Andrew Knox, 56 Cowper Street
Edward Miller, 36 Bay Street
James Cochran, 176 St. John’s Road
Albert Goose, 116 Bridge Road
Richard Briant, 123 Glebe Road
Henry McMahon, 142 Glebe Road
J.R. Wood, 329 Glebe Road and, in more recent years,
Stan Hayes at 329 Glebe Road.
Just as Germans were prominent as bakers, from 1894, Italians began operating as fruiterers in Glebe – the Arena family (Sebastian, Nicola, Stephen, Pasquale and Vincenzo), Antoni Caleo, Filippo Cascio, Giovanni Cincotta, Giacomo Costa, Frank Dalbora, Giovanni Divola, Joseph Licciardi, Antoni Piconi and Tauro and Ristuccia.
–Max Solling
Today F. Galluzzo & Sons are most prominent as greengrocers and fruiterers at 191 Glebe Point Road and have recently celebrated 70 years in business at the same site.
6 comments. Please add yours.
Thank you for the additional information on the Lawler Bros butchery at 165 Glebe Point Rd and Alan Cook’s barber shop in Bridge Rd. It is only with contributions like yours, that the rich history of Glebe and Forest Lodge is captured before it is forgotten. The original article was written in 2013 so perhaps we need to update it. We’d appreciate knowing more about the wrestling matches in the Wentworth Park arches!
Walter Charles Lawler and his brother Victor operated Lawler Bros butchery at 165 Glebe Point Road from c1947 until sold in 1981. Victor died c1956 and Walter (Wally) continued on. Wally bought a property, Pibbon Mendooran in 1963 and in 1981 moved there full time to work the property. From 1963 to 1981 Wally, wife Marie (nee Cook from Cardigan St Glebe) and sons Lewis Charles (1950) and Stewart James (1953) went to the property every 2nd weekend to review work the resident managers undertook.
Marie Cook was one of 4 children to Alan and Annie Cook (nee Grono of Grono’s Point) from Cardigan St. Alan Cook had a barber shop on Bridge Road on the corner of Colbourne St until c1957. Alan also worked as a wrestling referee and trainer in the Wentworth Park arches.
My grandfather Cyril (sid) Retallack ran his family butcher shop at 165 Glebe Point Rd for many years from mid 1920s until 1947. One of his daughters, Jean, my mother got her first job as a Telegram girl at Glebe Post Office during WWII. My grandmother cooked food for the prisoners at Glebe Police Station and during the depression, she ran a soup kitchen at the back of their premises at 165 Glebe Point Road and fed the homeless and destitute. I know lots of stories of their life at Glebe and they were a very much loved and popular family. Thea Webster
My grandfather owned and operated a butcher shop at 165 Glebe Point Road in the 1920’s through to 1948 when he retired and the family moved to Hurstville. My grandparents were Cyril and Stella Retallack and they brought their family up (4 children) at Glebe. My mother was born in Glebe in 1929 and she used to say they were friends with the Ortado family (Italian green grocers) who also owned and ran a shop close by. My mum went to Glebe Point Public School and had many fond memories of the area.
Thea Webster
Engadine, NSW 2233
Alexander Sinclair Manson Gray is listed in Sands around the end of the 1880s as a butcher. His address was variously 121 St. John’s rd, Forest Lodge,38 Parramatta old rd, and 110 St. John’s rd, Forest Lodge. Do you think he ran a butcher’s shop, or was just an employee? Alexander Sinclair Manson Gray is notable for inventing ‘An improved apparatus to be used for starting horse-races’ in 1894. From the 1890s until his death in 1924 he lived in Ashfield. If you have any further information it would be appreciated.
It’s lovely to read about the butchers and bakers living in Glebe at the time my Gt Gt grandparents were living there. They were listed as grocers in Derwent Street in the Sands Directories . First it was Elizabeth Kerrison in 1875 and 1876, and then her husband Charles Kerrison in 1877.(Charles had been a carpenter/shipwright before that.)I’m not sure where their premises were, because I think the purpose built grocers shop in Derwent Street was not built until 1879. The 1880 Sands directory lists him as a grocer and carpenter on the east side of Derwent Street, but then he died in Feb 1880.