This location needs more work, the buildings on this corner of Brunswick and Gertrude Street were removed in the late 1960s to enable the building of Atherton Gardens and the image below shows the site today.
This site was owned in 1858 by Francis Clark. Francis owned a number of properties in the area including the Devonshire Arms Hotel on Fitzroy Street. Here he owned four properties on Gertrude Street and four on Brunswick Street. “The Burchett index records Clark as applying to build two double storey shops in Gertrude Street “Next to the Colonial Bank” in 1859, and Clauscen’s furniture store occupied the building in the 1880s (Burchett, c1980). An advertisement in the Mercury and Weekly Courier in 1886 proclaims GC Clauscen’s “Furnish Throughout Warehouse” at the corner of Gertrude and Brunswick Streets Fitzroy, “This is the only house of its kind in the colonies where you can obtain at one establishment every article required for furnishing a house”. Some of the other businesses which occupied these buildings included at various times: a pawnbroker, tailor, eating house, a number of confectioners, an oyster shop, a hairdresser, a tobacconist, a bootmaker and a fish shop. (Fitzroy Rate Books,
1858-1896). Edward Langton, later to become a free trade politician and member of the lower house, had a butcher shop with his brother in 1858 until the mid 1860s—
this was located in Francis’ highest rated property on Brunswick Street, and was likely the one on the corner (Cooksley, 1974). (Source: Francis Clark: A man of his time – 1820-1896, by Alison M Hart)
