Harry Boan
Encyclopedia
Boans
Boans is the name of an iconic department store that operated in Perth, Western Australia between 1895 and 1986. The store was founded by Harry Boan and his brother Benjamin who both came to Perth in 1895 from Broken Hill in western New South Wales. Harry and another brother, Ernest, had...
department store in Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
.
Boan was born at Jones Creek near Dunolly
Dunolly, Victoria
Dunolly is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on the Dunolly - Maryborough Road, in the Shire of Central Goldfields. At the 2006 census, Dunolly had a population of 969....
, Victoria on 4 November 1860. He was the son of English born Jewish parents Thomas, a miner and road contractor, and Rachel Isaacs. Thomas and Rachel had previously lived in California before coming to Australia in about 1850 in relatively poor circumstances. When Harry was about 16 he left home and worked as a messenger in Flegeltaub's Ballarat
Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...
warehouse on wages of 10s. per week including lodging. He was later promoted to a position of town-traveller at £2 10s. per week but soon resigned. From here he moved between jobs in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and later Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Toowoomba and Charters Towers including positions at 'Anthony Hordern's' and 'David Jones's'.
Broken Hill
In 1886, his parents gave Henry and his brother Ernest, £200 of their savings which the brothers used to open a business called 'Boan Bros Ltd' in Broken Hill in western New South WalesNew South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
in 1890. The business expanded rapidly and soon became the leading drapery in the prosperous town. However, by the mid-1890s Broken Hill was suffering a downturn, and in 1895 Harry sold his share of the business to Ernest.
Perth
Coolgardie, Western Australia
Coolgardie is a small town in the Australian state of Western Australia, east of the state capital, Perth. It has a population of approximately 800 people....
and Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
Kalgoorlie, known as Kalgoorlie-Boulder, is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, and is located east-northeast of state capital Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway...
. The brothers purchased a site on the edge of the city which was directly opposite the Perth railway station
Perth railway station
Perth Station including Perth Underground is the largest railway station in Perth, Western Australia, and functions as an interchange between the Transperth Trains Armadale / Thornlie, Fremantle, Joondalup, Mandurah and Midland railway lines, as well as the Transwa Australind.-History:The Victorian...
. They borrowed £62,000 and within a few months had built and opened a single-storey emporium
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
on the site and named it 'Boans Bros.
Boans
Boans is the name of an iconic department store that operated in Perth, Western Australia between 1895 and 1986. The store was founded by Harry Boan and his brother Benjamin who both came to Perth in 1895 from Broken Hill in western New South Wales. Harry and another brother, Ernest, had...
'. The store opened on 7 November 1895 with spectacular results, almost selling out.
On 17 June 1896, Harry married Sophie Bebarfald (born 1868). They would have four children.
Benjamin died in 1901 and in 1910 Harry bought land adjoining the Boans site so that his holdings now comprised a large single block between Wellington and Murray Streets, near Forrest Place. He travelled to Europe and America to research marketing ideas and in about 1913 his wife and children settled in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Boan returned to Perth, living alone in Perth hotels.
On 14 April 1917 Boan was elected unopposed as a member for the Metropolitan Province in the Western Australian Legislative Council
Western Australian Legislative Council
The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of parliament in the Australian state of Western Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the Legislative Assembly. It sits in Parliament House in the state...
for the Nationalists. In February the following year however, he resigned from parliament after he was criticised for allowing the State Savings Bank (?) to open a branch in his store. The store was floated as a limited company shortly after and he moved to England, living there between 1918 and 1920. Boan returned to Perth in about 1920 and was re-elected to the Legislative Council in November 1922; he did not renominate in 1924.
After his retirement from politics, Boan's consuming passion was horse-racing and hunting. He established a successful racing stud which produced many winners and which won the 1910 AJC Derby
AJC Derby
The Australian Derby also known as AJC Derby, is a Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race run by the Australian Jockey Club at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, Australia. Open to three year olds, the race is held annually in the latter part of March or early April...
with 'Tanami'. Other successful horses included 'Maltfield' and 'Maltblossom'.
He served as president of the board of the Children's Hospital and made frequent generous donations. In late-1929, Boan handed control of the Boans store to his son Frank Boan who had returned from England and by about 1932, Harry resettled in Melbourne near a brother and sister. He died at Caulfield
Caulfield, Victoria
Caulfield is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 12 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Glen Eira...
of chronic heart and kidney conditions on 18 March 1941. Harry Boan is buried in Karrakatta Cemetery
Karrakatta Cemetery
Karrakatta Cemetery is a metropolitan cemetery in the suburb of Karrakatta in Perth, Western Australia. Karrakatta Cemetery first opened for burials in 1899, with Robert Creighton. Currently managed by the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board, the cemetery attracts more than one million visitors each...
, Perth.
The Boans department store in Wellington Street Perth was subject to a major fire in 1979, which closed the store for some weeks. The store reopened, prior to its closure in 1986 when it was sold to Coles Myer Ltd to make way for the new Forrest Chase Myer complex. This was later considered as somewhat ironic, as the Boans department store in Morley, was destroyed by fire in 1986. The Morley complex was later rebuilt, housing a Myer department store.
The iconic Boans store finally closed on 12 April 1986 after the property was purchased by the Myer Group to make way for a $60 million site redevelopment.