Once developers have finished their demolition work, the former
Coles building in Townsville’s central business district will be little more
than a twisted pile of rubble and steel on a vacant city block.
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| Former Coles Building, Sturt Street Townsville, 1959. Photo: CityLibraries Townsville Local History Collection. |
The erasure of this building from the cityscape takes 80
years of Townsville’s commercial history with it, but in the hearts of many, the
memories of the building’s early life will live on.
Occupying a block of land with frontage to both Flinders and
Sturt Streets, the site has been home to a number of commercial tenants over
the years, including Burns Philp & Co. Ltd, Penneys Ltd. and Coles Pty Ltd.;
but it is the original occupants - the Heatley family - that are remembered
with fondness by many north Queenslanders.
The three-storey building was constructed in 1935 for F.
Heatley & Sons Pty Ltd in order to cater for the significant growth the
firm was experiencing.
The patriarch of the Heatley family was an Irishman named
Francis Heatley, who settled in Townsville in 1880 and later that decade
started a small business manufacturing and selling household furniture, with a
branch of the business devoted to undertaking.
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| F. Heatley & Sons building, Flinders Street frontage, 1943. Photo: CityLibraries Townsville Local History Collection. |
The Flinders Street frontage of the Heatley building was a
furniture emporium with no less than eleven display windows, which perfectly
showcased the firm’s expertly crafted furniture, all of which was built from
north Queensland silky oak and maple.
In 1936 the employees of F. Heatley and Sons Pty Ltd held
their first staff dance in the recently completed building. Held on a Wednesday
night in May, the dance was attended by about 300 staff and guests, who
assembled in an upper storey of the new building for the function.
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| F. Heatley & Sons staff dance, 1936. Photo: Townsville Daily Bulletin. |
According to the Townsville
Daily Bulletin, the “spacious ballroom” was a sight to be seen, and had
been “gaily decorated” for the occasion in shades of gold and red, the official
colours of the Heatley firm.
Streamers were draped in canopy effect from each end of the
ballroom to the centre and “multi-coloured balloons were clustered around each
massive pillar, flags draped the end walls, and myriads of tiny coloured lights
were suspended around the hall”.
“Vic Foley’s Arcadian Orchestra of five players supplied the
dance music, which was enjoyed by all.”
“A dainty supper was arranged at the end of the building, the
centre of the tables being decorated with vases containing flowers of gold and
red. Altogether the scheme of
decorations and the arrangement of the supper reflected great credit on the
committee responsible.”
In a speech on the night, Mr W.J. Heatley, who took over as
head of the family business after the death of his father Francis in 1928, said
that “what particularly pleased him was the harmony which was displayed between
the members of the staff, both shop and factory”.
“All had worked harmoniously in making the dance worthy of
their firm, each realising it was their own dance in their own buildings, and priding
themselves on this fact,” Mr Heatley said.
After the speeches were over, the dancing continued until
2am, when the evening ended with a rendition of “Auld Lang Syne”.
The building was a popular dance hall in the late 1930s and throughout
the Second World War.
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