Australia's Lost Department Stores VII (Marcus Clark, Spring-Summer 1935)

 Here's yet another long lost Sydney department store: Marcus Clark.

Marcus Clark was slightly different from its competitors, in that it began in the suburbs (in Newtown in 1883) rather than the city centre, and almost right from the start started opening other suburban branches (in Marrickville and Bondi Junction).  It was not until 1896 that it opened its first store in the city.

(On Marcus Clark's somewhat art deco cover:

Elegant Frock of Courtland's British Marocain.  Featurs new shirred yoke.  The fronts and pockets matching; deep pointed collar with posies, four inverted pleats in skirt.

New Cape Ensemble in Courtland's British Flat Crepe.  Frock features shirred check silk jabot and sleeve trimming, also fully silk lined cape with scarf tie with loop ends.

Charming Imitation Two-Piece Suit of Courtland's British Marocain.  New double pointed collar of Ivory Moire Silk forms crossover tab at back with jewel button.  Shirred pockets and sleeves, wide belt with jewel clasp.)

By the time of the store's Silver Jubilee in 1912, Marcus Clark was catering to rural and remote customers as well as urban and suburban ones.  Said The Tamworth Daily Observer:

The name of Marcus Clark is mentioned gratefully by many a settler on the land too far away from commercial centres to enjoy the frequent pleasure of a visit to the shops.  To these Marcus Clark's travelling brings the comforts and luxuries of city homes and a vision of the fashions obtaining elsewhere that makes their system of trading a special boom to the dwellers in isolated districts.  The Tamworth store caters for a most extensive district...

The Tamworth Daily Observer, Saturday 14 December 1912.

In addition to a branches in Tamworth and central and suburban Sydney, Marcus Clark had stores in Newcastle, Armidale, Dubbo, Goulburn, Gunnedah, Inverell, Lismore, Lithgow, Narrabri, Nowra and Wollongong!

With many branches, a mail-order network and a pioneering credit system, Marcus Clark & Co. seemed set to weather not only two world wars and a depression, but postwar changes as well.  However, it became one of Australia's "lost" department stores.  What went wrong?

Things appeared to be going well for the retailer up until the early 1960s.  By 1962 it had taken over two rival mail-order concerns, built new stores in the Sydney surburbs of St Ives, Liverpool and West Ryde, expanded into Canberra and taken over the Adelaide department store of Miller Anderson.  However, in 1965 its city store closed down, and there were signs that it was struggling.  (It was not alone in this, for a number of big department store chains were reporting low profits or none.)  At the time many retailers blamed a drought which impoverished their country customers.  Whatever the reason, by 1966 it was all over.  Marcus Clark's teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, and the Waltons chain offered to buy it out for six million dollars.  Waltons in turn became defunct in 1987.