Holden Retirees Club

HMBB land purchases around the King William Street factory.

 By Neil Pogson

[1923, after completion of the King William Street extension and purchase of "The Levens"]

For some time, I have been interested in the factories occupied by Holden’s Motor Body Builders in the city block bounded by King William St, Halifax Street, Symonds Place and Gilles Street. Little factual information about when HMBB acquired them seemed to be available, with books published by various Holden experts disagreeing on the facts, if they mentioned them at all.

On a recent visit to Adelaide, I got talking to Hugh Prescott who had some connection to the Robinson Crash Repair business in 27 – 29 Halifax Street. Expressing my frustrations, he suggested that I should try looking up the Land Titles, and told me that in South Australia they were free to download for historic titles!

This opened up a whole new and occasionally surprising line of enquiry

In summary, I found that there were twenty one separate titles covering the city block in question.  Plus another five or so later, which consolidated some of the earlier twenty one when purchased by Myer Emporium, David Jones, and Robinson's for example.

So, at one time, Holden Motor Body Builders owned almost all of the city block in question, the exceptions being the shop on the corner of King William St and Halifax Street, and possibly a block on the diagonally opposite corner of Gilles St and Symonds Place.  A Title for this latter plot has not been discovered, but in the GMH Auction Sale advertisement of 1929 they refer to a “Comfortable Cottage in Gilles Street” on land 30 x 100 ft with a Right of Way at rear.  This can only be this corner block or the one next to it, but the adjacent one is included in a later Title which infers that it was part of the factory complex.

Dame Nancy Buttfield in her book mentions that some 24 houses were demolished to make way for the expanding factory buildings, while a report in the Adelaide Chronicle of 11 March 1922 states "Additions are to be made to the Gilles street frontage, and also at the corner of Halifax street and  Symonds place. There will be 10,000 square feet of space in the latter and 9,000 square feet in the former extension. This firm's premises now extend over a two-[Town] acre frontage to King William street from Halifax to Gilles streets, with the exception of a small area on which two or three houses stand. Between 20 and 30 Cottages have been demolished to make way for extensions, and the building is now the largest motor body building establishment in the Southern Hemisphere, and the second largest in the world."

A Plot plan showing the land parcels looks like this (yellow denotes private roads): 

The numbering of the plots is in the order they were purchased by HMBB.  The sketch is very close to scale but refer to the individual titles if you need exact dimensions. 

Details of individual Titles are contained in the table of  documents listed below, but in general, all titles were transferred through a number of Holden/GM hands, depending on when they were bought and sold:

               - Pre-1919: Purchased by Holden’s Motor Body Builders Ltd

               - From October 1920: Titles bought by or Transferred to Holden’s Motor Body Builders Ltd (new company).

               - From May 1931: Titles bought by or Transferred to General Motors (Australia) Pty Ltd

               - From 28 July 1931: Name of Company changed to General Motors Holden’s Ltd

Comments on some interesting individual Titles

No. 1: Halifax Street.  The first plot bought by HMBB, on 17^th December 1918. Acquired from Ernest William Attridge.

No 3: Symonds Place.  Sold to Charles William Robinson, but reserved the right to use a party wall. This right was transferred to GM(A) and GMH in time.

No 4: Off Halifax St. Sold to the Boys Brigade on 28 September, 1938.

No 6: King William Street.  This was the Fred T Hack building which was acquired by Hacks on 7 November, 1913. Henry Holden had bought up all  the Thomas F Hack company Shares in late 1917/1918 and operated the business from 1918 under the Thomas F. Hack name. HMBB actually bought the property on 27 February, 1920. 

No 7: Halifax St.  This property was bought by Fred T Hack on 18 July, 1916, then transferred to HMBB on 27 February 1920.

No 9: Gilles St.  HMBB bought this property on 24 September 1920 from Mary Ann Holden, wife of Henry Holden!  She had bought it on 25 June 1918.

No 10: King William St. Bought from Sir John Langdon Bonython, owner and editor of the Advertiser newspaper.

As can be seen on the plot, there remains a section of land between Plot 10 and its near neighbour, Plot 16, which is marked as 10?  This unknown plot later appears on Titles as being part of Plot 10, without explanation of how or why it became part of Plot 10.

However, it is in the location indicated by Sands Directory as being where the elusive "Antrim Place" was to be found, which was later apparently subsumed by the extension to HMBB King William Street building. If it is the location of Antrim Place, it is strange that it is not marked as a Road on the titles.

No 15: Symonds Place.  This block was owned in April 1881 by Robert Symon Kelly, who granted a 99 year lease to Thomas Fabian. He in turn transferred the residue of the Lease to William Paddock who mortgaged it to the South Australian Mortgage and Agency Company Ltd. They assigned the residue of the Lease to Annie Nicholson who promptly mortgaged it to George Goldsack. He passed away and the Lease then passed through a number of hands, mainly family related through wills.

The original owner of the land, Archie Alexander Thornton who had acquired the land in December, 1919, still owned the land and sold it to HMBB on 31 May, 1922.  Meanwhile the 99 year Lease was still current, and had reverted to Annie Nicholson.

On 19 June 1925, Annie Nicholson transferred the residue of the Lease to HMBB, who in turn granted a new 99 year lease back to Annie Nicholson, starting from 20 November, 1922!  Annie held the Lease until her death on 31 March 1936, whereby the Lease reverted to HMBB.

The September 1937 Auction sale notice includes two cottages fronting Symonds Place. From the description, these can only be on Titles 14 and 15, so the Annie Nicholson land was apparently only ever a private cottage.

No 16: King William Street. Transferred ‘a portion’ of the land (that large block fronting King William St) to Muirden college with a Right of Way, but also granting a Right of Way and an easement to the Myer Emporium and that Charles William Robertson could use a party wall.

A newspaper notice advertised a sale of household effects on 5 October 1922 at "The Levens", the effects being the property of Mrs F C Bourne who had "sold the Lease to Holden's Motor Body Builders". However, this Lease does not appear on the title so must have been unregistered.  HMBB actually bought the land on 25 October 1922 from Verco Buildings Limited who had owned it since September, 1919.

No 19: Now known as No 11 Halifax St. This portion was leased by HMBB from the owners Patrick O’Connor and William Candler on 14^th March 1922, and was subsequently bought from them by HMBB on 27^th March, 1925. Titles X4 AND X5 also apply.

The sketch of the building at the top of the page gives a reasonable view of the buildings as they existed after the completion oi the extensions to the King William Street building in April 1923.   

Table of Titles:

 Note: Copyright of Titles belongs to the South Australian Government.  No commercial use without permission.

      Overlays: